Cast
Judge: Tracey Savage
Prosecutor : Jeremy Nelson
Defense: Fingal Pollock
Mandy Mantis : April Phillips
Script : Bryan Bruce
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Judge: Mandy Mantidae Mantis you have been charged with murder how do you plead?
Mandy: zz.zzt ..Not guilty.
Judge: Proceed.
Prosecutor: Mandy Mantis, you have taken the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
Many: I have. I’m very religious – as anyone will tell you I’m often seen spontaneously praying.
Prosecutor: So.. you are one of the Praying Mantis’s is that correct?
Mandy: zz..zt. I am.
(Slight Pause – sound of lawyer shuffling papers)
Prosecutor: Please tell the Court what happened on the evening in question.
Mandy: zz..zzt..Well, it was a warm autumn night and I was on a tree branch just rubbing my forelegs together and chilling , as you do, when this guy came along and started dancing all around me.
Prosecutor: Did he introduce himself?
Mandy: No, but a lot of guys don’t. He just kept dancing all around me…He was a really really, good dancer. The kind you see on Strictly Come Grasshopper.
Prosecutor: So, what happened then?
Mandy: zz zzt..Well, there was something in the way he moved that got me all excited. I mean..God! I was hot for it.
Prosecutor: You were sexually aroused?
Mandy: Yes I was ..very .. and then..
Prosecutor: Go on…
Mandy: Well, he suddenly jumped on my back and we started doing it.
Prosecutor: Having sex?
Mandy: Yes
Prosecutor: And how did you react?
Mandy: It was very nice at first..really nice..I mean really,really really nice.. but then about half -way through something came over me and I just turned around and bit his head off.
Prosecutor: You bit his head off?… and then what did you do?
Mandy: I ate it.
(Sound of shocked jury muttering?)
Prosecutor : Was this a one off event? Or have you killed in this way before?
Mandy : Um.. I’d say about 20 times before.
(More jury muttering)
Defense lawyer: Objection! May I approach the bench your Honor.
Judge: You may.
Defense Lawyer: Your Honor this admission by my client is clearly having a most unsettling effect on the jury.. we will be calling a Professor of Entomology who will testify that family background issues have played a very large role in my client’s sexual behaviour. Her mother was a cannibal, her grandmother and Great grandmother were cannibals… she is one of 400 children and none of them knew who their fathers were … so I will be arguing in mitigation your Honor that while my client is filled with remorse, and she has been trying to change her ways, I submit she was not in control of her emotions at the time of the offence.
Judge: So, what’s your suggestion?
Defense: A reduced charge of Manslaughter your Honor with a sentence of home detention in the forest.
Judge: Very well. It is so ordered. (To the accused) Mandy Mantidae Mantis the Court agrees to a lesser charge of Manslaughter. Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?
(pause)
Mandy: zz zzt.…um.. Are you a good dancer your Honor ?
You can find out more about writer, producer,director, actor,singer, April Phillips here:
https://www.aprilphillips.com
Crime of Passion