Amber Morn by Brandilyn Collins

T.J. It was nippy outside.
    “Let me drive you home,” T.J. offered. “It’s too cold, and you have a heavy bag plus Keisha.”
    Marya looked to Kranck, as if questioning whether she should. He nodded. “Let T.J. take you. He’s right; it’s cold.”
    During the trial, when Kranck testified regarding his statement, his voice caught. A moment passed before he could go on.
    “I’ll regret those words till the day I die,” he told the court.
    Kranck watched them leave. T.J. was a gentleman, carrying Marya’s bag and opening his passenger door for her. She held Keisha in her lap.
    That was the last time Kranck would see Marya.
    What happened next is now public record. But while the facts are known, understanding is still slow to come for many. T.J. was an easygoing young man with no priors, although he’d been in numerous fights at school when he was younger. Kranck saw nothing in his behavior that day to cause concern. Yet T.J. Wicksell took Marya Whitbey the few blocks to her apartment, drove away, then soon returned. When she let him in, he stabbed her sixteen times and left her eighteen-month-old daughter to toddle through her blood. The body was discovered an hour later by neighbors alerted by the little girl’s cries.
    Only after that gruesome discovery would Fred Banst, a car mechanic who lives in the building, realize he should have listened to his gut instincts when he saw a young man running out the front door of the building and down the driveway toward the back parking lot. Charles Griffin, a retiree in his seventies, pulled into a parking space next to T.J.’s Chevy just in time to get a look at T.J. as he jumped into the car. Griffin saw what appeared to be blood smears on the front of T.J.’s shirt. After Marya’s body was discovered, Griffin and Banst gave descriptions of the running young man to the police, and a composite was drawn of the suspect. That drawing was a ringer for T.J.’s “friendly” face.
    The knife left at the scene, taken from Marya’s own kitchen, bore T.J.’s fingerprints.
    Friday’s conviction of second-degree murder for T.J. Wicksell came as no surprise to those who followed the case. Although the exact motive for the crime remains unknown, the prosecutor presented the likelihood that T.J. had made sexual advances that were rebuffed. But his family’s conviction is far different. They still insist he’s innocent. Socio-path? They scoff at the word.
    Spokane psychiatrist Dr. Patrick Johnson notes that while sociopaths may appear charming, they typically have a difficult time sustaining relationships and show no remorse for their actions. Some can be aggressive, even hostile. Yet only a small percentage fall into violent, criminal behavior. On the surface, they can seem quite trustworthy and are often good conversationalists. In short, they can fool many.
    In recent criminal history, the name Scott Peterson comes to mind.
    Like Peterson’s parents, who to this day declare Scott’s innocence, T.J. Wicksell’s father insists he could “never do what the prosecutor said he did.” The rest of the family fervently agrees. The system set up T.J., they say.
    “I’ve been protecting T.J. since he was four years old and got beat up by a bigger kid,” his older brother Brad told reporters during the trial. “I taught him how to fight back. Other than protecting himself, he’s never hurt anybody.”
    “A week ago Brad said we’ve protected T.J. since he was young,” a red-eyed but defiant Kent Wicksell said on the steps of the courthouse after the verdict. “We ain’t done yet. T.J.’s innocent, and we’re going to make the world hear that. Hear me, out there? He
didn’t do it.
We’ll show everybody that — if it’s the last thing we do.”
    “How can parents,” prosecutor Mick Wiley wondered aloud, “be so clouded in their vision of the truth?”
    Indeed, that is the question many are asking. And it is a question for society at large. We are left to wonder