Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme fought for her life, at least to begin with.
What should’ve been a two month trial stretched to three as Genevieve’s testimony padded our long hours in the damp, unventilated courtroom. None of it carried weight nor swayed our beliefs. Hindsight allows me to see it as merely a ploy to distance us from the damning statements made by the deputy district attorney going head to head with her defense lawyers. In time, they figured we’d forget the evidence and, in its place, remember the sweet old woman with the pearl necklace and feathered haircut, who wouldn’t swat a mosquito let alone commit first degree murder. But we weren’t so easily duped and the evidence wasn’t something you so easily forgot.
Three years prior to the abolishment of the death penalty in our state, Genevieve decided to murder her one year old grandson by sticking him in a gas range and cranking it to four hundred smoldering degrees. A nauseated forensic pathologist recounted in his testimony the initial discovery; the child’s cooked flesh had melted into and coiled around the rungs of the oven rack. He painted us a vivid picture but there was no imagining the smell.
When Genevieve took the stand, I remember — as the jury foreperson — briefly catching her stare when she raised her right hand and swore an oath to the clerk.
“Do you swear, under penalty of perjury, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“Yes, dear, I do,” she said with a tremor in her voice.
She’d have you believe she had nothing to hide, that the media circus surrounding her trial was beyond overblown, that she was a victim of circumstance and not her own actions. But when her and I glimpsed each other in the courtroom, I saw in her eyes something that was beyond her. I saw the same venom that took an innocent child’s life in the most barbaric of ways. This wasn’t some welcome old lady who’d command bingo nights or bring an apple pie to brunch. No, this woman was something not easily understood. Something unholy.
And now she’s coming after me.
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Maya never wanted to see me again.
But seeing as how we lived under the same roof, I knew her request would be a tall order, if not an impossible one.We’d been dating over two years and lived together for nearly one. I proposed that we move in together with the expectation that — if all went well — we’d graduate to engaged in due time. No such luck however. Minor differences sprouted into major ones and fractured all that we had left in terms of chemistry. By the time it was over, the woman who once told me she’d go to hell and back if it meant spending the rest of her life with me had suddenly wished that she could go back and undo all of our time together.
A week into my excommunication, I dropped by our seedy apartment to recoup a few of my belongings. I’d taken up temporary residence at a roadside motel and needed to secure a few keepsakes before she’d sell them or inevitably throw them out.
My key to our apartment still worked, likely because our lease forbade the changing of the locks. So, with luck on my side, I skipped a day from work and snuck back in when I knew Maya wouldn’t be home. It was a two bedroom, two bathroom casket that we’d made ours with help from a few decor retailers and a few personal touches. Faux potted plants, throw pillows with cartoon water droplets, a giclee print of the ocean.
Tiptoeing inside, I crossed without hesitation to the bedroom and crouched beside the nightstand on my side of the bed before retrieving a few heirlooms that I couldn’t risk leaving without: my mother’s edition of the New American Bible, my grandfather’s Vietnam service medal, and finally my father’s still functioning ASP pistol from the mid seventies. The throw pillows would have to wait, if I even came back for those at all.
I pocketed my three items and went for the front door, but not before snatching a lukewarm beer from the fridge. Popping the can open, launching foam in every which direction, I took a hurried sip as my eyes wandered around the room, not on the lookout for anything in particular when they noticed a neat pile of mail on the kitchen’s granite bar. Maya had organized them between hers and mine. Leafing through credit card applications, coupons, and charity solicitations, I double-taked the final square envelope when I realized it wasn’t any of those things.
In big letters, bordered by a bold rectangle, it read: Official Jury Summons.
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My suit wasn’t exactly up to par but, to be frank, neither was the courthouse.The Eumenides County Court was a lofty, multi-story structure that wouldn’t look out of place in a sprawling cityscape. Glassed entrance with revolving doors, a parking lot fit for a sports stadium, and twenty stories of polished stone. The congested air in the lobby smelled like marble and immediately therein, the front sentry guards would walk you through metal detectors.
I followed my group number to the corresponding assembly room, where they slapped a sticker to my shirt and played for us a tacky but short instructional video. Apart from letting us know how grateful they were for our service and stressing the importance of an impartial jury, the video provided little in the way of information. What came next was a short questionnaire handed out to each of us for our own completion. One of the safeguards against a biased jury, the questions told us the nature of the case and whether or not our past experiences would cloud our judgement.
The case you may be asked to try concerns the abuse of a minor. Would this make it difficult for you to serve as a fair and impartial juror?
