If asked to describe the trial in one word (ish): anti-climax.
Sorry…that’s terrible. I suck at humor. I know this.
Moving on, I am guessing everyone has the same main thoughts. Here are mine:
1.) Two hours for the trial was fucking bullshit. Nowhere even close to enough time to have a meaningful exploration of the story. Didn’t have time to talk to Clayton. No closing. Nada. It was like a New Year’s Eve party that lasted from 8-10 PM. Who does that?
2.) The lack of time cut both ways. It unquestionably hurt both sides.
My personal biased view aside, the lack of time hurt Clayton’s side WAY more than it hurt ours. Our story was short and fairly basic. Did I get a chance to cover everything? Not even close. But we covered enough, and sometimes that’s all you need.
By comparison, Clayton’s approach was (and has always been) to try and drag WAAAAAAAAAY too much extraneous BS into the case. I don’t personally fault him for this. If he only limited our story to things that happened between May–Nov. 2023, this story is nowhere near as interesting. And boring stories don’t sell very well.
In my experience, simpler is almost ALWAYS better. Then again, Clayton’s efforts to expand the case may have been a goldmine for YouTubers making sweet SuperChat cheddar off each new video. Legally, throwing so much irrelevant dirt out there was a big, big tactical mistake (in my personal opinion).
My rule – if a story requires more than 10-15 seconds to present, you risk losing your audience. ALWAYS keep it simple. Go back to basics. That is more or less the approach I tried to use today (and for the record – I had about 100 pages of questions ready for everyone who did not testify….which I promptly threw out the window once the judge made it clear how little time we had).
3.) As a lawyer who has done this for 20+ years, my view is Laura is an outstanding witness. Given the pressure she was under, I couldn’t have asked her to do any better. Yes, the audience chuckle (GFY) seriously hurt Laura. But I am beyond proud of Laura for what she did today.
4.) My #1 thing is that I always, always, always want to get to the truth. Woodnick and Deandra clearly don’t share that view. This is just my personal opinion, but I feel they couldn’t care less about the truth, and that’s a shame.
5.) This really isn’t the time or place to air all my grievances, but let me give you one example of conduct that I feel is way across the line — Laura admitted that when she got the 102 HCG test from October 16, she knew it was bad news because it meant the pregnancy was in the process of ending (if it hadn’t already ended; it’s impossible to know for sure). In a moment of panic, she doctored the test to change the reading to 130,000 (or whatever), and she sent that to Mr. Neal because she thought it might shut him up.
Everyone SLAMS Laura for doing this, but not me. I compare it to this story from earlier this year where Princess Kate Middleton released a photoshopped image of her family after she had mysteriously dropped out of public view. She went missing because she was diagnosed with cancer, and she released a doctored photo as a way of trying to distract from that. The ruse worked for about 2 seconds before she was called out.
Laura’s 130,000 (or whatever) HCG test was done for a similar purpose. Laura ONLY sent that to folks like Dave Neal. She NEVER used it in court, and she didn’t fake the document for any malicious or nefarious purpose. She was just trying to regain some privacy (and yes, it was a DUMB way to do it). Seriously – Kate Middleton has a huge PR machine behind her, and she made the same mistake. Different, but the same.
My point is that Deandra dishonestly (in my opinion) tried to misrepresent the facts by claiming that Laura doctored the 130,000 (or whatever) HCG test twice.
NO, DEANDRA, SHE DID NOT, AND YOU KNOW THAT.
What happened is that when Deandra first asked Laura about the test (which originally said 102 on the genuine document), Laura said she changed it to something MUCH higher….and she threw out a figure like 102,000 (which makes sense). Deandra then showed her the actual (fake) document which clearly said a different number: 131902.
ANYONE who was following along understands exactly what happened — when Laura was asked to describe the fake version of the document, she didn’t have it in front of her. Based on her memory, she admitted changing it to a MUCH higher number (which is true). Laura said something like 102,000 (makes sense, given the true number was 102), but the actual figure on the document was 131902. Did Laura LIE? PERJURY! NO – Laura simply didn’t remember the exact figure (why would she, with everything else running through her mind?)
Deandra tried to twist that minor slip of memory to make it look like Laura created TWO versions of the fake document — one that said 102,000 and one that said 131902. Deandra must have repeated that dramatic point 3, 4, maybe 5 times.
