Talissa Siganto

There was one thing that did set the two cases apart.

For Jonathan's murder, we spoke about the fact that there was this claimed eyewitness, Marie's daughter, Tara Crabtree.

We've already gone through just how that evidence was pulled apart during the first trial.

And in the end, that wasn't enough to convince a jury that she was guilty of

So when it came to Erin's case, there was no alleged eyewitness, so prosecutors would have just been solely relying on circumstantial evidence, which can be tricky, not impossible by any means, but in a setting where they've already failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a murder occurred with one child, with Jonathan, they've determined it was probably going to be the same outcome if they took the second murder charge to trial.

Effectively.

I mean, you have to remember there's so many different things that a jury has to take on board when it comes to a trial.

We just talked about having to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

And in the case with Jonathan, it was put to the jury that, you know, he was a depressed, suicidal person.

addict of pain medication.

So there was still a likelihood that he may have killed himself intentionally or accidentally.

And in the case with his sister, Erin, there were some similarities there where she was also someone who had spoken about self-harm before and was also someone who was taking prescription pain medications for illnesses that she had.

So

it was very likely that Marie would take the same, if not similar, defences to another trial.

So what it comes down to is legal fairness.

Marie was committed to trial on Erin's murder at the same time she was committed to trial for Jonathan's murder.

And at one point, those two trials were severed, so we had to treat the two charges separately.

We've already spoken about the fact that Marie has vigorously denied these allegations since the moment she was arrested.

During her son's murder trial, we obviously couldn't report that she was also facing another set of charges that were almost identical.

Because that jury could have taken that to mean she must be guilty.