Alexis Martinez

She steps back as Alexis comes around the defense table.

Some Buddhist teachings justify taking human life on the grounds of compassion in dire circumstance.

One text says, Taking life is unreprehensible when it develops from a virtuous thought

Ada's only thought was that her son should die at peace, in the only place and with the only person he'd ever known, comforted and secured in her love, rather than lost and confused, alone among strangers.

There was no malice, no deceit, no attempt to cover up what she had done, because there was no crime committed

On the day Ada took Teddy's life, she believed fully and completely that what she was doing was not wrong.

In her mind, she was taking care of her son, just as she always had.

John Steinbeck wrote, Ada Wells lived with her son in such a room.

A room where none of us have ever been for 65 years.

Not because she had to, not out of obligation, but out of love.

And her final act for her son was out of love, too.

When did she die?

Sometime last night.

An autopsy's pending, but she'd probably been ill for several months.

She knew it was her time.

Was she alone?

Not completely.

She was in the garden.

Looked like she had just laid down and went to sleep in a big, hollowed-out spot, a little bigger than she was, where Teddy used to lay.

I was hoping you'd be here.