Chapter 37 #2
I looked down at my notes and questions. I already had the proper question written out.
“Brenda, did there come a time when you were told that the investigation of your daughter’s murder was focused on Aaron Colton’s relationship with an AI companion?”
Mason objected again on the same grounds, but the judge quickly overruled him and told Brenda she could answer.
“Yes, Detectives Clarke and Rodriguez told me they were focused on that,” Brenda said.
“And did they keep you updated on that part of the investigation?” I asked.
“Yes, they did. They told me they had accessed Aaron’s laptop and that there were conversations with the AI thing that indicated it encouraged him to hurt Becca.”
Once again there was an objection from the defense, and once again it was overruled.
“Brenda, why did you file this lawsuit against Tidalwaiv?” I asked, my final question.
“Because I believe they are responsible for turning Aaron Colton into a killer,” Brenda said. “I believe Tidalwaiv is therefore responsible for my daughter’s death.”
I nodded as I drew a line through the question on my pad.
“No further questions, Your Honor,” I said.
I expected the Masons to hold their fire and not conduct a cross-examination of the grieving mother, but Mitchell Mason immediately went to the lectern as I stepped away.
“Just a few questions, Your Honor,” he said. “Mrs. Randolph, I am very sorry for your loss. Can you tell the court, did your daughter tell you that Aaron Colton had been suspended from school while she was in a relationship with him?”
Brenda threw a quick glance at me before answering.
“Yes, she told me,” she replied.
“Did she tell you why he had been suspended?” Mason asked.
“She said that there had been an argument when Aaron got accused of cheating and he shoved the teacher in front of the whole class.”
“Were you concerned for your daughter’s safety when you heard about this violent outburst?”
I could have objected to Mason’s description of the incident, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The jury had already heard it.
“No,” Brenda said. “Because I didn’t think it had anything to do with Rebecca or their relationship.”
“So you did not tell her to break up with him after he assaulted a teacher?”
“No, I did not.”
“Do you regret that now?”
“I regret everything, Mr. Mason. But if you are asking if I think things might have been different if my daughter had broken up with Aaron back then, my answer is I’ll never know. I mean, how could I? It was before he had Wren telling him what to do, so maybe—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Randolph, you answered the question. Let me now ask you this: When the detectives talked to you about the focus of their investigation, did they tell you that they were also looking at the possibility that Aaron had acted in a fit of jealousy over your daughter having a new boyfriend?”
“No. She didn’t have a new boyfriend.”
“Was she not dating a fellow student named Sam Bradley?”
“She had gone to a football game with him. That didn’t make him a boyfriend.”
“Is it possible that you didn’t know about your daughter’s new boyfriend?”
Now I objected.
“Your Honor, the witness has already stated that this other boy was not considered a boyfriend at the time counsel is asking about,” I said. “Then counsel turns around and immediately calls him a boyfriend.”
“Sustained,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Mason, rephrase your question.”
Instead, Mason asked the judge for permission to show Brenda a photograph of property the coroner’s office had removed from her daughter’s body.
Over my objection, permission was granted.
Mason handed me a copy before delivering another copy to the clerk and a third to Brenda.
It was a photo of a beaded bracelet. Three of the beads spelled out S-A-M and were followed by a bead with a heart on it.
“Mrs. Randolph, were you aware that your daughter was wearing that bracelet at the time of her death?” Mason asked.
“She had a lot of bracelets like this,” Brenda responded. “They were friendship bracelets that fans of Taylor Swift exchanged all the time.”
“With the name Sam and a heart on them?”
“She made them and took them apart and remade them pretty often. I still wear one she made. It says Becca.”
She raised her arm to display a bracelet. I saw one of the female jurors react to the sad reminder of what Brenda had lost.
“It didn’t mean he was her boyfriend,” Brenda continued. “They had gone to one football game together.”
“And did she post a photo of them—a selfie taken with her phone—on her social media after that game?” Mason asked.
“She might have, I don’t know. But it didn’t mean—”
“Thank you for your answer. Mrs. Randolph, I’ll ask you again, Did the detectives tell you that Aaron Colton’s jealousy over this other boy might have played a part in the motive for the shooting that took your daughter’s life?”
“No, they did not. They only mentioned the—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Randolph, you answered the question.”
Mason was clearly trying to lay the foundation for an argument that jealousy was Aaron Colton’s motive for the killing of Becca Randolph, a motive that needed no encouragement from an AI companion.
I knew this would work only if Mason had more to add to it, and my guess was that the addition might be testimony from Bruce or Trisha Colton.
“I do have one last question,” Mason said. “Have you filed a lawsuit against Smith and Wesson, the company that made the gun used in the shooting of your daughter?”
There it was, one of the key arguments in the defense’s case, wrapped up in one question.
The message to the jury was that if the company that made the gun was not responsible for the murder, then the company that made the AI companion was not responsible either.
It was not a valid comparison, but the Masons were not worried about that.
But we had anticipated the question would come in some form or another. Brenda was ready with an answer.
“Not yet,” she said.
Mason left it there, telling the judge he was finished with Brenda.
It had been a skillful cross by the Mason I thought of as the lesser of the two brothers.
With just a few questions he had raised the possibility of an alternate motive for the murder of Rebecca Randolph.
It would now be up to me to bury that motive with evidence to the contrary.