“SHE IS MENTALLY SICK” MY MOM SCREAMED IN COURT. I STAYED SILENT. THE JUDGE LOOKED AT HIM AND ASKED: “DO YOU TRULY HAVE NO IDEA WHO SHE IS?” HER ATTORNEY FROZE. MOM’S FACE WENT PALE. “WAIT… WHAT?”…PART2
I drove home that night feeling something I had not felt in weeks. Hope. Not just hope that I would win, but hope that there might be some justice in the world after all. Cameron was waiting at my apartment when I got back. He had brought Thai food from the place I like on Silver Spring Drive. the one that makes the paneang curry too spicy, but I order it anyway.
He said he had been thinking. He said he was sorry for what he had said about smoke and fire. He said he had let his parents get in his head, and that was not fair to me. I showed him the journal. I showed him the bank records. I showed him the forged notoriization and the pattern with Theodore’s mother. He read everything in silence.
When he finished, he looked at me with an expression I had never seen before. It was not pity. It was not even anger on my behalf. It was respect. He asked me what I needed him to do. I said I needed him to be in that courtroom. I needed him to see who I really was when I was working. He said he would not miss it for anything.
The night before the hearing, I drove to Oaklair one more time. I parked outside the cemetery where my grandmother is buried, but I did not get out of the car. I just sat there in the dark looking at the snow on the headstones, thinking about everything she had taught me. Paper trails do not lie. People can twist the truth, but numbers are honest.
Tomorrow, the numbers were going to speak for themselves. March 14th, Milwaukee County Courthouse, 8:47 in the morning. I arrived early because that is who I am. I wore a navy blazer, not because my mother had posted about choosing one on Instagram, though I did find that amusing when I checked. I wore it because it was professional and unremarkable.
I was not there to make a statement. I was there to win. The courtroom was smaller than the ones I usually testified in. Room 412, fourth floor, reserved for probate matters and guardianship hearings. Not a lot of spectators for this kind of case. Cameron sat in the back row with two of my colleagues from the firm who had heard about what was happening and wanted to show support.
Caroline sat next to me at the respondents table, her briefcase full of documents that my mother did not know existed. Daisy arrived at 9:02 fashionably late. She wore the navy blazer from her Instagram post and pearl earrings that I recognized as my grandmother’s. She must have taken them during one of her visits.
Somehow that detail made me angrier than everything else combined. Theodore walked behind her, his face set in an expression of practiced concern. He was playing the supportive husband, the man who just wanted what was best for everyone. He nodded solemnly at the judge’s bench as he took his seat. Merlin came in last.
She did not look at me. She did not look at anyone. She sat at the far end of the bench behind the petitioner’s table and stared at her hands. Bradley Fenwick shuffled papers and checked his phone one more time before the judge entered. He still looked like a kid playing dress up in his father’s suit. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. All rise.
The Honorable Patricia Kowalchic presiding. Judge Kowaltic entered and took her seat. She put on her reading glasses and looked at the case file in front of her. Then she looked up at the petitioner’s table. Then she looked at me. I saw the moment of recognition, a slight narrowing of the eyes, a small tilt of the head.
She did not say anything, but I knew she knew. Bradley began his opening statement. He spoke for about 12 minutes. He painted a picture of a concerned mother who had been estranged from her daughter due to family conflict, but who had never stopped caring. He described my grandmother as a vulnerable elderly woman who had beenisolated and manipulated.
He presented my teenage therapy records as evidence of a pattern of mental instability. He never once mentioned what I did for a living. He never researched me beyond the basics. He assumed that an accountant was just an accountant. When he finished, Judge Kowaltic asked if the petitioner wished to make a personal statement. Daisy stood.
She smoothed her blazer. She spoke calmly at first about her concern for me. Her worry that my grandmother’s final wishes were not being honored properly. Then something shifted. Her voice rose. She pointed directly at me and said that I was mentally sick, incompetent, that I had always been unstable and should never be allowed to control anyone’s finances, let alone inherit from the woman I had supposedly manipulated.
I did not flinch. I did not react. I kept my hands folded on the table and waited. Judge Kowalchick watched my mother’s outburst without any change in expression. Then she turned to Bradley Fenwick and asked a simple question. Counselor, do you truly have no idea who this woman is? The woman your client just called mentally incompetent.
Bradley looked confused. He checked his notes. She is an accountant, your honor. She works for a firm in Milwaukee. The judge looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned to Caroline. Caroline stood. She did not give a speech. She simply said that we would like to present evidence that would reframe the court’s understanding of this case. Judge Kowaltic nodded.
Caroline opened her briefcase. She handed a copy of the evidence package to the clerk who handed it to Bradley. She gave another copy to the judge. She began with the bank records. She walked through the timeline of withdrawals, $47,850 over 11 months. Seven withdrawals, each one within 3 days of a documented visit from Daisy Hollister.
Bradley’s face did not change at first. He was still expecting some kind of trick. Then Caroline presented the power of attorney document. She pointed out the notary stamp. She presented the retirement records of Ray Gustoson showing that he had surrendered his notary commission in October 2019. The document was dated March 2024. Bradley’s face went pale.
