Left for Garbage

prosecution was winning. People are naturally inclined to believe the authorities, just as people are naturally disinclined to believe in child rape and incest; they shy away, and those jurors were no different. And there was poor Grandpa Keith sobbing away declaring his innocence.
    But then came that poor messed-up woman, one of society’s victims, and it was obvious that, for whatever reason - loneliness, a need for the sympathy he could not receive from the iron-hard Margaret - that Keith had indeed had an affair with poor Honey Chase. But he wouldn’t admit it, probably out of fear of Margaret’s reaction.
    It doesn’t matter why he denied it; what matters is he not only lied but he smirked while he was doing it. And then, unable to help himself, called the poor woman a liar, and worse.
    It was so obvious that it was he, Keith, who was the liar , and once the jury believed he could lie about poor Honey Chase, it was a very short step to believing he could lie about molesting his daughter, and from there acquittal was assured.
    Now , the important thing for me is to focus on helping Denise to finally achieve the life she has always deserved. As to what truly happened to young Deeley, whether she died in the pool or in some other tragic accident, well, I’ll leave that up to God. Who can ever know?
    As my Charlie says, dead people are gone and it’s a waste of time to thin k about them. God will do that.
    “Penny ,” he says, “you just take care of the living.” He’s right, he always is, and that is just what I’ll do.

Denise Brown
    (Fibber McMom herself)

    At last , I’m finally free, once and for all.
    Today I’m free. I thought I was free on the day in July when I got acquitted , but that blew up in my face.
    First the judge laid down some sour grapes , totally fake, charge about my stealing Emily’s stupid checkbook and put me on probation, and I’ve been stuck in Florida this whole time. Not just stuck in Florida but stuck with the biggest freak I’ve ever met in my life, that nut case Penelope.
    God , I hate her. She almost makes me miss my own psycho of a mother – almost, but not quite. I’ll say this, though. Old Charlie, her hubby, or ‘Daddy’ as he likes me to call him, makes my own dad look like father of the year.
    After the probation was handed down , and after Salvatore deserted me, which was about one minute after he found out that the only way to get a book deal was to say that he wished I’d been found guilty, all I had left was good old Penelope and her thankfully incarcerated husband.
    Two years , almost … two years of listening to her go on and on and on about how the death penalty is a sin which, by the way, I don’t agree with. Those people are sick animals and should be put down. The State should start with old Charlie there, Charlie who Penelope has forced me to visit with her three times a week since I came to stay with her.
    Nice little family situation we’ve got going here. She nev er let me out of the house once, she watched me every time I went on the computer and she totally blamed me for accidentally killing her dog.
    That was bad , especially after that loser Daniel Radcliffe did that Denise Brown dog skit on ‘Saturday Night Live’ – nice!
    Anyway I didn’t kill her stupid dog. Dogs drown in toilets every day. And despite her accusations, I certainly didn’t encourage that freak she is married to to write me privately and tell him what my favorite part of a woman’s body is. Hell, no. As a matter of fact, from the minute I got stuck here, I’ve missed prison.
    Thank God it’s over now: no more probation and no more Penelope or Charlie. It’s L.A. for me. L.A. has the weather and it has the kind of people who have the kind of money to pay me for my story, and it has guys too.
    That’s the most important thing to me now, finding a guy , and falling in love and having a baby. More than anything else, I want to have a baby. All in all I think everything works out for the best in the end. After all, I’m still young and I have my whole life in front of me.
    I wonder how I’ll look as a blonde …

Acknowledgements

    As with every book, this one could not have happened in a vacuum, so I need to thank a few people, including the beautiful and talented Anne Bremner as well as that ferocious advocate for justice for children, Nancy Grace

    And to all of those who gave me information and support during this work while asking for anonymity, I’d