Authors: John Grisham
The small living room was crowded. Roberta Drumm sat on the piano bench, her usual position. Two of her brothers stood by the door to the kitchen. Her son Cedric, Donté’s oldest brother, was on the sofa holding a toddler who was asleep. Her daughter, Andrea, Donté’s younger sister, had one chair. Her preacher, Reverend Canty, had another. Robbie and Martha sat close to each other in flimsy, shaky chairs brought in from the kitchen. Martha had been there many times, and had even cooked for Roberta when she had the flu.
After the usual hellos and hugs and instant coffee, Robbie began talking. “Nothing happened today, which is not good news. First thing tomorrow, the parole board will issue its decision. They don’t meet,
they just circulate the case and everybody votes. We don’t expect a recommendation for clemency. That rarely happens. We expect a denial, which we will then appeal to the governor’s office and ask for a reprieve. The governor has the right to grant one thirty-day reprieve. It’s unlikely we’ll get one, but we have to pray for a miracle.” Robbie Flak was not a man of prayer, but in the staunch Bible Belt of East Texas, he could certainly talk the talk. And he was in a room full of people who prayed around the clock, Martha Handler being the exception.
“On the positive side, we made contact today with Joey Gamble, found him outside of Houston, a place called Mission Bend. Our investigator had lunch with him, confronted him with the truth, impressed upon him the urgency of the situation, and so on. He is following the case and knows what’s at stake. We invited him to sign an affidavit recanting the lies he told at trial, and he declined. However, we won’t give up. He was not decisive. He seemed to waver, to be troubled by what’s happening to Donté.”
“What if he signs the affidavit and tells the truth?” Cedric asked.
“Well, we suddenly have some ammunition, a bullet or two, something to take to court and make some noise. The problem, though, is that when liars start recanting their testimony, everybody gets real suspicious, especially judges hearing appeals. When does the lying stop? Is he lying now, or was he lying then? It’s a long shot, frankly, but right now everything is a long shot.” Robbie had always been blunt, especially when dealing with the families of his criminal clients. And at this stage in Donté’s case, it made little sense to raise hopes.
Roberta sat stoically with her hands wedged under her legs. She was fifty-six years old, but looked much older. Since the death of her husband, Riley, five years earlier, she had stopped coloring her hair and stopped eating. She was gray and gaunt and said little, but then she never had said much. Riley had been the big talker, the boaster, the bruiser, with Roberta in the role as the fixer who eased behind her husband and patched up the rifts he created. In the past few days, she had slowly accepted reality, and seemed overwhelmed by it. Neither she nor Riley, nor any member of the family, had ever questioned Donté’s innocence.
He had once tried to maim ballcarriers and quarterbacks, and he could adequately defend himself when necessary on the playground or in the streets. But Donté was really a pushover, a sensitive kid who would never harm an innocent person.
“Martha and I are going to Polunsky tomorrow to see Donté,” Robbie was saying. “I can take any mail you might have for him.”
“I have a meeting with the mayor at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow,” Reverend Canty announced. “I’ll be joined by several other pastors. We intend to convey our concerns about what might happen in Slone if Donté is executed.”
“It’ll be ugly,” said an uncle.
“You got that right,” Cedric added. “Folks on this side are fired up.”
“The execution is still set for 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, right?” asked Andrea.
“Yes,” Robbie said.
“Well, when will you know for sure that it’ll be carried out?” she asked.
“These things usually go down to the wire, primarily because the lawyers fight to the last minute.”
Andrea looked uneasily at Cedric, then said, “Well, I’ll just tell you, Robbie, a lot of people on this side of town plan to get outta here when it happens. There’s gonna be trouble, and I understand why. But once it starts, things might get out of control.”
“The whole town better look out,” Cedric said.
“That’s what we’ll tell the mayor,” Canty said. “He’d better do something.”
“All he can do is react,” Robbie said. “He has nothing to do with the execution.”
“Can’t he call the governor?”
“Sure, but don’t assume the mayor is against the execution. If he got through to the governor, he’d probably lobby against a reprieve. The mayor is a good old Texas boy. He loves the death penalty.”
No one in the room was fond of the mayor, or the governor for that matter. Robbie moved the discussion away from the prospect of violence.
