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attacked herself by an intruder. But just as my opinion of her innocence was already formed, I suspected that at the time of the trial the investigators’ opinion of her guilt was pretty firm.
    The investigator on the stand went on to testify that there was no sign of forced entry into the Millers’ home, and no other evidence to indicate that an intruder had entered that night. What’s more, the kitchen knife that had been used to murder Noah had only her fingerprints on it, and some of those fingerprints were bloody, but others were not. The lab reported that a few of the fingerprints on the blade appeared “older” and a bit “smudged,” indicating the knife had come from the family home and had likely been used both before (i.e., in the kitchen as a utility knife) and during the murder.
    Witnesses came forward testifying to Skylar’s personal struggles with alcohol. Former friends and family lined up to state that Skylar was a fairly peaceful person when she was sober, but when she drank, she was verbally abusive and quick-tempered. Video was introduced at her trial depicting her destroying several hundreddollars’ worth of merchandise at a liquor store after being denied service due to obvious signs of intoxication.
    Her ex-husband testified that when Noah was just a toddler, he’d come home to find Skylar passed out on the couch while their son wandered the house without supervision. He reported that there were multiple times when Skylar had been neglectful of their son, and after the incident in which he’d witnessed her passed out and Noah unsupervised, he’d left Skylar, filing for divorce and asking for sole custody. He’d been granted that in 1998, just before Skylar went to prison for multiple DWI convictions.
    She was out of jail a year later, sober and apparently working to get her life back on track. She had completed an intense stay in rehab, was a nightly regular at her AA meetings, worked two jobs, and went back to court to win supervised visitation time with Noah. She was granted that, then allowed unsupervised time. During that time, Skylar was visited several times by a social worker, who would show up at her door unannounced and interview Noah to make sure he was being well cared for. The social worker then made recommendations to the court, and Skylar’s visitation was increased from one night per week to one night, plus every other weekend.
    Along the way Skylar completed her twelve steps, sponsored a few other AA members, went back to school, got her two-year degree, and began work as a medical biller. She did well enough to be able to support herself and work from her apartment, even saving up sufficient money to make a down payment on a home in East Austin. Finally, in October 2003 she must’ve found a
very
sympathetic judge because, in a move that reportedly stunned everyone, she was granted physical custody of Noah and he moved in with her permanently.
    A year later, Noah was dead.
    In their efforts to paint Skylar as the killer, the prosecution claimed that Skylar had fallen off the wagon and her son had discovered his mother’s drinking and probably threatened to tell his father. At the time, Skylar had been receiving a monthly support check from her ex, and it was a pretty good chunk of change. The prosecutor painted the picture of a drunken, abusive mother, who, fearing that a primary source of income was in jeopardy, lashed out at her nine-year-old son in a fit of drunken rage. Grabbing a knife from the kitchen, she’d stabbed Noah to death, then staged the mad dash to her neighbor’s house, where she’d invented the story of the intruder to cover up her crime.
    The most damning testimony had come from Skylar’s own mother, who’d all but nailed her daughter to the cross when she’d testified for the prosecution, stating that she’d worried for Noah’s safety from the moment Skylar was given full