MY HUSBAND PRESSED ON MY FRESH SURGICAL WOUND UNTIL IT BLED AND TOLD ME TO BLAME CANCER — BUT HE DIDN'T KNOW THE HOME NURSE WAS STILL IN OUR DRIVEWAY!

On Wednesday afternoon, the formal video-taped deposition of Nurse Clara Jenkins, RN, was conducted inside the United States Attorney’s Office in Alexandria.

Clara sat at the head of the conference table, wearing her crisp, clean nursing scrubs, her silver hair pinned neatly back, her hands resting calmly on the table.

Across from her sat Derek’s high-priced defense attorney, Jonathan Vance, sweating under the harsh conference room lights.

“Nurse Jenkins,” Vance began, trying to find a crack in her testimony, “is it not possible that Mrs. Miller’s incision was inadvertently strained by natural postoperative physiological reflex during emesis?”

Clara looked directly into the camera lens, her eyes sharp, analytical, and utterly devastating.

“Counselor, I have been a registered trauma and surgical nurse for thirty-four years,” Clara stated, her voice carrying the undeniable weight of four decades of clinical experience. “A tensile strain from vomiting produces diffuse, linear separation along the horizontal axis of the wound margins.”

She leaned forward, tapping a high-resolution photograph of the purple circular bruise on my side.

“This contusion,” Clara continued, “is a localized, concentric compression injury with focal dermal necrosis measuring exactly 2.2 centimeters in diameter—matching the anatomical profile of an adult human thumb delivering approximately twenty-five pounds of direct perpendicular pressure.”

She turned her gaze directly to Jonathan Vance.

“Your client did not assist his wife. He intentionally attempted to cause a surgical wound dehiscence to induce sepsis in an immunocompromised patient. I saw the blood. I heard his threats. And I will testify to those exact clinical facts in front of a jury of twelve American citizens.”