She suggested the family was trying to appear more accepting than they had been. She told me the family never approved of Kevin being gay when he was alive. 'That's the family,' she whispered to me at the break. They were part of a group of more than a dozen people, many wearing purple and all wearing buttons with a photograph of the victim and the words 'Forever in Our Hearts.' In the seat next to me, a tall, gray-haired woman wearing a handwoven scarf, loose woolen sweater and blue jeans was taking detailed notes on a yellow legal pad. The victim was gay? Had he really made a pass at the scared young man sitting a few feet away in a red jail jumpsuit? The courtroom was dead quiet save for the weeping of several women in the first three rows. 'McWilliams stated that he felt uncomfortable because he was heterosexual and had a girlfriend.' Henry was making advances toward him,' sheriff's Detective Jason Caudillo told the court. The detective said that McWilliams had first denied involvement in the crime but later admitted encountering Henry at the lake and doing drugs with him and Conley in Henry's car. In the witness box, a sheriff's detective was describing the night that he'd brought in Nathan McWilliams, one of two prisoners now sitting at the front of the courtroom.

'Courtroom E.'Īs I found a seat in the crowded room, it took me a moment to get my bearings. 'Any interesting cases today?' I asked the security guard at the metal detector. I'd never been in the courthouse and was eager to have a look around. I'd recently moved from Marin County with my partner to a ranch north of Willits so we could grow a garden and give country life a try. I hadn't heard about the homicide when I wandered into the Mendocino County Courthouse in Ukiah with time to kill one afternoon in February 2006.

Crush by Jane Futcher