Denise Wallace Reveals Her Discussion With the Prosecutor From Her Father’s Trial

Prosecutor Marc Shiner

Near the end of the trial in Daddy’s Little Secret, I pulled the prosecutor, Marc Shiner, aside and confessed something about my father that I had never divulged to anyone. We were of opposing views from that point on. “Every little girl thinks her father’s scary,” he had told me, but I had not told him a story from when I had been a little girl–I had told him one from when I had been nineteen.

Shiner had listened to me and assessed the situation under the law. His hands were tied and there was nothing he could do, but he did say he would talk to my mother. He explained to me after the trial was over that she had denied being abused by my father. “Why do you think she doesn’t remember?” he asked me, not believing that that was really the case.

I continued to receive calls from Shiner long after I returned to California. He was extremely compassionate and supportive. I really had no one to talk to about losing my father and don’t know what I would’ve done without him then. Fifteen years later, we would speak once again. This time I would explain to him that I had written a book about my father’s murder and that it was going to be published the following year. “I just want you to know that you’re in it,” I explained.

“Well, I guess you got to do what you got to do,” Shiner responded. We then spoke about the Nathaniel Brazill case that he had argued right after my father’s. It had involved a thirteen year old boy who had shot and killed his favorite teacher. “Have you read anything about it?” Shiner asked.

I told him that I had actually just looked it up again. “I read that he’s having a pretty hard time in prison. But I guess that goes for all prisoners,” I said.

“Well, if they deserve to be there, you know?” Shiner commented, his words hovering for us both in the air.

“Yeah,” I agreed heavily.

“I just look for the truth,” he explained.

“So do I,” I said. We have that in common I believe, which is probably another reason we kept talking for so long after the trial. We are both of the same mold.

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