When those soons turn into forevers and the days seem to drag along because you know someone is missing. You're just waiting for him to come home.

So we left his room the same your honor because we didn't know how long he'd rip the streets because he always came home. He loved us. He laughed at us, we laughed with him. He was my mom's first born, and they had a special bond you see. A bond that showed me that my mother can love through anything.

Believe it or not it was the first time I saw her sad. You just felt her mood dampen when she came to my room and said they gave your brother 12 years today, and closed the door without offering another detail. And I cried in my lonesome. We all did because he had already been gone 6 months and now I was being told the next time he'd be free I'd have a college degree, a whole new life, I'd know things that I didn't know because he was gone when I was only thirteen.

Your honor I don't know why he did it. He was the first born. The first grand baby, the first favorite. I admit I was jealous at his everyone always had a soft spot for him, but then he'd ask me to do something and I'd do it because I loved him. He was my brother, and not a day went by that he didn't remind me how annoying it can be to be the youngest. But your honor we gave him all we could collectively. I don't know why it wasn't enough. You sentenced our family to 12 years, but you let murderers run free. You took my brother. He never saw me off to prom, never met my first boyfriend, never saw me graduate. He never told me how to be a woman because I was only 13 when you took him from me.