Final verdict

Nicaragua | American Eric Volz awaits an end to his case that U.S. friends—and U.S. officials—have so far been powerless to sway | Clint Rainey

MANAGUA, Nicaragua— Maggie Anthony is hoping for a Mother's Day victory party, but she doesn't expect one.

It was 3:56 p.m. in Nashville on Feb. 16—minutes after a verdict was read—when Maggie Anthony got a call that was supposed to end the nightmare she'd lived for 84 days. On the other end was Miami-based attorney Jacqueline Becerra, whose call was supposed to affirm that justice had prevailed in a Nicaragua courtroom. Maggie had been preparing a homecoming for her son, Eric Volz, imprisoned in Nicaragua for a crime he says he didn't commit.

But Becerra's call brought the one piece of news it wasn't supposed to: "It's a guilty verdict." Volz, 27, an American resident of Nicaragua who ran a bilingual magazine called El Puente—"The Bridge"—was first convicted on Thanksgiving Day of raping and murdering his ex-girlfriend, Doris Ivania Jiménez, 25. He would soon be sent to La Modelo, a max-security prison outside the capital city of Managua, to begin serving a sentence of 30 years.