But Deandra knew there were NOT two different versions of that document. She knew that for a fact (she knew this because there IS no version that says 102,000; if you have one, show it to me and I’ll apologize and buy you nachos).
Maybe in Deandra’s mind, trying to take advantage of a small mistake like this is fair game. I don’t agree….AT ALL. In my view, it’s dishonest. It’s trying to present a false impression that you KNOW is false.
But the truth is, ethically compromised lawyers ARE part of this profession….which is exactly why I refuse to walk away from this line of work. Because I want to do everything I can to help bring the truth to light, even if (and especially because) there are people like Deandra and Gregg out there trying to do the exact opposite.
6.) Dr. Medchill had a LOT more to say, but due to the time constraints, we had to limit his comments to only the stuff that mattered. And at the end of the day, Dr. Medchill told me over and over and over his view is exactly what he said — Laura WAS pregnant. NO QUESTION. She got pregnant, and the pregnancy failed….pretty early on. We can’t know exactly when, but every single data point we have lines up with that narrative. The ONLY data points that don’t line up are things that we know aren’t genuine (like the 131902 HCG reading). The PP sonogram isn’t part of that analysis because, as we all know, it can’t be verified…so we just don’t consider it.
But as for the objective facts we DO know are genuine, they ALL support Laura’s story. ALL of them. Literally every single one.
7.) Dr. Medchill had NO bias in this case. He never met Laura or her family prior to this case, and he wasn’t doing anyone a favor (he was not a friend of a friend of Laura’s family, or anything like that). He was paid for his time, and we disclosed EVERY detail of this to Woodnick without him even asking for it. Because transparency is important.
8.) At the end of the day, I am not going to make any predictions about how the court will rule. Once we get the ruling, I *might* offer some views about it….or I might not.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again — if I believe the court made a decision that’s legally incorrect, we will pursue an appeal. But because I don’t know what the judge is going to do, I’m not going to speculate about what the future looks like.
9.) Yes, Laura was upset when the audience laughed at her. I can’t believe how strong Laura was to sit there with a courtroom full of people just projecting HATE HATE HATE towards her. Laura is SUCH a good person….she just has been so unfairly portrayed in all this. I’ve gotten to know Laura extremely well over the last 2 21/2 months. She is nothing like what people think.
I also don’t think today was the cakewalk Clayton expected. When the trial ended, Clayton sat at his table looking like he was about to cry (he didn’t). On my way out the door, I did wish him well, and he returned the comment.
The fact is that trials are emotionally brutal for ALL parties. That’s why it’s called a TRIAL – because the experience is extremely difficult (a/k/a “trying”) for everyone.
10.) I didn’t have an opportunity to make a closing argument, so I’ll end this post with a few final thoughts.
Legal issues and arguments aside, my personal view is that BOTH Clayton and Laura need to learn from this. Move on to become better people. BOTH OF THEM.
BOTH of them made mistakes. BOTH of them did things they shouldn’t have. BOTH of them need to remember — to err is human, to forgive is divine.
SO, KIDS — stop fighting. You don’t have to kiss and make up, but Jesus — can’t you just let this go? (And that’s mostly a question for Clayton, since Laura tried to let this go 6 months ago).
Clayton and Laura are still both young. Laura (like any woman would) wants to have a family. She wants to be loved. She wants to be happy. I’m sure Clayton does, too.
We outsiders should not be focused on how to destroy either of them. We should focus on how we can help lift them both up, guiding them to be better people. No person is beyond salvation. Don’t care what they did yesterday. The question is – what will they do tomorrow?
At the end of the day, as everyone knows, I am a seriously imperfect person. All sorts of mistakes, many of which were WAY worse than anything Laura or Clayton did here.
But I learned from my mistakes. I OWNED THEM. I still own them. And I’ve grown, and moved on. And I’m proud of that fact.
One of the most powerful things any human can do is to accept your own flaws. Don’t fear them. USE THEM. Use your mistakes as a ladder you can climb up, not as an anchor that defines you and ties you to your past mistakes.
Make a mistake. Own it. Get up. Dust yourself off. Apologize (and mean it). Then move on…..and DON’T DO IT AGAIN.
Once this case is finally closed, the debate about whether justice was served will always linger. A court can rule that Laura was never pregnant, just like a court can say OJ Simpson didn’t murder his wife. Courts are funny like that. Everyone in the legal system tries their best to find the truth (well, most of us do). In the end, sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail.
But we always keep trying.
