10:10 p.m.

This is where I’m supposed to find the words to sum up the last five weeks.

It’s strange—after hundreds of posts that span 131 pages on TBO, you’d think I’d have a lot to say. Instead—and not for the first time during this trial—I find myself struggling to find the words.

People have asked me how I deal with covering a case so heinous, with evidence so disgusting it brings grown men and women to tears. Part of the skill is to be a bit disconnected, to not get too wrapped up in the story, to not consider too deeply what you’ve just heard or seen.

That’s worked in the past, certainly as I ran around on other heart-wrenching stories such as 9-11 (covered from the relative safety of northern Alabama), or a year later, an airport shooting in Los Angeles where I was hot on the trail of the first responders.

Writing about the garbage bags with two little holes where Jessica Lunsford’s fingers stuck out is easier than just sitting there and seeing it. Same goes for the autopsy photos, which I actually chose not to view.

That’s why the work of the jury is so remarkable. They sat there, and they stared at the evidence. Then they had to make decisions about what it all meant.

I chronicled.

Long and short, serious and silly, I had the unique role of writing it as it happened. No time to process it all, to look too closely at the holes or the speaker wire that bound Jessie’s hands together. No long looks at the stuffed dolphin, stained and dirty, that she clutched as she died.

One of the jurors, Thais Prado, summed it up well when she said the image of Jessie lying on an autopsy table may remain with her for the rest of life.

I wouldn’t be surprised.

Prado, 20, stole a lot of quick glances at Couey during the trial, sizing up the tiny man in the oversized suit.

She said she tried to reconcile his craggly appearance with what she heard from prosecutors. She tried to make sense of how he could kill a little girl by burying her alive.

I wouldn’t be suprised that if she thought about it for the rest of her life, she’d be no closer to an answer.

We have a certain ingrained vision of what our monsters are supposed to be like. Emotionless and acting every part the little boy, for Prado and probably others, Johnny Couey just didn’t fit the bill.

Prado and another juror said their impressions of Couey’s courtroom demeanor and appearance didn’t play into their decision-making.

After the jury’s recommendation was read, after Couey was led out of the courtroom in shackles, after Mark Lunsford and others shared hugs and tears, I sat for a few moments and took a few last looks around Courtroom 4-1.

I watched the clerks pack up the evidence.

They grabbed the garbage bags, the ones where Jessie poked two tiny fingers through, and placed them in a box.

A photo, the iconic picture of Jessie wearing a pink floppy hat, also got packed away.

It’s an image anyone who’s followed the case won’t be able to forget.

Jessie in life, smiling and happy.

It’s packed away with all the other elements of her death.

They’ll be kept for a long time, for future appeals, probably until after Couey’s dead.

One can only hope they won’t be pulled out again—that the dolphin or the trash bags, the mattress stained with Jessie’s blood and her autopsy photos—won’t have to be shown to another jury. Ever.

It’d be nice, too, if there weren’t any other files opened up for other boys and girls, killed by men like Couey.

Thank you for reading, for asking questions, for making me look at things in this case and around the courtroom in a different way.

It’s been quite an experience, made all the easier because I know this blog has helped some people follow the case better.

I only wish that this was a process that won’t repeated. Not for Jessie. Not for any child.