Beth Shelburne

Marika was accused of being the woman who participated in the crime, but she says she wasn't there.

It was someone else.

A jury found Marika not guilty, but the ordeal left lifelong scars.

The woman Marika is referring to is the witness who testified against her, a neighbor of the victim, who said she'd seen the crime unfold from her living room window at 2 a.m.

She told the jury she saw Marika and two other people break down the victim's door and assault him.

The woman's name?

Violet Ellison.

So do you remember Violet Ellison?

I remember her getting up there saying she's seeing me through the window.

Marika's attorneys showed the jury that Violet Ellison's view from her living room window was blocked by a tree.

There was no possible way she could have seen Marika or anyone else on her neighbor's porch.

Violet Ellison testified against Marika less than four months after she served as the star witness against Taforist Johnson.

Their trials happened in the same year, in the same courthouse, prosecuted by the same DA's office.

In both cases, Violet Ellison knew the victim, spoke to detectives, and became a lead witness.

Mara and I find ourselves in Marika Wilson's living room a few weeks after I made a lucky discovery in Alabama's database of online court records.

One afternoon, I'm sitting in my office poking around in the database.

It's a clunky website with all these different drop-down menus.

I'm running searches on Violet Ellison's name, trying her name in a bunch of different ways, getting the same results.

When all of a sudden, I hit enter and bloop, a new list pops up.

Criminal cases all naming Violet Ellison as a state's witness.