“I had to wait for them to make a mistake so big the evidence would be undeniable,” she explained, her eyes filled with tears. “When I saw them drop the baby and then sue you, I knew this was it.”
“You saved my life,” I told her, my own voice thick with emotion. “Without you, I’d be going to prison right now.”
“I know what it’s like to be blamed for things that aren’t your fault,” she said quietly. “They did the same thing to me. I couldn’t let them destroy another person’s life.” We hugged, two strangers bound by a shared, bizarre trauma.
The aftermath was a whirlwind. The prosecutor apologized profusely. FBI agents got involved, revealing that the Petersons’ scheme was much larger than anyone realized. They had been moving between states, taking in foster children, and staging accidents for at least a decade. My case was the one that finally brought them down. I learned that my actions had saved the baby’s life; the fall from five stories would have been fatal otherwise. The baby was now in protective custody, and doctors were optimistic about his full recovery.
