The courtroom was full, but it felt hollow.

Rows of benches were packed with family members, friends, and strangers who had come not out of curiosity, but out of grief. Some held photos. Some held hands. Some stared straight ahead, afraid that if they looked down, the weight of why they were there would finally crush them.

Kristen Williams sat quietly, her body still, her heart anything but.

Just weeks earlier, her daughter had been alive. Laughing. Planning. Existing in the ordinary way young people do when they believe tomorrow is promised.

Now, Kristen was watching two men stand before a judge, formally charged with murder in the shooting that took her daughter’s life.

“I hope they get what they need to get,” she said later, her voice steady in a way that only comes after crying has already done its worst. “I just want justice.”

Her daughter’s name was Cori Marie May Watts.

She was twenty-two years old.

To the court, Cori was listed as a victim.

To her mother, she was still a child.

“I miss my baby every day,” Kristen said. “Every single day.”

She spoke of Cori’s spirit — the way she showed up for people, the way she gave without keeping score.

“She had a beautiful soul,” Kristen said. “She would do anything for anybody.”

Now, that generosity had been met with violence.

The charges laid out in court were long and heavy. Sixteen counts each against the two defendants — assault with intent to murder, open murder, armed robbery, and weapons charges. The words stacked on top of each other, each one more severe than the last.

But for the families sitting in that room, no number of charges could equal the loss.

Two lives had been taken that December night.

Cori’s.

And Joshua Fondren Jr.’s, twenty-five, who died at the scene.

Others survived — but with injuries that would follow them long after the courtroom emptied. Even a child had been caught in the chaos, grazed by a bullet, old enough to remember fear but too young to understand why it happened.

When prosecutors spoke, they did so carefully, methodically. They talked about parole status. Criminal histories. Flight risk. Prior convictions.

Necessary details.

But behind every sentence was an unspoken truth: this violence did not happen in a vacuum.

The assistant prosecutor stood firm when defense attorneys requested bond.

“This case is egregious,” she said. “We have significant loss of life. Significant injuries. Minor children involved. This is not a situation where public safety can be ensured.”

One of the defendants had been on parole at the time of the shooting. The other carried a criminal history so extensive it was hard to comprehend someone so young accumulating so many prior offenses.

Bond was denied.

Twice.

The judge’s decisions landed quietly but firmly, like a door closing — not with satisfaction, but with finality.

In the gallery, no one cheered. No one smiled.

Justice, when it comes wrapped in tragedy, does not feel like victory.

It feels like survival.

Afterward, Kristen Williams stood outside the courthouse, winter air biting at her face. Cameras waited. Microphones hovered. But all she carried with her was the same ache she had woken up with every morning since the shooting.

“I’m very lost,” she said softly. “I’m very lost without her.”

She paused, gathering herself.

“But I know she’s looking down,” she added. “She’s keeping us strong.”

It was not certainty. It was hope — the fragile kind grief leaves you with when everything else has been taken.

Cori’s final moments replayed endlessly in her mother’s mind.

“Her last words were, ‘Please don’t kill me,’” Kristen said.

Words no parent should ever have to imagine.

Words that echo in the quiet hours, long after court proceedings end and headlines move on.

The shooting itself had been sudden and violent. What was supposed to be an ordinary night became irreversible in seconds. A robbery, according to court documents. Guns. Jewelry. Money. Lives reduced to transactions.

But Cori had not known the men accused of killing her. Her mother made that clear.

“She didn’t know them,” Kristen said. “She didn’t deserve this.”

No one did.

As investigators pieced together what happened, the community tried to do what communities do when tragedy hits close to home — they showed up.

Messages poured in. Prayers. Meals. Donations.

A GoFundMe was created to help cover funeral expenses, because even in grief, practical burdens don’t pause. Bills still come. Costs still exist. Loss does not exempt anyone from the realities of life.

And yet, people gave.

Because Cori mattered.

Because Joshua mattered.

Because families left behind deserve to grieve without drowning in logistics.

The prosecutor later explained that the defendants’ incarceration on parole violations had given authorities time — time to build a thorough case, time to gather evidence, time to ensure that charges were not rushed, but right.

It was a measured explanation, offered with professional calm.

But for Kristen, time felt different now.

Time was something that used to be full — filled with phone calls, plans, laughter, moments that felt ordinary.

Now, time was empty space.

She spoke of her daughter not as a victim, but as a presence that still lingered.

“She would help anybody,” she repeated. “Anybody.”

That was how she wanted Cori remembered — not for how she died, but for how she lived.

In the days following the arraignment, the families returned home to a new version of normal. One where bedrooms stayed untouched. Phones stayed silent. Chairs at tables remained empty.

The legal process would continue. Hearings in February. Motions. Arguments. A long road toward whatever justice could realistically mean.

But grief does not follow court calendars.

It does not wait for verdicts.

It settles in quietly and rearranges everything.

Kristen said some days were harder than others. Some days she felt numb. Some days she felt everything at once.

What kept her moving forward, she said, was the belief that Cori’s life mattered beyond the violence that ended it.

That her name would not be reduced to a case number.

That her story would be told with care.

Because behind every headline about charges and arraignments are people who loved deeply — and are now learning how to live with absence.

“I miss my baby every day,” Kristen said again.

And in those five words lived an entire universe of loss.

A mother without her daughter.

A family without its laughter.

A community marked by another wound.

Justice, if it comes, will come slowly.

But love — love remains immediate.

And in the quiet moments, when the courtroom is empty and the cameras are gone, that love is what carries families like Kristen Williams’ forward — one breath, one memory, one day at a time.