Had you given me a modicum of a second to answer, I would’ve spat out a yes. But the rational part of me interjected, affirming that I’m not one to judge a book by its cover, that of course I could go into a case with a clear head and have my opinion informed not by instincts or emotions but by evidence. I scribbled out an N and an O, immediately regretting it but too far beyond the point of no return to take it back.
I carried on, finishing the rest of it with a few more hasty jottings before turning it into the staff members up front. Expecting to be pruned out of the crowd with the next round of dismissals, I was instead astonished to discover that my time at court was far from over. I’d survived enough hoops to be a candidate in voir dire.
That was when I met Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme.
We were escorted to the gallery of one of the building’s many chilled courtrooms, about fifteen feet behind the prosecution and defense desks. And there Genevieve sat, buttoned up in a classic red blazer, a pearl necklace glinting around her nape, her mouth bright with lipstick.
She greeted us with a friendly smile; the kind of smile you’d exchange at Sunday church. Another ploy to get us on her side, this time from the start.In time, they whittled it down to twenty of us. Most of the venirepeople struck down by the defense were parents or had some kind of dog in the fight in terms of siblings, nieces, and/or nephews. As for the school teachers, the little league coaches, the pediatricians, they were all dismissed with the blessing of the judge, no peremptory challenges necessary.And then there was me: the freelance journalist with no children. When it was my turn in the spotlight, they grilled me hard, trying to wring every bias they could out of me.
“Are you familiar with the case surrounding Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been the victim of a violent crime?”
“No.”
“Of the witnesses I just listed, do you think you know any of them on any basis?”
“No.”
“During this trial, one of the topics you’ll be asked to consider concerns the abuse of a child. Will this make it difficult for you to render a fair and impartial verdict?”
I gulped back the excess of spit gathering at the back of my throat, “no.”With that, they had what they assumed was their ideal juror in hand.
__
“Leaving now.”Allison Hansley never properly got to say goodbye to her son. What she managed was a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and a quick “love you,” before leaving him in the care of her mother while at the same time assuring her work colleagues that she was en route to the office, “Yes, I’m leaving now.”
She hadn’t thought twice about her babysitter of choice, as Grandma Genevieve was always a dependable recourse. Allison simply handed her one year old Liam off to her seventy-five year old mother like a baton and thought nothing further of it. Indeed, that morning, she made it to work on time.
Nothing in Genevieve’s behavior suggested what she ultimately had planned. Her intent became a huge talking point during the trial, with the prosecution holding firm in their belief that Genevieve’s actions were premeditated and the defense arguing for the exact opposite. It was the difference between child abuse resulting in death and first degree murder, the latter of which would secure Genevieve a death sentence if convicted.
She had resolved not to take a plea deal to avoid such a fate, opting instead to contest the charges and fight for her freedom. The decision, unsurprisingly so, was met with widespread confusion. No way she’d live to tell the tale and see to her own release, many thought. They were only half correct. No, Genevieve wouldn’t see her liberation from the charges, but should would tell the tale.
Her tale anyway.
__
Mystery enshrouds the two hour window preceding Liam Hansley’s death, but Genevieve’s lawyers had no shortage of theories.
Leading the charge was a wild hypothesis that suggested Allison’s place of residence was burglarized while an unknowing Genevieve slept in the other room, blissfully unaware that her grandson was the latest piece of collateral damage in a slew of recent thefts.
According to her testimony, Genevieve put Liam down for a nap around 12:30pm then decided to doze off herself. What woke her up her two hours later was the shrieking of a smoke alarm and a small fire in the kitchen. She tried quenching it with some tap water to no avail and thus resorted to the phone.
When authorities arrived, she was described by responding officers as “agitated” and “out of control.” It took two patrol officers and a firefighter to subdue her before they took control of the scene and investigated further. Pulling open the oven — the source of the fire — they discovered Liam’s singed body inside. His remains were little more than mush and his eyes had been popped to nonexistence, all of it the handiwork of some unidentified sadist who broke in and conveniently decided to add first degree murder to his pending indictment. Or so Genevieve’s lawyers would have you believe.
Forensics had her latent prints on the oven door handle and her phone pinged at Allison Hansley’s address for the entire two hour window. They weren’t trying to hide the latter and ultimately tried explaining away the former by saying Genevieve had used the oven for a prior unrelated matter. Indeed, what the prosecution had on Genevieve was entirely circumstantial but it was as close to damning as one could get. So when she begged for reasonable doubt — for mercy — we denied it.
“Look, I’m not saying it’s impossible but this, uh … defense? It’s weak. There’s no room for reasonable doubt here, I’m sorry,” Riley, juror number five, said to the room during deliberations.
