After graduating from college in 1991 I worked as a newspaper reporter in Southern California. Often the newspaper's sole reporter, I covered a variety of beats. Looking back on the work, though, the stories I remember the best are the ones I covered as a police reporter. On that beat you see the best and worst of people - well, more often the latter - and are left with memories, some good and some bad.
He was lying. It was obvious to everyone in the courtroom.
His mom, Kathy James of Aguanga, was smiling at him and he would look at her but couldn't look the prosecutor or anyone else in the eyes, even when they would bend down to be at the level of this child, who was seven. Or eight. Or nine.
He wasn't really sure what grade he would be in, or his age, because he couldn’t remember. It'd been a while, though, he said.
The question to him was simple: Where was his mom when the fire began?
The circumstances were less simple. His mom was accused of accidentally setting the fire as she cooked meth in her trailer. His two siblings, his younger brother and sister, died in the fire.
He looked like he wanted to cry but he also wanted so much to be tough and strong. He was, after all, now the man of the family.
The prosecutor, Michael Soccio, had worried this might happen so he had a tape of this boy telling the truth, telling him that his mom was sitting by the oven when a "ball of fire" flew out of it. The court called a recess and Soccio took the boy to Burger King and explained to him that he didn't want to show him to be a liar.
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