So it was the 2003 retrial—the one at which Lorilei had testified for Ricky, and that had concluded right before I arrived in Louisiana—that decided his fate. Why, then, had there been another trial after that, the third? He’d committed the murder. Who would have pushed for it? And how had Lorilei been able to fight for him when he’d killed her son—while I, despite my opposition to the death penalty, had been unable to? I hoped the court record would answer my questions. I hoped it would help me understand. But reading it, I soon realized that what I needed was everything that hadn’t made it
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