I hope, in their closing statements, the prosecutors ask the jury to consider why she had to strike so many blows to such a small body? Why did she have to stab him 18 times? Why after that, why did she then have to strike him 4 times with some blunt force object, bashing in his small, still growing little skull? And then after that, why did she have to shoot him? The defense would have you believe it was because she was being irrational. Or psychotic. But here's the real reason why she struck him so many times.
Little Gannon was born just one and half pounds. He was so tiny that no one expected him to live. But that little tiny baby, that little tiny boy you could hold in one hand, he wanted to live. He wanted to live. He fought so hard - day after day - growing ounce after ounce - to live. He refused to give up.
And 11 years later, when the stepmother who hated caring for him, who despised having to help him with his stomach issues, who resented being his "babysitter", who said in a google search that she didn't like him, who was furious with his father, and hated his mother, when she decided to end his life, he fought!
Oh he fought. Just like he did 11 years ago. He fought for his life. He fought back against those stabbings, all 18 of them. We saw the proof of it on his hands, and his little fingers. And then he fought back against the blows, all four of them, he fought to keep his heart beating. He fought to keep breathing.
And when she heard those breaths, those last gasps for air, realizing that he was still alive, she ran upstairs and got the gun. The one wound he couldn't fight back against.
Gannon wanted to live. In the face of all her anger, and hatred, and resentment, and selfishness - despite it all - he wanted to live.
It wasn't psychosis. It wasn't insanity. It wasn't irrationality. No. She wanted him dead. It was his love of life, his fight to live, that caused her to have to deliver so many blows. He wanted to live.