Yeah, I dunno, I found the way LW framed the whole situation might have been to put it in the worst possible light without outright lying: that she wants to suggest that the girlfriend is inherently a murderer who thinks murder is cool instead of, possibly, a teenager/quite young woman who got caught up in something. Because she “she got into a car with a bunch of other friends who were on a mission to steal drugs and money ”, “Armed robbery and murder followed.”, “all of them were arrested ”, “her girlfriend pleaded out” which makes it sound like at the very least she wasn’t one of the people who came up with the plan and it’s entirely possible that she didn’t know that her friends were carrying. Her getting into a car with people intending to do burglary doesn’t show good judgement but people be dumb sometimes. And the “pleading out” was likely to the B&E, not the murder as I presume the girlfriend didn’t pull the trigger: I’m pretty sure the LW would have said that outright.

I’m not saying that the girlfriend is necessarily a great person – she may be problematic in various ways – but she might be someone whose life got out of control and who, herself, went through a traumatic experience and who is now facing severe consequences. And I wouldn’t have thought so deeply about how the situation could be very different from presented if it weren’t for the LW’s general tone and the very careful framing she used in her letter to make sure people would be on her side.