There were important details to be discussed. “According to the rules from the Department of Corrections, the last family visit will take place at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, at the Polunsky Unit, before Donté is transferred to Huntsville.” Robbie continued, “I know you’ll be anxious to see him, and he’s desperate to see you. But don’t be surprised when you get there. It will be just like a regular visit. He’ll be on one side of a sheet of Plexiglas, you’ll have to stay on the other. You talk by phone. It’s ridiculous, but then this is Texas.”
“No hugs, no kisses?” Andrea said.
“No. They have their rules.”
Roberta began crying, quiet sniffles with big tears. “I can’t hug my baby,” she said. One of her brothers handed her a tissue and patted her shoulder. After a minute or so, she pulled herself together and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Roberta,” Robbie said. “You’re the mother, and your son is about to be executed for something he didn’t do. You have the right to cry. Me, I’d be bawling and screaming and shooting at people. Still might do it.”
Andrea asked, “What about the execution itself? Who’s supposed to be there?”
“The witness room is divided by a wall to separate the victim’s family from the inmate’s family. All witnesses stand. There are no seats. They get five slots, you get five slots. The rest are given to the lawyers, prison officials, members of the press, and a few others. I’ll be there. Roberta, I know you plan to be a witness, but Donté is adamant that he doesn’t want you there. Your name is on his list, but he doesn’t want you to watch.”
“I’m sorry, Robbie,” she said, wiping her nose. “We’ve had this discussion. I was there when he was born and I’ll be there when he dies. He may not know it, but he’ll need me. I will be a witness.”
Robbie wasn’t about to argue. He promised to return the following evening.
L
ong after the boys were asleep, Keith and Dana Schroeder were in the kitchen of their modest, church-owned parsonage in central Topeka. They sat directly across from each other, each with a laptop, notepads, and decaf coffee. The table was littered with materials found on the Internet and printed in the church office. Dinner had been quick, macaroni and cheese, because the boys had homework and the parents were preoccupied.
Checking online sources, Dana had been unable to confirm Boyette’s claim that he had been arrested and jailed in Slone in January 1999. The town’s old court records were not available. The bar directory listed 131 lawyers in Slone. She picked ten at random, called them, said she was with the parole office in Kansas and was checking the background of a Mr. Travis Boyette. Did you ever represent a man by that name? No. Then sorry to disturb you. She did not have the time to call every lawyer, and it seemed futile anyway. She planned to call the city court clerk’s office first thing Tuesday morning.
After holding Nicole’s class ring, Keith had little doubt that Boyette was telling the truth. What if the ring had been stolen before she disappeared?
Dana asked. And fenced at a pawnshop? What if? It seemed unlikely Boyette would purchase such a ring from a pawnshop, didn’t it? Back and forth they went for hours, each questioning every idea the other had.
Much of the material scattered around the table came from two Web sites, WeMissYouNikki.com and FreeDonteDrumm.com. Donté’s Web site was maintained by the law offices of Mr. Robbie Flak and was far more extensive, active, and professionally done. Nikki’s Web site was run by her mother. Neither made the slightest effort at neutrality.
From Donté’s, under the tab for Case History, Keith scrolled down to the heart of the prosecution’s case, The Confession. The narrative began by explaining that it was based on two very different accounts of what happened. The interrogation, which took place over a period of fifteen hours and twelve minutes, proceeded with few interruptions. Donté was allowed to use the restroom three times, and was twice escorted down the hall to another room for polygraph exams. Otherwise, he never left the room, which had the in-house nickname “The Choir Room.” Sooner or later, the cops liked to say, the suspects start singing.
The first version was based on the official police report. This consisted of notes taken throughout the interrogation by Detective Jim Morrissey. During one three-hour stretch, while Morrissey took a nap on a cot in the locker room, the notes were taken by a Detective Nick Needham. The notes were typed into a neat fourteen-page report, which Detectives Kerber, Morrissey, and Needham swore to be the truth, and nothing but. Not a single word in the report suggests the use of threats, lies, promises, trickery, intimidation, physical abuse, or violations of constitutional rights. Indeed, all of the above were denied repeatedly in court by the detectives.
