Mary Ellen Finnerty is now on the stand. Has five kids. Married 29 years. Lives in Garden City, NY. Collin is the third of their five children. He’s the most shy and private of the five. “But I think over the past year he’s overcome some of that.” He’s “a big boy with a big heart,” religious, athletic.

I think his dream when he settled on lacrosse as his sport of choice was to attend Duke and play lacrosse there, “and we were all thrilled when that happened for him.
Now on to learning about the allegations. Knowing all the boys and knowing them well it was devastating to hear them falsely described. Learned he was going to be indicted on Easter weekend of 2006. Collin was home. Said they knew he was on a short list, hadn’t been excluded. Didn’t know how long that list was. By Easter Sunday it became clear he would probably be one of the boys.

They were advised to leave their home so they went into a hotel in New York, she, her husband and Collin and Collin’s girlfriend. On Monday they got the phone call. what effect on Collin? “It was far and away the hardest moment of mothering that I’ve ever had.” Her husband was writing on a pad and they were watching what he was writing. A short time later their lawyer called to confirm he had been indicted. “He let out a cry that I’ll never forget. He howled and just collapsed on the bed.”

But “we knew we had truth on our side and we had to be resolute. We were in the fight of our lives. We had to fight to save our son’s life. From that day on that was our job as parents.”

Whole family was overwhelmed with grief and they just rallied to their brother. Stuck together as a family and did everything we could to support him.

Collin spent the spring, summer and fall at home. He couldn’t go anywhere without being noticed. Didn’t try to get him enrolled fulltime because they didn’t know if there would be a trial. He lost a year of school. [More civil awards.]

Jean asks about when she learned about the other DNA that had been withheld. “It was shocking.” She said she was one of the ones who made an audible response. Says if Bannon hadn’t done what he did that day we’d probably be headed to trial right now. “I didn’t have a lot of confidence in it at that point,” she said of the NC justice system, but had confidence in their lawyers.

The day they were declared innocent: “It was an incredible moment for all of us. It was the answer to our prayers.” Did it make everything OK? “It certainly helped. No one can give any of the three families the 14 months they had gone through.” The fright of laying in bed at night thinking the boys could go to prison for 30 years for a crime they didn’t commit was unbearable.

Our lives will never be the same. “It will always be with all of us.” Did it change Collin’s personality? “I’m amazed at how well he handled this. I think I learned from him through this. I never saw him once lash out in anger. I think he became a strong person” and grew up through this. Says all the boys want to help ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.

No more questions. [Man, I was thinking Freedman would be an idiot to bring up Finnerty’s fighting charges in Georgetown. He didn’t.]