Jerry Davich

Metro columnist

Lauren Thompson’s 10-year-old sister, Amelia Kissel, gently placed her head on her mother’s shoulder just before a judge issued a prison sentence to Thompson’s killer.

It was a tense moment , more than two years in the making, inside a crowded courtroom at the Porter County Courthouse in Valparaiso. As snow swirled outside the window of the third-floor courtroom on that bitter February day, Amelia Kissel looked to the back of the courtroom where I was taking notes.

She quickly recognized me from when we first met one week earlier with her family. Amid the tragic circumstances of the sentencing hearing, and the emotional tone of the victim impact statements, Amelia Kissel somehow managed to share a sweet smile.

It was such an endearing gesture that I wro

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