Feature Leads/Descriptive Writing

Story 1-
-The Wreck of the Lady Mary,
-Amy Ellis Nutt
-A Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation into the sinking of the Lady Mary convened in April 2009. Several weeks of hearings were held over the next eight months, with testimony from José Arias, the only survivor of a seven-man crew; Fuzzy Smith, the co-owner of the boat; and at least a dozen other witnesses, including Lake Downham, the Coast Guard rescue swimmer who pulled Arias from the water.
-The wind was blowing hard and the waves were 6 to 9 feet the night of March 23 into the early hours of March 24, making conditions difficult for the Lady Mary.

Story 2-
-Forgetting a child in the back seat of a hot, parked car is a horrifying, inexcusable mistake. But is it a crime?
-Gene Weingarten
-The defendant was an immense man, well over 300 pounds, but in the gravity of his sorrow and shame he seemed larger still. He hunched forward in the sturdy wooden armchair that barely contained him, sobbing softly into tissue after tissue, a leg bouncing nervously under the table. In the first pew of spectators sat his wife, looking stricken, absently twisting her wedding band. The room was a sepulcher. Witnesses spoke softly of events so painful that many lost their composure. When a hospital emergency room nurse described how the defendant had behaved after the police first brought him in, she wept. He was virtually catatonic, she remembered, his eyes shut tight, rocking back and forth, locked away in some unfathomable private torment. He would not speak at all for the longest time, not until the nurse sank down beside him and held his hand. It was only then that the patient began to open up, and what he said was that he didn't want any sedation, that he didn't deserve a respite from pain, that he wanted to feel it all, and then to die.
-The defendant was an immense man, well over 300 pounds, but in the gravity of his sorrow and shame he seemed larger still. He hunched forward in the sturdy wooden armchair that barely contained him, sobbing softly into tissue after tissue, a leg bouncing nervously under the table.
Story 3-
-A Father's Pain, a Judge's Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach 
-Barry Siegel
-SILVER SUMMIT, Utah -- He sat in his chambers, unprepared for this. "Just giving you a heads up," his court administrator was saying. "Paul Wayment hasn't reported in yet. They can't find him." Judge Robert Hilder felt uneasy. Wayment was supposed to start his jail sentence this morning.
-Camping and boating as often as they could. Playing ball in the backyard, fixing things around the house, planting their vegetable garden. They'd roll around their neighborhood, Paul pulling Gage in a wagon, giving away their extra produce. They'd hike down to a vacant field, Gage on Paul's shoulders, to see the cows and geese. They looked so happy, joined at the heart. You never saw one without the other. Gage's gregarious manner made Paul more outgoing. Mr. Mom, the neighbors called him. On days when she felt in need of a lift, one neighbor would sit on her porch just to watch them, just so she could smile inside