in 2017 anna maria cardona got a new trial, and i was corresponding with her for several years. i wasn't writing her all the time, but i would send an to occasional letter, and then she'd write back or she'd write two or three letters, and then i'd write back. and one of the things that she asked for after, you know, she let me have it because i wrote about her, then she did want me to write about her except there became very clear that she wanted to control the narrative. and she wanted me to go to her retrial, and i did. so she was being tried for murder again, but this time the death penalty was off the table. and as i sat in the trial after having this correspondence with her and feeling like there was enough evidence to prove that someone else was partially responsible, another womaned had confessed, i realized that she was lying. she got caught lying on the stand by the prosecutors three separate times. and i included a little bit of that too. because iat really wanted the reader to think about this idea of her that i had constructed in my head and how that sort of fell ap