The harsh fluorescent lights of the state prison hearing room buzzed with a dull, annoying sound. The air inside the small, windowless office felt heavy, dry, and suffocating.

Rows of hard wooden benches sat empty except for two women dressed in rough, scratchy orange prison jumpsuits.

Nora Sterling sat on the left side of the bench. Her once beautiful blonde hair was now completely gray and tied back in a messy, careless knot. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles of stress, her skin looked pale and sickly, and her eyes were sunken from months of sleepless nights on a thin prison mattress.

Beside her sat her stepdaughter Chloe, who...