The Icing on the Fucking Cake...
The animal shelter who we were assured was holding her for us, killed my aunt’s fucking cat.
But that's not where the story of my trip to Las Vegas starts...
Yesterday started out rough but then got easier. Today, well, not so much.
Yesterday we drove about 7 hours and arrived to find out that much of the information we had been told over the phone for the last two weeks, was in fact wrong. Bunch of bureaucratic bullshit summed up – someone was fucking flat lying, because what they told us about the lease, when we FOUND the lease (which my aunt led my father to), was not true. To sum up, if what they had told us had been true, our trip would have been halfway for nothing because we would not have been allowed to take my aunt's stuff back with us (mostly my grandmother's stuff).
But from there, we were able to pack up my aunt’s stuff and get ahead of schedule. We even had some laughs. A couple incidents attested to her presence and her laughing at/with us.
Today… We were supposed to get started at 9am this morning with the preliminary hearing. I’ve gathered that this means they go over all the witness testimony and other evidence they have and the judge decides if there is enough evidence to continue to a jury trial. We were hoping that he (my aunt’s accused murderer) would simply have worked out a deal. No such luck. We came in and sat down and there he was; one of a dozen defendants in custody. Shortly, he was moved and ended up sitting about 12 feet away. We sat like that for the better part of 3.5 hours. How fucked up is that?
He was the last defendant up that day. I dunno how many cases we sat through, mostly plea deals, a few not. One that was most thorough was another domestic violence case, this time where the female victim (btw the vast majority were DV cases and all were male defendants) survived and was testifying against her husband. It was clear she just wanted to forget about it, it took about three tries to get the story she told the cops out of her while she was on the stand and she had to keep being instructed to speak up because her quiet voice was inaudible. I felt terrible for her.
Her husband ended up being sentenced to two days in jail, 90 days suspended sentence and community service or something. That’s it, for pushing her, slapping her hard enough to make her nose bleed and BITING her (and gods know what kind of mental abuse to put her in the state she was in).
Finally though, we were up and my Grandad had to testify. But because there were so many cases that day, he was the only testimony taken. The first responder (who we were able to talk with) was sent home, and the prelim will continue on Friday the 5th. Grandad was only allowed to speak because we came in from out of town, my dad’s testimony won’t be needed (unless it goes to jury trial, I guess, because he was excluded from the courtroom).
We then got my Aunt’s ashes from the mortuary, and then went to check on her cat Cleo and found out what happened there...
I don’t even know what I would do if Travis died in some unexpected way and our cat was taken by such folks and I returned home to find this out… There would be fucking hell to pay, I do know that, I would sue them so bad.
My dad (AND Grandad!!) had spoken with the people who had Cleo removed from the premises and they ASSURED them both she would be taken care of until we could get there. Again, someone either flaked or is lying, because the animal shelter people said they’d gotten no such information and thus Cleo was subjected to the normal 10 day recovery period. And then they tried to tell us "well she was in pain". Wow, holy shit, no kidding, her person was murdered in front of her and she wasn't feeling great?
So we ended with no closure in the case against Dave and a living link to my aunt, who'd been through so much with her – dead too.
I dunno, it’s almost too much for me.
The animal shelter who we were assured was holding her for us, killed my aunt’s fucking cat.
But that's not where the story of my trip to Las Vegas starts...
Yesterday started out rough but then got easier. Today, well, not so much.
Yesterday we drove about 7 hours and arrived to find out that much of the information we had been told over the phone for the last two weeks, was in fact wrong. Bunch of bureaucratic bullshit summed up – someone was fucking flat lying, because what they told us about the lease, when we FOUND the lease (which my aunt led my father to), was not true. To sum up, if what they had told us had been true, our trip would have been halfway for nothing because we would not have been allowed to take my aunt's stuff back with us (mostly my grandmother's stuff).
But from there, we were able to pack up my aunt’s stuff and get ahead of schedule. We even had some laughs. A couple incidents attested to her presence and her laughing at/with us.
Today… We were supposed to get started at 9am this morning with the preliminary hearing. I’ve gathered that this means they go over all the witness testimony and other evidence they have and the judge decides if there is enough evidence to continue to a jury trial. We were hoping that he (my aunt’s accused murderer) would simply have worked out a deal. No such luck. We came in and sat down and there he was; one of a dozen defendants in custody. Shortly, he was moved and ended up sitting about 12 feet away. We sat like that for the better part of 3.5 hours. How fucked up is that?
He was the last defendant up that day. I dunno how many cases we sat through, mostly plea deals, a few not. One that was most thorough was another domestic violence case, this time where the female victim (btw the vast majority were DV cases and all were male defendants) survived and was testifying against her husband. It was clear she just wanted to forget about it, it took about three tries to get the story she told the cops out of her while she was on the stand and she had to keep being instructed to speak up because her quiet voice was inaudible. I felt terrible for her.
Her husband ended up being sentenced to two days in jail, 90 days suspended sentence and community service or something. That’s it, for pushing her, slapping her hard enough to make her nose bleed and BITING her (and gods know what kind of mental abuse to put her in the state she was in).
Finally though, we were up and my Grandad had to testify. But because there were so many cases that day, he was the only testimony taken. The first responder (who we were able to talk with) was sent home, and the prelim will continue on Friday the 5th. Grandad was only allowed to speak because we came in from out of town, my dad’s testimony won’t be needed (unless it goes to jury trial, I guess, because he was excluded from the courtroom).
We then got my Aunt’s ashes from the mortuary, and then went to check on her cat Cleo and found out what happened there...
I don’t even know what I would do if Travis died in some unexpected way and our cat was taken by such folks and I returned home to find this out… There would be fucking hell to pay, I do know that, I would sue them so bad.
My dad (AND Grandad!!) had spoken with the people who had Cleo removed from the premises and they ASSURED them both she would be taken care of until we could get there. Again, someone either flaked or is lying, because the animal shelter people said they’d gotten no such information and thus Cleo was subjected to the normal 10 day recovery period. And then they tried to tell us "well she was in pain". Wow, holy shit, no kidding, her person was murdered in front of her and she wasn't feeling great?
So we ended with no closure in the case against Dave and a living link to my aunt, who'd been through so much with her – dead too.
I dunno, it’s almost too much for me.
