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I let the jury take a moment to digest his statement before continuing. “Mr. Hensley, where were you the day of the explosion?” The jurors sit straighter, their ears pinging at my question.
A storm of emotions shifts through his eyes, a current of pain he’ll forever bear. “I was at the front of the site. There was some sort of hold up that morning. Clifford Winters and one of Benjamin’s watchdogs were arguing. Clifford came from the pit saying it smelled off. He’d also been at the mill with me and was familiar with gases. Told the man they needed to send someone to check it out. The man threatened Clifford’s job if he didn’t get back to work. Clifford refused, and they started to get physical. Before any fists were swung, the floor shook beneath us, and then the ground exploded.”
Phillip pauses, and I take two steps closer to the stand, giving him my silent support. “And then what happened?”
He swallows, struggling to find the words to explain the travesty he lived through. “The explosion knocked us three off our footing. When I lifted myself off the ground, my eyes were struck with horror. A ball of flames shooting from the center of the site. The screaming. So much screaming. Like a whistle in the wind, carrying the shrieking voices of men everywhere. Clifford was up and running toward the disaster. I screamed for him not to get closer, but he didn’t listen. His sons…his two sons were down there.” Phillip’s voice breaks, his hand going to his mouth to hide the choked sob.
“Mr. Hensley, can you tell the jury what you saw next?”
Tears fall down his frail cheeks, his hand wiping at his scarred face, third degree burns forever etched in his skin. “I ran too. I got close enough until the flames were too much. So many bodies. Men on fire running in all directions. Men succumbing to the flames and collapsing to their death. Samuel, my best…my best friend since grade school, he pulled himself from the rubble. He was burned, flames covered his back. I threw my shirt off and tried to put out the flames, but it was no use.”
“Did Samuel survive?”
“No. He died in front of me that day.”
“Thank you. I know that was hard to relive.” I shift toward the jury. “Lives, thirty-four of them to be exact, died along with Samuel Gunner that day. Eleven men. Twenty-four, barely eighteen years of age. Children. All hired illegally under the hands of Benjamin Miller. A suicide mission to benefit his pocketbook.” I adjust my body and point to Benjamin Miller. “The man who sits in front of us knew the risks of breaking ground, the risk of disturbing uninhabitable land. What would have happened if that building had been fully developed? How many other innocent lives would have been lost if something, say a simple shift in the earth, triggered that natural gas? Should we ask the businessman who only cared about the dollar signs? A ruthless entrepreneur who not only walked away without a care, but tried to cover up his wrongdoings with blackmail, taking more lives.”
I take a short pause to let those words settle in, then turn to Phillip. “Mr. Hensley, after the incident, what came of your healthcare?”
A lifetime of sorrow weighs heavily on his shoulders, a sadness ripping through the courtroom and felt by all. “It all but stopped. My Virginia is with God now.”
“No further questions, your honor.”
“Can you state your name for the record?”
“Sherman Wilson.”
I face the jury. “Sherman Wilson, forty-two years old. Married to Bethany Wilson for twenty-five years. He’s a father to thirteen-year-old daughter, Sylvie, who was diagnosed with severe autism spectrum disorder at three, and seven-year-old, Becca, diagnosed at age two with high functioning Asperger’s. You all can imagine the journey these two parents have endured raising two amazing, unique children on a labor man’s salary.” I pause for a moment before bringing my focus to Sherman. “Mr. Wilson, can you tell the jury where you were the day of the explosion?”
The burly man stretches his neck to make eye contact with Benjamin Miller. The two men battle in a stare down. Anger. Loss. Regret. They shine in Sherman’s eyes as he recalls that day. “I was on site. I was in the pit breaking up a dispute between some of the veteran crew and the kids.”
“By kids, do you mean the younger laborers?”
“Yes, sir. Kids. They were barely legal to work on a site like that. Just the day before, a kid lost control of the skid-steer loader, sending a man to the hospital. Drilled into the wrong area and hit a crewman, slicing his leg right off.” There’s an intake of breath from the jury as Sherman builds them a gruesome mental picture.
