I pushed my chair back and stood.

“You traded her life for a bank account that doesn’t even exist anymore. We have nothing left to say.”

The next morning, her defense collapsed. Broken and isolated, she took a brutal plea agreement — guilty to felony accessory to assault and severe child endangerment.

In exchange for a suspended sentence and mandatory psychiatric institutionalization, she gave full, unredacted testimony against her brothers, her parents, Sheriff Landry, and a dozen corrupt financial associates.

The judge granted my request without hesitation: a permanent, enforced restraining order barring her from coming within five hundred yards of Lily for the rest of her life.

The final judgments came down on the valley a year later, a barrage of federal gavels.