Name Game

Ochoa was about 20 minutes into her testimony when a man in gray sweats flashed into her peripheral vision. The mood chilled. "I wanted to shout at him, but I had to control myself," she says. "I wanted to tell him to his face that we knew what he did, but he knows what he did in his conscience."

Hurtado refused to testify or listen to the women and was escorted away. Judge Adalberto Jordan granted a default judgment against him. The amount of damages should be decided soon.

It was a week of other firsts. While eating a breakfast of eggs and sausage at their downtown hotel, the women talked about their first plane ride and first trip outside Peru. They marveled at the tall buildings and the soft, lapping waves on the beach. They're waiting for Hurtado to be deported to Peru to face an open case against him. "If we can make it this far, we can keep on fighting," Ochoa says. "Justice will arrive."

That, too, would be a first. — Janine Zeitlin