Keith Morrison

To get to the courthouse, Michelle's parents had to make the same two-hour drive Michelle took on her last day, an emotional journey on the Antelope Valley Freeway, cresting it over 3,000 feet through the Soledad Pass, before descending into the L.A.

Basin.

And then they had to find parking and wait for notoriously crowded courthouse elevators.

And then were met by deputies with metal detectors.

Mike O'Keefe.

Just getting to the courtroom after you got down there took, you know, 30 to 45 minutes every day.

Besides the time that you spend in the courtroom, you've got six plus hours a day just, you know, dealing with the commuting part of it.

And it just really took its toll.

In fact, it had been eight years since an excited 18-year-old Michelle helped make that music video just across downtown of the grand old Olympic Auditorium.

When Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson called the courtroom to order.

L.A.

courtrooms are a world away from the Antelope Valley where Michelle was killed and where Michael Blake, the prosecutor, usually worked.

At the time, right or wrong, downtown L.A.

juries had gained something of a reputation for being defense-friendly.

Difficult for prosecutors.

I asked Blake about that.

If you were to take the popular conception of what it does to a case to move it to L.A.

and give it to an L.A.

jury, then most of the country would say, oh, you poor sap.

You're stuck with an L.A.