About 22 months ago, my mother-in-law was killed by an ex-boyfriend. He broke into her house in wee hours of the morning, confronted her upstairs, and ended up shooting her twice. She died on the spot. Roommates in the house heard the commotion, ran to the room, and confronted the killer, but he waived his gun around and escaped (not without chase, though!). The police caught him a few hours later and started a legal process that has been ongoing these last 22 months.
Today it is over. I attended a pre-trial conference for the up-teenth time, the last one before the trial was scheduled to start in a few weeks. There was a different energy in the room this time, though, and a lot of movement on the part of attorneys on both sides. In an unexpected turn, the defendant (aka the killer) accepted a plea, the judge accepted it, and he was sentenced on the spot.
Guilty of 2nd degree murder with a sentence of 40 years with a mandatory minimum of 25 for using a firearm. Florida has an 85% minimum sentence law, which the State Attorney assures us is applied after the 25 year minimum, which means that he will serve a minimum of 38 years out of that 40 (minus the 22 months he's already served). If he ever gets out of prison, he will be nearly 90 years old, and everyone knows he is unlikely to live that long.
Our family is mad because they wanted a conviction of 1st degree, which carries a mandatory life, but I am slowly getting it through to them that this is almost identical and it forgoes any risk (and stress) of a trial. It's done. It's over. And in, my mind, he will never leave prison. It's only been a few hours, but the family is coming around.
Obviously, it isn't "over" for the family's healing. My wife still struggles weekly. I still struggle. PTSD is prevalent with all of us, due to the shock of trauma; flashbacks still haunt us and general anxiety and panic attacks are a constant threat. But I think we are all getting better, slowly.
So with this legal outcome our lives are not "fixed" and we still don't have all our shit together, but I think it's an important hurdle to move past. Now we are living for ourselves, not for a court date and a chance at justice, but that's going to be a challenge in itself. I'm confident we will move forward, though! This is just the first step.