Welcome to Trial Diary.  The purpose of this site is to facilitate dialogue on the legal world amongst laymen, stimulating, hopefully, increased interest in the law amongst regular people (by which we mean people not already employed or otherwise heavily involved in the legal field). The second purpose of Trial Diary is a selfish one: WE are interested in this subject matter, and this gives us a way to feel involved, while providing us with an incentive to stay up-to-date on legal happenings (see, by creating Trial Diary, we can at least entertain the fantasy that people will expect the site to be current and thorough, and that motivates us to stay focused on it).  This year, we are focused on showcasing a particular case: the murder trial of Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay, who allegedly killed Rafay's family in Bellevue in the summer of 1994.  The trial began in November of 2003, after nearly a decade of extradition battling between the US and Canadian governments, and a myriad of other fascinating, juicy set-backs.

Please feel free to contact us.  Our forum is now up and working, feel free to join in.  As we grow and change, we will add more cases, more commentary, there will be more feedback from all of you folks, and things will start to get really interesting.  It will be an exciting evolution, and everyone is invited to participate. 

On a More Personal Note...
Just to satisfy your curiosity, below are our succinct, though remarkably thorough biographies.

Donna Larsen lives in Bellevue, WA and is a volunteer Protection Order Advocate for the King County Prosecutor's Office at the Kent Regional Justice Center. Attending trials and keeping up with the latest Puget Sound crime news is nothing new to her. She has been interested in true-crime stories since age 17 when she read Robert Graysmith's Zodiac. Two of the people she admires most are Ann Rule and Alice in Wonderland. She also boasts of never having missed a New Detectives, FBI Files, Forensic Files, Secrets of Forensic Science, or Court TV's The System. Besides attending the Seattle Opera, her other hobbies include reading novels (Chuck Palahniuk), listening to her iPOD (The Von Bondies, Eisley, Beck, The Palace Brothers, Sahara Hotnights, Stereophonics).  She is currently working toward a degree in political economy, is the Philosophy Club President and hopes to attend Seattle University School of Law. 

Hilary is a Seattleite who’s biggest interests are law, politics, and the local music scene. She is the communications manager at a small, Seattle non-profit, handling media strategy and outreach, web applications, and other public relations functions.  Hilary is also now a law student at Seattle University School of Law.  When she’s not at work, Hilary enjoys bowling, running, knitting, baking, going to local rock shows, and escaping from the rigors of daily life by watching hours of Court TV with her husband.