Caroline presented the journal. She read selected entries aloud. My grandmother’s voice from beyond the grave, explaining exactly what had been done to her. The shame she felt, the confusion, the fear. I watched my mother’s face as Caroline read. Daisy’s expression cycled through confusion, then shock, then something that looked almost like indignation.
She was not ashamed of what she had done. She was angry that she had been caught. Theodore’s face was harder to read. He sat very still like a man who has been through this before and knows when the game is over. Caroline finished with the pattern. Theodore’s mother, the suspicious financial activity, the money that had disappeared.
She noted that the FBI had been notified and was opening an investigation into possible wire fraud and mail fraud charges. When she sat down, the courtroom was silent. Judge Kowaltic looked at Bradley. She asked if he had anything to say in response. Bradley asked for a brief recess. The judge granted it.
I watched Bradley walk over to Daisy. He leaned down and whispered something in her ear. I could not hear what he said, but I could see her reaction. Her face went from angry to confused to pale. He was telling her who I was, what I did for a living, how many times I had testified in this very courtroom.
She looked at me then for the first time in 19 years. My mother really looked at me. I did not smile. I did not gloat. I just looked back at her and waited. When court resumed, Bradley stood and announced that his client wished to withdraw her petition. Judge Kowaltic shook her head. She said that given the evidence presented, she was not prepared to simply dismiss the matter.
She said she was referring the case to the district attorney’s office for potential criminal charges. She said she was also forwarding the evidence to the FBI field office in Milwaukee for their ongoing investigation. She looked at my mother one more time. Then she looked at me and said the petition was denied with prejudice.
It was over in less than two hours. No dramatic confrontation, no screaming, just evidence presented clearly and a judgment delivered quietly. That is how justice actually works. not with explosions, but with paper trails. Before I finish this story, I want to say something from my heart. If you have stayed with me this far, thank you truly.
If you enjoyed this story, please hit that subscribe button and leave a like. It means everything to me and it helps me keep sharing these stories with you. Now, let me tell you what happened after that day in court. The FBI moved faster than I expected. Special Agent Tina Morales, a woman in her 40s with a handshake like a vice grip, called me three days after the hearing.
She had reviewed the evidence package. She hadpulled Theodore’s financial history going back 15 years. She had found patterns I had not even discovered yet. Theodore and Daisy Hollister were arrested on April 2nd. Federal charges, wire fraud, mail fraud, financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult. The indictment was 18 pages long.
The investigation into Theodore’s mother’s estate was reopened. The forensic accountants found over $200,000 in unexplained transfers in the three years before her death. Geraldine Hollister had owned her home outright, had a healthy pension, and had saved carefully her whole life. By the time she died, there was nothing left.
Theodore had done this to his own mother and then he had taught his wife how to do it to mine. Merlin testified for the prosecution. She told them everything she knew about her father’s finances, his methods, his temper. In exchange for her cooperation, she received immunity from prosecution.
I do not know if that was fair, but I know she was as much his victim as anyone else. The trial lasted 2 weeks. I did not attend most of it. I had already given my testimony and I had cases of my own to work on, but I was there for the verdict. Daisy Hollister was found guilty on four counts. She was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison.
She will serve at least four before she is eligible for parole. She was ordered to pay full restitution of $47,850 plus interest plus penalties. Theodore Hollister was found guilty on seven counts. He received 6 and 1/2 years to be served at a federal facility in Minnesota. His laundromats were seized and liquidated.
The money went to his creditors and to restitution for his victims. Their house was sold at auction. The country club membership had already been revoked for unpaid dues months before the trial. Every piece of the life they had built on stolen money was dismantled and scattered. I received a letter from my mother about 2 months after her sentencing. I did not open it.
I gave it to Caroline who read it and told me it was six pages of excuses and self-pity without a single genuine apology. She asked me if I wanted to respond. I said no. Some paper trails are not worth following. My grandmother’s estate was finally settled in July. I kept the house in Oaklair. I could not bring myself to sell it.
Cameron and I go there some weekends when we need quiet. We drink coffee on the porch where she used to sit with her checkbook on Sunday mornings. I kept her journal too, not as evidence anymore. That part is over. I kept it because it is the last thing she ever wrote, it is her voice preserved on paper, reminding me that even when she was scared and ashamed and confused, she never stopped fighting for me.
Cameron proposed in October. He did it at the Olive Garden on Route 9 in Wauaaw where we had our first date 5 years ago. The food is not spectacular, but the bread sticks are unlimited and the memories are good. I said yes. My grandmother would have liked him, I think. She always told me I needed someone steady, someone who would not run when things got hard.
My firm reinstated me the week after the court hearing. My boss apologized personally for ever doubting me. My first case back was an 84 year old woman in Kenosha whose nephew had stolen $89,000 from her retirement account. We got every penny back and he got four years. Some people think revenge is about anger, about hurting the people who hurt you.
But that is not what it is. Not really. Revenge is about balance. It is about making sure that the people who think they can take whatever they want from whoever they want learn that the world does not work that way. It is about proving that patience and integrity and careful documentation will always beat cruelty and greed.
My mother thought I was weak because I was quiet. She thought I was broken because I did not fight back immediately. She thought she could take everything from me because she had gotten away with taking things before. She forgot that I was raised by a woman who kept receipts.
