The State Verses Derek Morgan Ch 52
Hotch looked at Derek and said, "are you ready?", he nodded his head and said, "as ready as I'm ever gonna be", Hotch said, "for our final witness we would like to call the defendant Derek Michael Morgan". After he was sworn in Hotch said, "Derek, I need for you to please tell the court what you remember from then night that you were arrested", Derek nodded his head and sat back in the seat as he readied to start talking.
Derek said, "we had just gotten back from a case, we'd been gone for over a week or closer to two weeks so we all went out to a bar and had some drinks and got caught up with baby girl, I mean Penelope Garcia". Hotch glanced at the jury, they were hanging on Derek's every word, they could tell he was being truthful and honest about everything that had happened and they sat waiting for Derek to continue.
Derek then said, "the next thing I remember was getting into a cab with Penelope and then waking up some time later with police officers all over the place with their guns pointed in my face". Derek then told about how the officers kept asking him over and over what had happened and he kept telling them that he couldn't remember.
He then told of how he got sick and had to run to the door to throw up and when the officers practically half dragged half carried him back to the bed he saw a gurney and on that gurney was a body bag. He said, "I asked who was in the body bag and I was told that it was Penelope and when I heard that I, I couldn't believe it, they had to be wrong, they just had to be but I remember getting up and staggering my way to the gurney where I unzipped the bag only to see Penelope's dead body there".
Tears were now streaming down his cheeks again as he said, "and when I, and when I asked who did that to her, the officers, well they said it was me but I could never hurt her, she was the love of my life, I would never hurt her much less kill her". Mia glanced over at the jury, it was obvious that they were believing every word he was saying so Hotch said, "okay Derek can you tell me what your blood test results were?", Derek nodded his head yes.
He then said, "they said that my blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit and that I had LSD and Mescaline in my system and those levels were really high", Hotch said, "can you tell me how long it took for the drugs to get out of your system?", Derek said, "around 72 hours I believe it was".
When Hotch was through with Derek the prosecution didn't have any questions for him so Cindy said, "thank you Mr. Morgan you can step down", Derek nodded his head and walked back over and sat between Hotch and Mia. Cindy said, "alright does the defense have anything to add?", Derek stood and said, "no mam, the defense rests".
At the BAU Shane said, "it's Penelope, she's alive, we've got to go get her Reid", Reid nodded his head and glanced at his watch, he said, "nobody has sent me a message or text so I don't know" and then Shane said, "call somebody, call, well we can't call the team, not yet, call, oh yeah call the director".
Reid picked up the office phone and asked to be connected to she director and after a few seconds he had the directors secretary, Reid said, "this is Spencer Reid, I need to speak to the director, it's a matter of life and death, please tell him we've found her, we've found Penelope.
n just a matter of a few seconds the director said, "you found Penelope?", Reid said, "yes sir, we're looking at her right now, she's at Charles Blake's house, she's in what looks like a root cellar". The director smiled and said, "what are you waiting on agent, get some agents from the bullpen and go get her, go get Penelope", Reid said, "sir, yes sir" and ended the call and turned to Shane and said, "what are we waiting on let's go get her".
Shane stood up followed Reid downstairs where he motioned to about 10 agents to follow him and Shane and when they asked why he simply smiled and said, "because we've found Penelope". That was all they needed to hear, they stood up and fell in line behind Reid and Shane as they made their way toward the elevator and it didn't take long before they were filling SUV's and heading out of the FBI parking structure.
As they hit the road Reid said, "I'll send Hotch a message" and Shane said, "let's wait till we get her out safe and sound first", Reid nodded his head and said, "okay" because that did make sense after all, they needed to get her out first and make sure that she was alright before they notified anybody that they'd found her alive.