The verdict is out, and some people will be going in, for a long stretch. Here is today’s episode from the Manley book.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The trial, and more trials.
In their defense, the Dahousts claimed that it was Libby who had tried to kill herself, by swallowing the sleeping pills and the noxious windshield washer fluid, in an attempt at getting out of the arranged marriage to someone who she didn't know. Like she had told people she would do if they, her parents ever were to try to marry her off like they did her brother.
“So, you are telling this Court,” her lawyer counteracted, “that your daughter and sister: Libby Dahoust, who was on the fast track to a promising career in a medical field, who was madly in love with someone who, coincidentally, you did not approve of, and who happened to show up at your door on the very evening when your daughter was last seen alive and well, until she was rescued by law enforcement officers bound, and nearly dead in your house, her own home, or what should have been so. Your daughter who was considering moving out of your house to go out and fend for herself. She suddenly gets the bright idea that it's better to go bind and lock herself inside of the basement, swallow a hand full of sleeping pills, and a whole lot of windshield washer fluid and whatever else she could find just hanging around the room that would fast-track the process, and all this, while her hands were tied behind her back?”
They insisted though, that although it may not have followed in those orders and sequences, their version of events were the facts as they had occurred, and there are witnesses who can testify to the fact that that's what she had said that she would do if they should try to marry her off like they had done to Kamal.
“Do you love your daughter Mr. Dahoust? I repeat the question. Do you love, or even like your daughter?”
“I love all my children.”
“I see,” said the lawyer, “and, armed with those facts,” he continued, “which you just told this Court, you then went and do the very thing which you said she had told you that she didn’t want you to do to, and for her, and had even given you ample warnings, according to you, that if you ever try to do it, then she would in return do something terrible to herself.
Armed with all of that knowledge, you then went on to do the exact same thing which she told you would solicit those responses on her part, you did that to your child, your daughter whom you told us that you love so very much. Then went about taking steps to finish off the job and cover your tracks...” “Objection...” An objection was quickly mounted by the defense. Upon the objection from the defense lawyer, he quickly ventured to withdraw those comments.
…
The verdict
Found guilty of all charges. Was the verdict for all four, accuse. Libby and I were there when the verdict was read in court. She was out of the intensive care unit by then and was staying at my place most of the times. She wanted to see the proceedings live and in person. It did take some persuading on a number of different fronts but the care team at the hospital did eventually agree to send her with me to the court on the verdict day.
The convicts were being escorted out of the courthouse in handcuffs by the security guards.
Libby and I were standing near the exit when he saw us.
Mr. Dahoust saw me standing there with his daughter, the same daughter whom he, his wife, his best friend, and his son was arrested, charged and now found guilty of trying to murder.
He saw us standing there, together, and halt his steps in the doorway, “son of a bitch,” he said, staring at me there with his daughter, who could have, and probably should have died for all he cared, thanks to none other than: him, her very own sweet loving father, and her mother, and her ever loving brother. His piercing eyes, with such scorn, venom, and guile, just like a sword cutting at me...
“No sir,” I replied, in my by then fast-becoming the usual manner. “No sir, you ain't know nothing about me, nor my mother, or anyone else on my family tree for that matter. So don't you go comparing me to whatever it is that your idea of a family is, or ought to be.”
The sentencing, if there was any surprise in any bodies mind, it would have been in the length of the sentences, the amount of time each will have to serve, especially for the younger Dahoust male, he could be out in less than five years.
Twenty-five years without any chance of parole for ten years for the parents and their friend, the taxi driver, twenty years to Kamal with a chance to be paroled after serving four. Not nearly enough in the minds of most people and as the reports and comments in the papers and elsewhere would suggest. But that's where things are for the time being.
The lawyers for both the senior Dahousts as well as Kamal's lawyer had all given notices of appeals, at least in rhetoric at this point.
That’s it for today, my friends. See you again tomorrow when we shall venture into another episode.
Go get the Manley book and read the whole story.
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Extra, extra. On this day in history.
February 25
2005 - Dennis Rader was arrested for the BTK serial killings in Wichita, KS. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 life prison terms.
1986 - Filippino President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule after a tainted election.
1940 - The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens played in the first hockey game to be televised in the U.S. The game was aired on W2WBS in New York with one camera in a fixed position. The Rangers beat the Canadiens 6-2.
1837 - Thomas Davenport patented the first commercial electrical motor. There was no practical electrical distribution system available and Davenport went bankrupt.
1933 - The aircraft carrier Ranger was launched. It was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.
1570 - England's Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.
We are nearing the end of this series my friends, after which we will be venturing into something brand new and which I hope you will find interesting and engaging enough for you to subscribe and share the daylights out of this page. Thanks much.
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