Evelyn Sterling arrived at St.

Ambrose forty minutes later, because a nurse on the unit had called her as next of kin the previous night and because she had been calling the ward every two hours since.

She came out of the elevator at 11:30 and saw, standing in the corridor outside her son’s room, her daughter-in-law.

What happened over the next ninety seconds happened in front of two detectives, a deputy state’s attorney, a charge nurse, and Harrison Vance, and it was written into four separate reports within the hour, and none of it was recorded, because in that state recording a conversation without consent is a felony and Ruth Ferreira had been a prosecutor for nineteen years.

She did not need a recording.