“Yes.”
Medicine?
“Sometimes.”
The attorney hesitated.
“And would you agree that he made efforts to keep you alive?”
Joan stared at him.
Then answered with a sentence that appeared in newspaper coverage afterward.
“A jailer feeds the prisoner too.”
The courtroom went silent again.
“I never asked him for a cabin,” she continued. “I asked him every day to let me go.”
Greg looked away.
The jury deliberated for only a short time.
When they returned, Joan held her sister’s hand.
Guilty.
Kidnapping.
Long-term unlawful confinement.
Systematic abuse.
Serious physical and psychological harm.
Count after count.
Guilty.
Greg showed almost no visible reaction.
Even during sentencing, he continued to describe himself as someone who had cared for Joan.
The judge finally interrupted him.
“Care without freedom is control.”
Then the sentence came.
Life imprisonment without parole.
Greg would never legally walk free again.
Joan did not cheer.