It took us two days to sway juror number eight, Adeline, in our favor. If we had deadlocked, there’d be a mistrial and letting Genevieve walk as a result was too great a risk. Besides, none of us wanted to spend any more time in that steaming hot, godforsaken deliberation room. I thought about how much I wanted to go home. I thought about Jaiden.
I signed the verdict and the clerk read it aloud for a rapt audience: “We the jury, duly impaled and sworn, upon our oaths find the defendant Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme as to count one, first degree murder, guilty.”
__
I never properly understood death until I was nine.
Back then I was a simple fourth grader who, unlike the Mayday tree on our elementary school playground, hadn’t yet reached any level of maturity. This was when I met Jaiden Burrows.He was small with hazelnut eyes and an auburn shag cut and when he spoke, you’d have to listen closely.
He was transferred to August Elementary from another district in mid May, the tail end of the school year. Everyone knew him as “the new kid,” expectedly so, for what felt like his entire first month. I knew him for who he truly was the first week he arrived.
Our playground’s Mayday tree provided ample shade and solitude during recess, offering a perfect sanctuary for any student who needed either, chief among them Jaiden. That’s where I found him the Tuesday I met him, forty-eight hours into his first week at August Elementary. A few chortling kids — the class assholes, or classholes as they came to be known — were tossing handfuls of pea gravel his way, using him as a pincushion for their latest target practice.
The sight upset me and I, perhaps because I had been a frequent victim of the classholes myself, decided to intervene. Any other day I would’ve used my words but that day I decided to use a rock; to be specific, a large granite one the size of two closed fists. With a bit of muscle, I hoisted it to my chest, grappling it with both hands as I headed for Jaiden and the Mayday tree.With their backs to me, none of the classholes saw me coming when I launched the mini-bolder toward their heads. It catapulted through the air, missing them by a foot, clipping instead a sagging raceme and sending a puff of white petals wafting to the ground.
It may have missed its target, but the rock nonetheless did its job. The classholes pulled their collective attention from Jaiden and directed it at me, distracted by the interruption, each one of them too bewildered to retort.“L-Leave him alone,” I managed.“Let’s go, Kev,” the rightmost classhole elbowed the middle one out of what I can only hope was fear, and the trio took off towards the monkey-bars.
It felt awkward to approach him, but I marched my way over to Jaiden and offered a murmur, “Are you okay?”
He responded with almost a whisper: “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Used to it,” he said as he clawed soil out of his hair and face.
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t personal and that those three little pricks would get theirs one day but, not wanting to over-promise, I instead asked him what his favorite movies were. That conversation lasted the remaining duration of recess and budded into what became the first real friendship of my childhood.
Jaiden and I could converse for hours on end; the school day didn’t contain nearly enough hours to hold our talks, so we got together after school. And as much as I knew about him, he never revealed anything regarding his home life. Sleepovers and hangouts were reserved exclusively for my house; never once was I asked over to his. As a child, I never stopped to wonder why. Too preoccupied by the excitement of hosting a friend, it never occurred to me to ask why I never really knew Jaiden’s parents nor why his house was “off-limits.” When he started showing up to school with bruises in odd places and said they were the product of injuries sustained during baseball practice, I believed him. Turns out he was never so much as allowed near a baseball field, let alone allowed to play.
Oh, to be nine again.
Four months after meeting him and becoming close acquaintances, I remember enthusiastically awaiting Jaiden’s arrival on the first day of fifth grade. Our back to school ceremony drew dozens of parents and students alike, save for Jaiden and his family. The service went on without him however, leaving me stranded in the auditorium without my best friend. I figured he’d be back the next day.He wasn’t.By the time word got to me, it had already spread through half the student populace. Jaiden was dead, the victim of multiple blunt force injuries to the head and face. His parents took turns beating him senseless and, as the coroner reported, just went too far this one time. If you’d asked me, I would’ve said they’d gone too far every time.
So as fast as I had made a friend, I’d lost one. And closure isn’t always possible in such cases. His parents — Amy and James Burrows — were both charged with and pled guilty to child abuse resulting in death, Jaiden was laid to rest, and that was it. No elaborate finale, no twist. Just death and tragedy.An unanswered tragedy I’d have to carry with me my entire life. Or at least until the trial of Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme.
At last, I would have my vengeance.
__
Every news outlet had the story ready for publication.“Genevieve Wolstenholme appeals guilty verdict,” was the page one headline we all expected. But as time would tell, no such story became necessary to release. No wild claims of prosecutorial misconduct, prejudice due to publicity, nor ineffective assistance of counsel. Genevieve had accepted the verdict and for the first time since entering her not guilty plea, decided not to fight for her life. She determined that whatever awaited her in the sentencing phase, she would face it head-on and without fear.
