Chapter 8
The trial lasted two weeks.
Two of the longest weeks of my life.
Every day, we sat in that courtroom and watched as the evidence against Camila mounted.
The recordings were played for the jury.
Camila's own voice, cold and cruel, filled the room.
I watched the jurors' faces as they listened.
Shock.
Anger.
Disbelief.
Camila sat at the defense table, her face carefully composed, but I saw her hands tremble.
Her lawyer tried to argue that the recordings were taken out of context.
That she'd been under stress.
That she'd been venting, not planning.
But the words spoke for themselves.
"The old bat will be out of my hair permanently."
"No one visits. No one asks questions."
"This house will finally be mine. All mine."
There was no context that could make those words sound innocent.
Then Doña Consuelo testified.
She was nervous at first, her hands trembling in her lap.
But as she spoke about what Camila had done to her, her voice grew stronger.
She told the court about the hunger.
The loneliness.
The fear.
She told them about the day she'd thought she would die alone in that locked room.
"I lost hope," she said, looking directly at the jury. "I truly thought no one would ever know. No one would ever care. But then Mariana came. And she saw me. Really saw me. And she gave me back my hope."
She looked at me, and her eyes were full of tears.
I cried, too.
When she finished, there wasn't a dry eye in the courtroom.
Even the judge wiped at his eyes.
Camila's lawyer didn't even try to cross-examine her.
He could see that Doña Consuelo had won the jury's hearts.
Finally, it was Camila's turn to testify.
She put on her best performance.
She cried.
She trembled.
She told the court about how difficult it had been to care for a difficult, aging mother-in-law.
"Santiago was always working," she said, her voice breaking. "I was alone with her. She was angry. Bitter. She hated me because I was young, because her son loved me. She made my life a living hell."
She wiped her eyes.
"I admit, I wasn't perfect. I made mistakes. I said things I shouldn't have said. But I never hurt her. I never starved her. I was trying to help. And now… now they're trying to destroy me."
She looked at Santiago, her eyes full of what looked like genuine pain.
"I loved you, Santiago," she whispered. "I really did."
For a moment, I was afraid.
Afraid that the jury would believe her.
Afraid that her beauty and her tears would win them over.
But then the prosecutor stood up for cross-examination.
He was a quiet, methodical man who had been building his case brick by brick.
"Mrs. Aranda," he said, walking toward the witness stand. "You say you loved your husband. That you were trying to help his mother."
"Yes," Camila said, nodding.
"Then can you explain why, three days before your arrest, you transferred fifty thousand pesos from Doña Consuelo's personal account into an account in your maiden name?"
Camila's face went white.
"I… that was… she asked me to. She wanted me to hold it for her—"
"Can you explain why you canceled her health insurance without telling anyone?"
"I didn't—"
"Can you explain why you researched how to get power of attorney over Doña Consuelo's affairs, using a diagnosis of dementia that no doctor had ever given her?"
Camila opened her mouth, but no words came out.
The prosecutor held up a stack of documents.
"We have the bank records, Mrs. Aranda. The insurance cancellation forms. The emails you sent to lawyers asking about power of attorney. The search history on your computer, where you looked up 'how to declare someone incompetent' and 'signs of early dementia.'"
He paused, looking directly at her.
"You weren't caring for Doña Consuelo. You were preparing to take everything she had. And you were willing to let her starve, to let her waste away, to let her die alone, to get it."
Camila sat there, her face pale, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
She had no answers.
The performance was over.
The jury deliberated for six hours.
Six hours that felt like an eternity.
We sat in the waiting room, silent, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
Doña Consuelo held Rosa's hand.
Santiago paced back and forth.
I sat on a bench, my hands folded in my lap, praying.
Finally, the bailiff came to get us.
"The jury has reached a verdict," he said.
We walked back into the courtroom.
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Camila was already there, sitting at the defense table, her face pale but composed.
She looked at Santiago.
For a moment, I thought she might try to say something.
But she didn't.
The judge asked the jury foreman to stand.
"Have you reached a verdict?"
"We have, Your Honor."
"On the charge of elder abuse, how do you find the defendant?"
The foreman looked at Camila.
"Guilty."
A gasp went through the courtroom.
"On the charge of financial exploitation of an elderly person, how do you find the defendant?"
"Guilty."
"On the charge of false imprisonment, how do you find the defendant?"
"Guilty."
Camila closed her eyes.
Her shoulders slumped.
It was over.
The judge set sentencing for two weeks later.
As the officers led Camila out of the courtroom, she looked back one last time.
Her eyes met mine.
There was no hatred in them anymore.
Only defeat.
And something else.
Regret.
I didn't feel triumphant.
I didn't feel happy.
I just felt tired.
May you like
And relieved.
Because it was finally over.