The second version contrasted sharply with the first. The day after his arrest, while Donté was alone in a jail cell, charged with kidnapping, aggravated rape, and capital murder, and while he was slowly recuperating from the psychological trauma of the interrogation, he recanted his confession. He explained to his lawyer, Robbie Flak, what had happened.
Under Flak’s direction, Donté began writing his account of the interrogation. When it was finished two days later, it was typed by one of Mr. Flak’s legal secretaries. Donté’s version was forty-three pages long.
Thus, a summary of the two accounts, with some analysis thrown in.
THE CONFESSION
On December 22, 1998, eighteen days after the disappearance of Nicole Yarber, Detectives Drew Kerber and Jim Morrissey of the Slone Police Department drove to the South Side Health Club looking for Donté. The club is frequented by the more serious athletes in the area. Donté worked out there almost every afternoon, after school. He lifted weights and was rehabbing his ankle. He was in superb physical condition and was planning to enroll at Sam Houston State University next summer, then try out for the football team as a walk-on.
At approximately 5:00 p.m., as Donté was leaving the club alone, he was approached by Kerber and Morrissey, who introduced themselves in a friendly manner and asked Donté if he would talk to them about Nicole Yarber. Donté agreed, and Kerber suggested they meet at the police station, where they could relax and be more comfortable. Donté was nervous about this, but he also wanted to cooperate fully. He knew Nicole—he’d helped search for her—but knew nothing about her disappearance, and thought that the meeting at the station would take just a few minutes. He drove himself, in the family’s well-used green Ford van, to the police station and parked in a visitor’s slot. As he walked into the station, he had no idea that he was taking his last steps as a free man. He was eighteen years old, had never been in serious trouble, and had never been subjected to a prolonged police interrogation.
He was checked in at the front desk. His cell phone, wallet, and car keys were taken and put in a locked drawer for “security reasons.”
The detectives led him to an interrogation room in the basement of the building. Other officers were around. One, a black policeman in uniform, recognized Donté and said something about football. Once inside the interrogation room, Morrissey offered him something to drink. Donté declined. There was a small rectangular table in the center of the room. Donté sat on one side, both detectives on
the other. The room was well lit with no windows. In one corner, a tripod held a video camera, but it was not directed at Donté, as far as he could tell, nor did it appear to be turned on.
Morrissey produced a sheet of paper and explained that Donté needed to understand his
Miranda
rights. Donté asked if he was a witness or a suspect. The detective explained their procedures required that all persons interrogated be informed of their rights. No big deal. Just a formality.
Donté began to feel uncomfortable. He read every word on the paper, and since he had nothing to hide, signed his name, thus waiving his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney. It was a fateful, tragic decision.
Innocent people are much likelier to waive their rights during an interrogation. They know they are innocent, and they want to cooperate with the police to prove their innocence. Guilty suspects are more inclined not to cooperate. Seasoned criminals laugh at the police and clam up.
Morrissey took notes, beginning with the time the “suspect” entered the room—5:25 p.m.
Kerber did most of the talking. The discussion began with a long summary of the football season, the wins, the losses, what went wrong in the play-offs, a coaching change that was the hot rumor. Kerber seemed truly interested in his future and hoped his ankle healed so he could play in college. Donté expressed confidence that this would happen.
Kerber seemed especially interested in Donté’s current weight-lifting program, and asked specific questions about how much he could bench-press, curl, squat, and deadlift.
There were a lot of questions about him and his family, his academic progress, his work experience, his brief run-in with the law on that marijuana thing when he was sixteen, and after what seemed like an hour, they finally got around to Nicole. The tone changed. The smiles were gone. The questions became more pointed. How long had he known her? How many classes together? Mutual friends? Whom did he date? Who were his girlfriends? Whom did she date? Did he ever date Nicole? No. Did he ever try to date her? No. Did he want to date her? He wanted to date a lot of girls. White girls? Sure, he wanted to, but he didn’t. Never dated a white girl? No. Rumor has it that you and Nicole were seeing each other, trying to keep it quiet. Nope. Never met her privately. Never touched her. But you admit you
wanted to date her? I said I wanted to date a lot of girls, white and black, even a couple of Hispanic. So, you love all girls? A lot of them, yes, but not all.
