User:St1995

User:Shannon Terwilliger/Draft of Plain Truth

Plot summary
Katie Fisher, an eighteen year-old Amish girl living in Paradise, Philadelphia, is accused of murdering her new born baby whom she does not recall giving birth to. She denies giving birth, being pregnant, and also conceiving the child to her family, friends, and the authorities in charge of the case. Hours after the birth, Katie is rushed to the hospital by Detective Lizzie, who notices "a small stream of blood running down her leg." Hours before Katie arrives at the hospital, the doctors can prove that Katie gave birth from the observations and reports by the OB/GYM. "I did not have a baby!" Kate squeals when asked if she had a child or was impregnated.

After the autopsy of the newborn baby, they discover that there is blue fiber strands in the child's lungs and esophagus from the Men's shirt he was wrapped in. Providing evidence that the baby is suffocated after birth. The doctors further investigate into the other possibilities of the death. Such as an infection due to the Katie's liver. It is an extremely rare infection from bacteria in unpasteurized milk.

Lawyer and distant cousin, Ellie Hathaway, takes charge in protecting Katie in the courthouse. During the opening of the case Ellie is forced to move into the Fishers' home and sleep in Katie's bedroom so that Katie would not have to break her religion by going to jail. Through ups and downs in Katie and Ellie's relationship, they start to understand each other, as woman, partners, and friends, while living on the Fisher's Amish dairy Farm.

Ellie upturns the stones to the Fisher Family's past and the secrets that lie underneath them. Such as Katie's childhood. Ellie uncovers that there is another girl in the Fisher family. Katie had once had a younger sister, Hannah, who drowned in the pond one winter while ice skating. Ellie discovers Katie has an older brother, Jacob, is put on "bann" for wanting to continue his education. He is later excommunicated and disowned by their father when he moves to the State College.

Katie visits him, as much as twice a month, where she replaces her "Knapp" with jeans and a tee shirt. Katie learns the ways of the "Englischers", such as going to the movies, leaning their social lives, and the education that is provided for them. She meets people like Adam Sinclair, who becomes her "Englischer" Friend. Adam is Jacob's landlord and a student teacher at the State University.

One of Katie's best Amish Friends is Samual. He works on the Fisher's Dairy farm and has been friends with Katie for years. Lately Katie and Samual have had the ideas and plans for getting married that following November. Since the trial Katie and Samual has been drifting apart, knowing that Katie's Mended heart does not belong to Samual anymore, and the newborn baby is not his. The wedding plans are put on a slight hold until everything cleared up.

During the trial detectives trace out the newborn's father, who is not Samual's, or any of the Amish boys in town, but it is Adam's child. During the pregnancy, the birth, and the trial, Adam is out of the country, until Ellie's long time friend, Cooper, calls Adam to tell him that he is a father. He leaves out that the baby dies after the birth and Katie is accused of murdering the newborn. When Adam first hears the news that he is going to be a father he is ecstatic, but when he is told that the baby dies he resents the idea. In the trial, without Katie's consent, Ellie calls Adam to the witness stand. Katie starts to cry while she watches the father of her baby walk into the room, after not seeing him in over a year. Not knowing how the trial will turn out. Ellie and Katie agree to make an agreement with the judge. They come to the conclusion that Katie was to be put under house arrest for a number of months. The agreement was made, not even knowing what the jury thought and if they called her as being guilty or non guilty, since there are two main questions that were still unanswered. Who took the scissors and twine from the birthing stall, and who took the baby out of Katie's arms and wrapped him in the mans tee shirt and placed the baby under the horse blankets.

While thanking Ellie as Katie's trial was being put on a close, Sarah pulls Ellie aside handing her the scissors, and the twine that were missing from the crime scene. In utter shock Ellie feels betrayed and confused knowing that Sarah knew that Katie was pregnant and that she had a baby in the birthing stall. Sarah was the one to remove the baby from Katie's arms, not Katie. Katie was a completely innocent teenage girl that broke the rule of letting your heart and your feelings of love to go far as to sleep with a man.

Characters

 * Katie: 18 Year old Amish girl accused of murder of her Newborn, she is struck by love.


 * Ellie: over achiever lawyer that is living in a midlife crises of boy trouble.


 * Sarah: Katie's protective, Amish, mother that loves and cares for life.


 * Aaron: Katie's overly struck Amish father that only believes in his Amish Religion


 * Jacob: bother of Kate that grew up Amish but was Excommunicated when wanted to continue his education


 * Adam: father of Katie's baby, moved to Scotland to continue with his career for ghost hunting.


 * Samual: farm help at Fisher's farm, Katie's long time boyfriend and best friend.


 * Leda: Katie's aunt, left the church so she could marry a non-Amish man.


 * Levi: helper to Aaron at the Fisher's Dairy farm


 * Steven: Ellie's boyfriend of seven years, now ex-boyfriend.


 * Elem: Katie's Grandfather that works at the Fisher's Dairy Farm.


 * Lizzie: is the detective that was called when the crime was committed


 * Cooper: boyfriend of Ellie and an old friend from college


 * George: person protecting the rights of the murdered newborn.


 * Judge Phil Ledbetter: the judge in charge of the murder case

Reception
The Plain Truth can be located on the Trade Fiction and New York Times Best Sellers lists. Based on then interest of the Amish Community and family relations, Judy Picoult, writers about the life of Katie Fisher. An Amish girl that is accused of the murder of her new born infant and growing up on an Amish farm in an Amish Comminity. The novel, Plain Truth, is "Thrilling", "Captivating", and "Attention grabbing" with a twist of and ending to finish it all off. "A Witness-meets-Agnes of God courtroom thriller… both absorbing and affecting." "Appealing, suspenseful… Reads like a cross between the Harrison Ford movie Witness and Scott Turow's novel Presumed Innocent, with a dose of television's The Practice thrown in to spice up the legal dilemmas."