The aggravation phase took a half hour of testimony and one hour of deliberation. The forensic pathologist assigned to the case told us everything we needed to know regarding the sheer brutality of Liam’s death. To say that he suffered would be putting it lightly. Genevieve would be eligible for the death penalty, we decided.
What came next was the strenuous penalty phase, strenuous not because of the time it took but because it seemed most of the jury had already made up their minds beforehand. But it was a step we had to take on the path towards Genevieve’s just punishment.
Victim impact statements marked the beginning of the proceedings, with the first of several coming initially from Allison Hansley. “She took a spark of light away from this dark world when she killed my son. I used to excitedly wonder what kind of person he’d turn out to be when he got older. I’d look to the future with delighted anticipation thinking about the amazing person he would’ve grown into. And now I’ll never know,” she said between tears and deep intakes of breath. “She robbed the world of him.”
Her husband’s statement was equally mournful. “I only pray that he knew he was loved during his short time here. I’ll miss him for every moment I’m awake.”
The victims seemed less concerned with getting a death sentence than just getting the chance to be heard but, as I came to learn during deliberations, my fellow jurors didn’t see it as such. Quite frankly, neither did I.
I saw in the sadness overtaking the Hansley family the same heartbreak that I felt sixteen years prior when news of Jaiden’s death reached me. Revenge. That’s what it boiled down to. Genevieve wouldn’t walk away scot-free into her cage when all was said and done. Not as long as I was serving on her jury. She would get hers, I’d make sure of it.
Unfortunately, we weren’t without our holdouts. Needing a unanimous vote for death would require some arm-twisting. Death wasn’t required by the judge. And Adeline, for one, didn’t believe in an eye for an eye; neither did Riley. The rest of us would need a solid line of reasoning to break them down if the victim statements couldn’t.Everything would change, however, the day Genevieve made her sentencing speech. It was a formality, one we were prepared to ignore. We figured just giving her a moment on the offensive constituted a fair shake. Obviously, none of us would heed anything she said or try to remain open-minded.
Sauntering up to the oak podium in her signature red blazer and pearl necklace, Genevieve glared past the bailiff and into the jury box, all eyes on her as she delivered a doozy of an opening: “Hearken, Erinyes, for I call upon thee. Furious forces, pervaders of light, witness me.”
Activity in the gallery picked up as observers leaned forward in their chairs and the camera crews adjusted their coverage to get a better angle. Those who weren’t listening before now were.
“I, Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme, shall take vengeance on whosoever hath sworn a false oath. Unto the terra of hell shall these mortal bodies wend and by the hand of the fiend shall they face judgement,” she spewed between gritted teeth.
“Verily, they knoweth not what they’ve wrought,” her razor sharp stare met mine, “howbeit, unto thy benignant hand, I do give thee my word.”
She dropped her voice a couple octaves and uttered the final blow: “I am the warden of the oath. I shall persist.”
Topping the bizarre, anachronistic monologue was a couple slams of the judge’s gavel. Genevieve was ordered to cease her speech, but by then she had already said what she wanted to.
__
The Eumenides Women’s Correctional Facility is, by all accounts, hell on earth.Managed by our state’s department of corrections, it currently houses over a thousand inmates in addition to a dozen parolees and offers little in terms of comfort. And one could only hope it served as such for the remainder of Genevieve’s life.
We’d found her guilty, found her eligible for death, then sentenced her to death. Whatever her closing speech to us was, it snuffed out any real hope she had of dying naturally. The holdouts, Riley and Adeline, were no longer holdouts, as Genevieve had done our job for us. And now her final moments would be spent strapped to a gurney by her ankles and wrists, getting pumped full of pentobarbital.
Once she was in the execution chamber, it was reported that she chose not to give a final statement, verbal or otherwise. Instead, she peered through the one-way mirror framing the witnesses to her death and simply smiled. Five minutes later, exactly one year and a day after the verdict, she was dead.
Her body was stuck into a polyester cadaver bag and shipped off to the office of our county coroner. The saga of Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme would come to close following her autopsy. Except there was no autopsy.
Instead, there was a dead medical examiner and a missing body. The ME had been doused in formalin and set on fire before Genevieve’s body was thieved by an unknown party. Whatever the case, local authorities ran with the story that someone had illegally gained access to the morgue, killed the examiner, and appropriated Genevieve’s body to God knows what end.
