*** *** Weekend Write-In for 23rd. June 2017 *** ***

"guilty": In 500 words, tell a story where someone is guilty

Note - Catching up on past prompts. Written July 11th 2017 

NOT GUILTY

As the verdict was read out, I slumped in my seat in a mixture of relief and disbelief. They had let me off!

Behind me, the girl's parents were screaming with rage. The mother and sister were crying and the father ... heh, he was ranting about killing me, calling me a monster. I tried to hide the smirk that threatened to appear on my face as the judge threatened to remove him.

In the gallery, a mixed reaction.

One section had taken to boo'ing and calling out 'SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!' 

Then there were my 'supporters.' The gullible fools who had fallen for my handsome, open face and earnest eyes ... more than one sympathetic woman who had written me in prison, telling me they thought of me as a victim, just as much as fifteen year old Tammy. These pathetic females with their painted whore faces and ruby rouged lips, telling ME they thought I was the victim! That I had suffered from a witch hunt ... a travesty of justice.

How I despised the unclean slatterns and sluts, in my heart, while my mouth and eyes told them my 'story' and elicited their sympathy.

Part of me laughed inwardly at receiving their lewd letters and disgusting immoral offers, but the other part knew to keep up my earnest, hard done by 'innocence.' I needed their money and I needed their support in the media, from the rich widow who had bought me 'the best defense lawyer money could buy,' to the activist and the journalist who had both vowed  to 'fight my case to the end,' and they did. They relentlessly campaigned on the basis that my first trial was prejudicial, that local law enforcement was desperate to pin the murder on someone ... anyone, to satisfy the demands of public fury.

They told every news outlet they could, that I was a nice young man, perhaps a bit strange to the public, but that I was being railroaded because I wasn't 'the norm.' Yes, I was weird ... I had strange hobbies and kept to myself, but that didn't make me a murderer.

Public sympathy was divided - there was those who raged against me, who believed the narrative put out by the police, the family and those locals who thought I was 'a weird, deranged loner,' and its 'always the quiet ones.' But then again, the full force of the out of town liberal activists, pitted against 'that narrative,' - well they had won the day. I had got my 'fair and impartial' retrial - it had been proven that the testimony of certain policemen had been suspect. A strong case of evidence tampering had been put forward.

I was free to go. They would relocate me somewhere for my own safety ... in a few years I could change my appearance and vanish. Perhaps abroad. After all the world was full of painted whores flaunting their disgusting lack of moral turpitude, just like Tammy had done that night, with her rouged lips and tiny skirt. I had cleansed her and now the good lord had given me another opportunity to do his work once more. I just had to be patient.