Erica Rivera sat on a courthouse bench, hands clasped around a string of Rosary beads.

Rivera, 21, was praying for her childhood friend, Alfredie Steele Jr. as 12 jurors deliberate his fate.

“He shouldn’t have to go through this,” she said.

Rivera has attended every day of Steele’s trial, including five agonizing days of jury selection last week. She feels an obligation to Steele even though the two only recently began speaking again.

Rivera abandoned the friendship years ago in favor of cocaine. She had started using the drug when she was 13 to numb the grief caused by the death of her beloved grandfather. Steele was the friend who kept bugging her to stop. He was convinced Rivera’s boyfriend was part of the problem and vowed to fight him.

Tired of hearing it, Rivera chose her boyfriend and the coke over Steele. The two didn’t speak for years.

Then Rivera had two children, her second arriving eight months ago. The cocaine had to go. She enrolled in treatment and got herself clean. Two months ago, she decided to write to Steele in jail. He was receptive, and she began visiting him every Thursday.

The visits proved therapeutic.

“Every time I went to go see him, he told me I was better than that or that I looked better this way,” she said.

Steele’s encouragement continues to fuel Rivera in her mission to stay clean. That alone was enough incentive for her to endure five days of dry jury selection followed by four days of emotional testimony. Watching her friend suffer hasn’t been easy, she said, mainly because she believes he’s guilty of nothing.

“He’s a kind-hearted person,” she said. “If he has something and you need it, he’d give it to you quick. He was respectful to kids, teenagers and adults. That’s why I don’t believe he could have done something like that.”

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