Kerber asked if Donté had participated in any of the searches for Nicole. Yes, Donté and the entire senior class had spent hours looking for her.
They talked about Joey Gamble and some of the other boys Nicole had dated through high school. Kerber repeatedly asked if Donté dated her, or was seeing her on the sly. His questions were more like accusations, and Donté began to worry.
Roberta Drumm served dinner each night at 7:00, and if for some reason Donté wasn’t there, he was expected to call. At 7:00 p.m., Donté asked the detectives if he could leave. Just a few more questions, Kerber said. Donté asked if he could call his mother. No, cell phones were not permitted inside the police station.
After two hours in the room, Kerber finally dropped a bomb. He informed Donté that they had a witness willing to testify that Nicole had confided to her close friends that she was seeing Donté and there was a lot of sex involved. But she had to keep it quiet. Her parents would never approve. Her rich father in Dallas would cut off his support and disinherit her. Her church would be scornful. And so on.
There was no such witness, but police are permitted to lie at will during an interrogation.
Donté strongly denied any relationship with Nicole.
And, Kerber went on with his tale, this witness had told them that Nicole was becoming increasingly worried about the affair. She wanted to end it, but that he, Donté, refused to leave her alone. She thought she was being stalked. She thought Donté had become obsessed with her.
Donté vehemently denied all of this. He demanded to know the identity of this witness, but Kerber said it was all confidential. Your witness is lying, Donté said over and over.
As with all interrogations, the detectives knew the direction their questions were headed. Donté did not. Abruptly, Kerber changed subjects and grilled Donté about the green Ford van, and how often he drove it, and where, and so on. It had been in the family for years, and it was shared by the Drumm children.
Kerber asked how often Donté drove it to school, to the gym, to the mall, and to several other places frequented by high school students. Did Donté drive it to the mall on the night of December 4, a Friday, the night Nicole disappeared?
No. On the night Nicole disappeared, Donté was at home with his younger sister. His parents were in Dallas at a weekend church convention. Donté was baby-sitting. They ate frozen pizza and watched television in the den, something his mother did not usually allow. Yes, the green van was parked in the driveway. His parents had taken the family’s Buick to Dallas. Neighbors testified that the green van was where he said it was. No one saw it leave during the night. His sister testified that he was with her throughout the night, that he did not leave.
Kerber informed the suspect that they had a witness who saw a green Ford van in the mall parking lot around the time Nicole disappeared. Donté said there was probably more than one such van in Slone. He began asking the detectives if he was a suspect. Do you think I took Nicole? he asked over and over. When it became evident that they did, he grew extremely agitated. He was also frightened at the thought of being suspected.
Around 9:00 p.m., Roberta Drumm was concerned. Donté rarely missed dinner, and he usually kept his cell phone in his pocket. Her calls to him were going straight to voice mail. She began calling his friends, none of whom knew his whereabouts.
Kerber asked Donté straight-out if he had killed Nicole and disposed of her body. Donté angrily denied this, denied any involvement whatsoever. Kerber said he didn’t believe Donté. The exchanges between the two became tense and the language deteriorated. Accusations, denials, accusations, denials. At 9:45 p.m., Kerber kicked back his chair and stormed out of the room. Morrissey put down his pen and apologized for Kerber’s behavior. He said the guy was under a lot of stress because he was the lead detective and everybody wanted to know what happened to Nicole. There was a chance she was still alive. Plus, Kerber was a hothead who could be overbearing.
It was the classic good-cop, bad-cop routine, and Donté knew exactly what was going on. But since Morrissey was being polite, Donté chatted with him. They did not discuss the case. Donté asked for a soft drink and something to eat, and Morrissey went to get it.
Donté had a good friend by the name of Torrey Pickett. They had played football together since the seventh grade, but Torrey had some legal problems the summer before his junior year. He was caught in a crack-selling sting and sent away. He did not finish high school and was currently working at a grocery store in Slone.
