No time to judge. Heather wasn't done. Despite my visceral reaction, the gut-punch of understanding Heather just might be a murderer after all, she sobbed softly before going on.

"I swear it was an accident," she said, "but I might as well have killed that girl like the courts said I did." She struggled to swallow, her face red, neck and chest mottled from the overabundance of her emotional turmoil. "My friend and I were drinking, like we did a lot when we were teens. We ...