Chapter 8: What They Found in the Northeast Corner
The Denton County property had been searched twice before they found it.
The first search, conducted the week after my arrest, had covered the visible structures — a collapsed outbuilding, a dry drainage ditch, a section of fencing that had been replaced more recently than the rest.
They'd found nothing that constituted evidence.
The second search used ground-penetrating radar.
Detective Harlan testified to this on the fourth day of the trial.
He was calm and methodical, the same way he'd been in the interrogation room, and he walked the jury through the process with the patience of someone who had explained difficult things to many different rooms.
"The radar indicated a subsurface anomaly in the northeast corner of the property," he said.
"Consistent with disturbed soil at a depth of approximately four feet."
"And what did the subsequent excavation reveal?" Voss asked.
"Human remains."
The room absorbed this.
"Were those remains identified?"
"Yes.
Through dental records and DNA analysis, the remains were identified as Carol Anne Foss, thirty-one years old, last reported missing in October 2018."
Voss let the silence hold for a moment.
"Was a cause of death determined?"
"The medical examiner's findings were consistent with blunt force trauma to the posterior skull."
My lawyer cross-examined for forty minutes.
He challenged the chain of custody on the radar data.
He questioned the timeline of the property transfer.
He raised the possibility of prior use of the land by the previous owner.
Harlan answered each question the same way he'd answered everything — without impatience, without drama, with the steady accumulation of a man who had learned that facts, stated plainly, do not need help.
When it was over, Voss called one more witness.
A woman named Patricia Okafor.
Forty-seven.
A neighbor from the street where Carol Foss had lived in 2018.
"Did you know Carol Foss?" Voss asked.
"Yes.
We used to walk our dogs together in the mornings."
"Did you ever meet the defendant?"
"Once.
He came to pick her up.
She introduced him." Patricia paused.
"She seemed nervous.
I remember thinking that at the time, and then telling myself I was imagining it."
"Did you see Carol Foss after that?"
"No." Patricia folded her hands.
"She stopped coming on the walks.
I knocked on her door once.
Nobody answered.
A few weeks later the apartment was empty." She looked at the table.
"I always wondered.
I just — I never did anything about it."
"Why not?"
A long pause.
"Because I told myself it wasn't my business." Her voice tightened slightly.
"I've thought about that a lot since October."
Voss nodded.
"Thank you, Ms.
Okafor.
No further questions."
My lawyer stood.
"Ms.
Okafor, you never actually witnessed any altercation between—"
"No." She looked at him directly.
"I just watched a woman disappear and told myself it wasn't my business." She paused.
"I'm not going to do that again."
The judge instructed the jury to disregard the last statement.
May you like
But Patricia Okafor looked at the jury when she said it, not at my lawyer.
And the older woman in the third seat — the one who had stopped writing when Voss read Megan's line about Carol — picked up her pen again.
