CHAPTER 59
THE COURTROOM WAS STANDING ROOM ONLY. EACH PEW WAS PACKED, shoulder-to-shoulder.
The front pews held family and friends. Those of the victim on one side; those of the accused on the other.
The rest of the crowd was made of eager spectators that considered a spot in the courtroom more coveted than World Series tickets.
Those standing in the back of the court were media; they not only clogged the rear walkway, but they also spilled out into the hallway.
Those not lucky enough to gain access stood outside on the courthouse steps.
The famed line “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” from the Simpson defense team had been replaced this century by the prosecution’s claim “If she did it in her past, it won’t be her last.”
The judge gave the typical overview of how to conduct one’s self in a court of law, and warned that immediate removal by bailiffs would be ordered if anyone veered from this conduct.
“Mr. Foreman,” he finally said. “Have you come to a unanimous decision?”
“We have, Your Honor.”
A bailiff took the verdict from Harold Anthony and delivered it to the judge.
“Will the defendant please rise?”
Sitting at the defendant’s table in one of her designer dresses that no longer hugged her body the way they used to, now baggy and loose from weight loss, was Ellie Reiser.
It had been fourteen months since Sidney Ryan’s body was discovered poorly hidden in her apartment, a year since she was arrested for the murder, and three months since she first sat behind the defendant’s table.
She’d been released from her position at the hospital, and had spent her life’s savings on her defense team. She stood.
“Dr. Reiser, will you please face the jury?”
Ellie turned with a somber expression and faced her peers.
The judge turned to Harold Anthony.
“Mr. Foreman?”
Harold stood and read from his card. “Superior court of New York, in the matter of the people of New York versus Ellie Margaret Reiser . . . We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Ellie Margaret Reiser, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree of Sidney Ryan.”
The courtroom exploded with cheers and sobs, applause and moans. The judge rapped his gavel again. The crowd refused to quiet. Ellie put her hand over her gaunt cheeks and sank back down into her seat.
Amid the commotion, a man stood from the back pew and limped gingerly out of the courtroom on his prosthetic, until he was past the crowd of media people and in the hallway.