Unlike the footage I saw at the police station, the version circulating online is vague, carefully angled to hide the part where my mother-in-law was just tying her shoelaces. The clip slows down, and the added subtitles frame it as if she was preparing to scam someone.
If I hadn’t watched the original surveillance myself, I might have believed it too.
No wonder the comments are full of curses aimed at her.
[They say it’s not that people get bad when they grow old, but that bad people simply grow old.]
[Look at that movement—she's obviously a habitual offender!]
[Probably wanted to squeeze some money for her children before she died. What a noble mother, dying for justice!]
I should have been devastated.
But knowing Abigail was the one orchestrating this—because in her eyes, the victim wasn't her mother, but mine—killed the grief before it could rise.
Her uncle slapped his thigh in outrage, yelling at me.
"Julian, call Abigail right now. Tell her to send a lawyer's letter, sue those swines immediately!"
I couldn't bring myself to tell him that the "swine" he cursed might very well be his own niece.
Before I could lower the phone, the police station called.