Independent audio forensics examined the recording and testified that it was authentic, continuous, and unedited — no splices, no synthesis, no manipulation of any kind, consistent in every technical respect with a genuine recording made on the device it came from.

The psychiatrist who had evaluated Roderick the morning of the will signing took the stand and described, in careful clinical language, a man entirely oriented and lucid, who had answered every capacity question correctly and explained his reasoning without prompting.

The notary’s video was played for the jury: Roderick, gray and frail but plainly clear-headed, listing his own assets from memory, stating his own reasons, executing the documents while three witnesses looked on.

And Teresa Pearson, the company’s chief financial officer, produced the financial records — including a transfer of four hundred thousand dollars that Demi had moved from a shared marital account into a shell company registered in Gareth’s name, weeks before Roderick died.

Money, Teresa noted dryly from the stand, that a grieving, innocent wife would have had no reason to hide.

The gallery was full every day. Hospital staff came on their days off. Reporters filled a row. And, most days, so did families Brandon had never met — parents of children with heart conditions who had read about the case in the papers and driven in to sit through it, because somewhere in the middle of a murder trial there was a story about a sick kid getting a chance, and they knew what that was worth.