At my twin babies’ funeral, my mother-in-law said something so cruel the entire room fell silent. When I begged her to stop, she confronted me while my husband defended her. Then my four-year-old daughter tugged on the pastor’s robe and said, “Pastor John… should I tell everyone what Grandma put in the baby bottles?” The entire room froze.

I sat in the courtroom every single day. I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to look into the eyes of the woman whose life she had tried to dismantle.

Diane’s defense attorney, a shark named Patricia Hendrix, tried everything. She argued insanity. She argued that the confession at the funeral was the result of a “psychotic break” induced by grief. She tried to paint Diane as a confused, elderly woman who had snapped under the pressure of caring for a growing family.

But the prosecution was methodical. They played the 911 call. They played the video recorded by a relative in the pews—the video where Diane justified the murder because the twins were a “burden.”

But the linchpin was Emma.

The judge allowed Emma to testify via closed-circuit television to spare her the trauma of being in the same room as Diane. I sat in the viewing room with her, holding her hand while she answered the prosecutor’s gentle questions.