Losing her mother was painful, she said, but the lack of certainty over who was responsible added another layer of anguish. For years, her life had been defined by coping, which she did by plowing energy into her job, as a pharmaceutical representative, and into raising her sons, who are now 7 and 11. “You become a robot,” she said. “Your emotions are pushed so deep down and sequestered so you can function.”

The rush of developments after years of inertia has pushed those who have been keeping vigil for Ms. Kauffman to think about where they are in the grieving process.

“I’ve been stuck on May 10, 2012, all this time,” Ms. Darby said, “and I feel like I can find peace, just because there’s answers. They may not be all the answers, but someone has been charged.”

But for Peggy O’Boyle, a childhood friend of Ms. Kauffman’s, the pain is still raw.

“I’ll never accept it,” she said. “There’s no relief here. It’s never going to bring her back.”

Mr. Gropper recently listened to his last show with Ms. Kauffman, recorded the day before she died. Her words, hearing them now, were haunting. She mentioned feeling like she was living on “borrowed time,” and said her daughter and grandsons would be her “legacy.” She even imagined her own funeral — how she hoped for military aircraft to fly overhead and how she wished to be remembered, as an “American citizen who really dug her heels in and yelled fire and expected it to be put out.”

Her funeral came four days later. Veterans arrived on motorcycles carrying American flags. Her daughter talked about her mother’s perseverance, and her friends described her work to improve the world around her. Her husband was there, too. He wept. He said he did not know what he would do without her.