The police knew that Torrey clocked out each weeknight at 10:00, when the store closed. Two uniformed officers were waiting. They asked him if he would voluntarily come down to the station and answer some questions about the Nicole Yarber case. He hesitated, and this made the police suspicious. They told him that his buddy Donté was already down there and needed his help. Torrey decided to go see for himself. He rode in the backseat of a police car. At the station, Torrey was placed in a room two doors down from Donté. The room had a large window with one-way glass so that officers could look in but the suspect could not see them. It was also wired so that the interrogation could be heard on a speaker in the hall. Detective Needham worked alone and asked the usual generic, noninvasive questions. Torrey quickly waived his
Miranda
rights. Needham soon got to the topic of girls, and who was dating whom and who was fooling around when they were not supposed to be. Torrey claimed he barely knew Nicole, hadn’t seen her in years. He scoffed at the idea that his pal Donté was seeing the girl. After thirty minutes of questioning, Needham left the room. Torrey sat at a table and waited.
Meanwhile, in “The Choir Room,” Donté was getting another jolt. Kerber informed him they had a witness who was willing to testify that Donté and Torrey Pickett grabbed the girl, raped her in the back of the green van, then tossed her body off a bridge over the Red River. Donté actually laughed at this lunacy, and his laughter rankled Detective Kerber. Donté explained that he was laughing not about a dead girl but at the fantasy that Kerber was putting together. If Kerber really had a witness, then he, Kerber, was foolish for believing the lying idiot. The two men called each other liars, among other things. A bad situation became even uglier.
Suddenly Needham opened the door and informed Kerber and Morrissey that they had Torrey Pickett “in custody.” This news was so exciting that Kerber jumped to his feet and left the room again.
Moments later he was back. He resumed the same line of questioning and accused Donté of the murder. When Donté denied everything, Kerber accused him of lying. He claimed to know for a fact that Donté and Torrey Pickett raped and killed the girl, and if Donté wanted to prove his innocence, then they should start with a polygraph. A lie-detector test. It was foolproof, clear evidence, admissible in court, and so on. Donté was immediately suspicious of the test, but at the same
time thought it might be a good idea, a quick way to end this foolishness. He knew he was innocent. He knew he could pass the test, and in doing so, he could get Kerber off his back before things got worse. He agreed to an exam.
Under the stress of police questioning, innocent people are far likelier to agree to a polygraph. They have nothing to hide and they’re desperate to prove it. Guilty suspects rarely consent to the exams, and for obvious reasons.
Donté was led to another room and introduced to a Detective Ferguson, who’d been at home asleep an hour earlier when Detective Needham called. Ferguson was the department’s polygraph expert, and he insisted that Kerber, Morrissey, and Needham leave the room. Ferguson was extremely polite, soft-spoken, even apologetic for putting Donté through the process. He explained everything, ran through the paperwork, rigged up the machine, and began asking Donté about his involvement in the Nicole Yarber matter. This went on for about an hour.
When Ferguson finished, he explained that it would be a few minutes before he could digest the results. Donté was taken back to “The Choir Room.”
The results clearly showed that Donté was telling the truth. However, the law, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, permits the police to engage in a wide range of deceptive practices during interrogations. They can lie at will.
When Kerber returned to “The Choir Room,” he was holding the graph paper from the test. He threw it at Donté, hitting him in the face, and called him a “lyin’ son of a bitch!” Now they had proof that he was lying! They had clear evidence that he snatched his ex-lover, raped her, killed her in a fit of rage, and threw her off a bridge. Kerber picked up the graph paper, shook it in Donté’s face, and promised him that when the jury saw the results of the test, they would find him guilty and give him death. You’re looking at the needle, Kerber said over and over.
Another lie. Polygraphs are so famously unreliable that their results are never admitted in court.
Donté was stunned. He felt faint. He was bewildered and struggled to find words. Kerber relaxed and took his seat across the table. He said that in many cases involving horrible crimes, especially those committed by good, decent folks—noncriminals—the killer subconsciously erases the act from his memory. He just “blocks it out.” This is quite common, and he, Detective Kerber, because of his extensive training and vast experience, had seen this many times. He suspected
that Donté was quite fond of Nicole, maybe even in love, and did not plan to harm her. Things got out of control. She was dead before he realized it. Then he was in shock at what he’d done, and the guilt was crushing. So he tried to block it out.