The verdict was in… he was innocent. The mother of the victim screamed, mourning her beloved son once more and expressing her failure as a mother.  The jury stayed emotionless, their eyes blank with the compelling need for duty. They didn’t know what they had done, they didn’t know the truth. They only knew the seamless and buttery sweet story that was echoed in this courtroom again and again by the defense lawyer. The mother fell into her husband’s arms, initiating their first embrace since the murder of their son. After all, love fades in a family when a piece of it is missing. The “innocent” man looked up from his shackled hands with a look of shock in his eyes. But before anyone noticed the hint of a grin widening on his face he looked down at his hands again. 

The murder had happened five months ago in June. Jacob, the victim, was 8 years old and away from where he was supposed to be. He had snuck out of the house at night after an argument with his mother; about whatever little boys argue with their mothers about. Maybe toys, maybe video games, maybe vegetables. But it didn’t matter. Jacob snuck out and now he is dead. Slain like a sacrifice. Jacob had wandered down an empty alley when a mugger demanded his wallet. Of course, being an eight-year-old boy, he didn’t have one. Who knew the absence of a wallet would cost your life?

And the man who killed Jacob was innocent, oh he was so innocent. He had won the fight of faith, the fight of wrong, and of sin, and now this sinful man would walk the streets with blood on his hands that only he and the mother of his victim could see. 

“How dare you do this to my boy!” The mother screamed, her embrace with her husband turning into a restraint.

“Dear please sit down, this won’t bring him back.” Her husband said quietly with a sigh. 

“He killed my boy!!”

Now guards were running towards her, and she was pushed back into the submission of democracy, all while screaming the truth that no one seemed to hear.

“That man killed my boy!”

“And yet,” the murder snickered, “I. am. innocent.”