Dear colorado303 and feyinfredrick (and anyone else who may have been in court today). (I’m so far behind...will never be able to catch up, so apologies if this has already been requested...)
When you feel strong enough and have the time and inclination, could you pls give us a glimpse of what it was like to be present in court today? Your observations and impressions. I would imagine the courtroom was incredibly tense and emotional.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Im a nutshell: Waiting in line you couldn’t tell who was press and who had personal connections. Watching the press try to either pick up snippets of info or befriend people who might be interview worthy was surreal. I had a woman who worked for NBC warn me I was standing next to a podcaster.
When they opened the courtroom, they let the press in first—called them up one by one by media outlet. They took up at least half the room so people who probably were sure they’d get in wound up in the overflow room. I saw the Thayers in line behind me but didn’t see them in the courtroom so they must not have made the cut.
The first two rows were reserved for family and the DA/Defense teams. The Watts chose not to sit directly behind CW but sat 3 rows back (maybe to avoid the cameras?).
I was in the second to last row so really could only see the back of people’s heads when they were talking at the microphone. Also had lean left to see the judge (almost wished I could see a tv screen instead at first), but I had an unobstructed view of the back of CW’s head/neck the whole time. I lost track of the number of times one of the defense attorneys rubbed CW’s back or patted him on the shoulder, but each time it happened I cringed. Pretty sure I swore under my breath a couple of times.
The Rzucek speeches were of course hard to hear. Seemed like everyone held their breath when the Watts got up and let out a collective sigh of relief when their rep said they accepted their son committed all the crimes he was charged with.
The only audible sobbing from where I sat was when the DA started to outline the crime for the judge. It got worse when he said Bella fought back.
By the time the judge finished rattling off the sentences people were mostly composed again. Walking out of the courtroom there was a WALL of huge tv camera’s (at least a dozen) about 3-4 feet away from us and that was a shock because there were few cameras in the hall when we entered.
Press was not allowed to ask for or conduct interviews inside, but when we got outside there were several gaggles of them. I have to say they were respectful— I was with a couple of people known to the press and they were approached for comments, but never by someone with a microphone in their hand. They were all apologetic for asking and gracious about going away without a fight. I was grateful and pleasantly surprised.
I’ll talk about the press conference and some other behind the scene things in another post.