But I’m not so quick to believe that story. Something not so easily understood happened in that morgue on that night. And in light of recent events, I’m one of the unfortunate few who does understand.
__
According to the unsealed affidavits, this is what happened.Riley Levine travels from his place of work — a five star bar and grill — to a gas station off fifty-third and Argives. In addition to filling up his vehicle, he also purchases a bottle of over the counter aspirin, drowsily telling the cashier on duty that “the headaches just won’t stop.” Corroborated by CCTV footage, Riley completes his transactions and leaves unfollowed.
A neighbor’s doorbell camera clocks Riley pulling up to his own driveway at 7:08pm before parking in the garage slightly out of frame. At no point for the next three hours is anyone seen leaving or entering the Levine property. A separate witness — another neighbor, this one in a house diagonal to Riley’s — testifies to going out to their backyard “around ten” to have a cigarette. Once outside, cigarette in hand, he notices a motion detecting floodlight bathe Riley’s backyard in blinding white. Averting their strained eyes in response, the witness claims not to have seen anyone or anything that could’ve triggered the light.At 11:10pm, the Eumenides County Sheriff’s Office receives the following call:
“911, what’s the address of your emergency?”
“Yeah, hi, I’m at [REDACTED]. One of the houses in my neighborhood is on fire. I don’t — I don’t know what —”
“Okay, hold on, I’m gonna connect you with fire, stay on the line.”
The dispatcher then transfers the call to Cronus Fire Rescue Station 6.
“Fire department.”
“Yeah, hi, I need help. One of the houses is my neighborhood is on fire.”
“What’s the address?”
“[REDACTED].”
“And you said this is a house?”
“Yes. My neighbor’s.”
“Do you know what caused it?”
“No idea. All I know is that it’s burning real bad.”
Two minutes later, responding to reports of a structure fire, a firetruck comes screeching to the curb at Riley Levine’s residence. The entire top-half of the house is in flames, which shrivel the wood and crumble the brick exterior. When the fire is put out at 11:31pm and the property is scouted for survivors, the charred remains of Riley Levine are discovered in the main bedroom. The point of origin is determined to be Riley himself, with a V-shaped burn mark sprouting from the spot on the bed where he slept. Burn patterns reveal that he was most definitely burned alive.
That was last week. This week it was Adeline.
She was hospitalized with third degree burns that have rendered her unrecognizable and nearly dead. I never went to see her, I merely read the report that said she was attacked in her home by an “old woman,” who splashed her with olive oil and took a lighter to her hair. When they asked for identifying details, Adeline remarked that the old woman had a pearl necklace.
__
Whatever time I have left, I know it’s limited.But when Genevieve gets here — and she will — I’ll be ready. I took my father’s ASP to a gunsmith, who triple checked to ensure its age and modifications wouldn’t interfere with its ability to function. Because it’s been properly maintained over the years and meets current safety standards, it remains good to use. So I purchased a box of 9mm parabellum cartridges, loaded them into the magazine, and prepared for what’s next.
It was relatively painless to get Maya out of the apartment. I told her I needed a place to crash for the week and, not wanting to go bankrupt finding separate lodging, asked if I could stay at home. She obliged, not out of pity but because she assumes I’m in a transitional phase and will no longer be a consideration once I have a place of my own. Currently, she’s off-grid, staying God knows where, looking forward to the day I’ll be out of her life for good.
If Genevieve has her way, I’ll be out of everyone’s life soon. But I’m not willing to go down so easily. If it began with Riley and Adeline, perhaps it’ll end with me.
I’ve spent the past twelve sleepless hours pacing around the foyer of my apartment, ASP firm in my clasp, caffeine coursing through my bloodstream. I’ve never killed anyone but I’m willing to start now. My opponent this time is not a bunch of asshole elementary school students or a woman I love who doesn’t love me back, but instead something unholy. A beacon of sheer evil. Genevieve, here to wreak havoc and exact revenge on all those who swore a false oath.
I’m thinking about what’s gonna happen when she comes bursting through that door. I’m thinking about how I’ll take aim at her and fire my weapon until it clicks, praying that she’ll be dead before she hits the floor. I’m thinking about vengeance. I’m thinking about Riley and Adeline.
I’m thinking about Jaiden.
Someone’s at the door, their shadow blocking all the light poking through my door’s corroded sweep. The air smells like sulphur. I’m afraid.
I swore an oath to well and truly try the case against Genevieve Birkenshaw Wolstenholme and render a true verdict based solely upon the law and the evidence.
I may not have kept my oath, but I’m sure she’ll keep hers.