The prosecutor — a woman named Adaeze Nwankwo, who was forty-four and who had done eleven of these — did not go after any of the emotional testimony.

She let all of it stand.

She asked him about a message.

It had been recovered from his phone.

It was sent to one of the private lenders, a man he owed a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, six days before Emily died.

She put it on the screen.