What They Didn't Investigate

Detective Hillary Rodriguez spent thirty minutes on the stand today walking the jury through Instagram messages. Tara King, 17, was begging strangers for a ride out of town hours after prosecutors say she and her boyfriend Uriah Urick shot her grandmother in the head. "We're carrying guns," she wrote. "Please, we're getting away from my abusive grandmother."

The prosecution presented this as consciousness of guilt. Look at them run. Look at them lie. Look at them try to escape.

Then the defense asked one question.

That exchange lasted maybe ten seconds. It might be the most important ten seconds of this trial so far.

What the Bedroom Told Us

Before the Instagram messages, Detective Rodriguez described searching Tara's bedroom. I need you to hear what she said.

The door was covered in posters. There was so much clutter on the floor they had to force it open. No sheets on the bed. Empty soda cans everywhere. Half-eaten food, some of it molded. Dirty clothes. An empty trash can. Roaches. Under an L-shaped desk, a makeshift bed built out of blankets and pillows. And multiple water bottles filled with what the detective believed was urine.

Rodriguez called it "disgusting." She noted "poor hygiene." She moved on.

Let me ask you something. What kind of 17-year-old is sleeping on a pallet under a desk? What kind of household has a teenager keeping bottles of piss in her room? Is that the bedroom of a kid who has options? Is that the bedroom of someone who feels safe using the bathroom down the hall?

I'm not saying Tara King is innocent. I'm not saying Uriah Urick is innocent. The jury will decide that based on evidence. But I am saying that what the detective described is not a normal living situation. And nobody seems interested in asking why.

The Easy Story vs. The Whole Story

The prosecution has a clean narrative. Two teenagers wanted money, guns, and freedom. They killed grandma. They ran. They got caught.

That might be exactly what happened. But there's a note. Rodriguez found a handwritten note in that bedroom, written by Tara. She read it. She turned it over to evidence. The prosecution didn't ask what it said. The defense didn't cross-examine on it. Nobody told the jury what Tara wrote.

Why not?

If it was incriminating, the prosecution would have paraded it. If it was exculpatory, the defense would have demanded it. So what is it? What did Tara write in that note that neither side wanted the jury to hear today?

This Is What Watching the System Means

My father spent 23 years as a criminal defense attorney. He taught me that the system's job isn't to convict. It isn't to acquit. The system's job is to find the truth.

When investigators see a teenager's Instagram message claiming abuse and they don't check whether it's true, they're not looking for truth. They're building a case. Those are different things.

Maybe Tara made it up. Maybe she was lying to get sympathy from strangers who might drive her across state lines. Maybe "abusive grandmother" was just a cover story.

Or maybe it wasn't.

We don't know. And we don't know because nobody looked.

▶️ WATCH NOW Detective Rodriguez Full Testimony

The presumption of innocence isn't a technicality. It's a constitutional guarantee. And it means that before we send two teenagers to prison for life, we're supposed to make sure we have the whole story. Not just the parts that fit the narrative. Not just the Instagram messages that make them look guilty. The whole story.

Including what was in that note. Including what was happening in that house. Including whether a 17-year-old girl sleeping on a pallet under a desk, surrounded by bottles of her own urine, had any reason to be afraid of the woman who raised her.

We'll keep watching.