John Grisham - The Confession

The jabbing continued, along with the nonstop accusations and threats. Donté realized he would not be allowed to leave until he gave the cops what they wanted. And maybe they were right after all. They seemed so certain about what happened. They were convinced beyond any doubt that he was involved. His own friend was saying that he and Nicole were involved in a relationship. And the polygraphs—what would the jury think when they learned that he had lied? Donté was doubting himself and his own memory. What if he had blacked out and erased the terrible deed? And he really didn’t want to die, not then, not five or ten years down the road.

At 4:00 a.m., Riley Drumm left the police station and went home. He tried to sleep but could not. Roberta made coffee and they worried and waited for sunrise, as if things would clear up then.

Kerber and Needham took a break at 4:30 a.m. When they were alone in the hallway, Kerber said, “He’s ready.”

A few minutes later, Needham opened the door quietly and peeked in. Donté was lying on the floor, sobbing.

They took him a doughnut and a soft drink and resumed the interrogation. A revelation slowly came over Donté. Since he could not leave until he gave them their story, and since he would, at that moment, confess to killing his own mother, why not play along? Nicole would turn up soon enough, dead or alive, and this would solve the mystery. The police would look like fools for verbally beating a confession out of him. Some farmer or hunter would stumble over her remains, and these clowns would be exposed. Donté would be vindicated, freed, and everyone would feel sorry for him.

Twelve hours after the interrogation began, he looked at Kerber and said, “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll tell you everything.”

After the break, Kerber helped him fill in the blanks. He had sneaked out of the house after his sister was asleep. He was desperate to see Nicole because she was pushing him away, trying to break off their affair. He knew Nicole was at the movies with friends. He drove there, alone, in the green Ford van. He confronted her in the parking lot near her car. She agreed to get in. They drove around Slone, then into the countryside. He wanted sex, she said no. They were finished. He tried to force himself on her and she fought back. He forced her into sex, but it wasn’t enjoyable. She scratched him, even drew blood. The attack turned ugly. He flew into a rage, began to choke her, and he couldn’t stop, didn’t stop until it was too late. Then he panicked. He had to do something with her. He yelled at her back in the rear of the van, but she never responded. He drove north, toward Oklahoma. He’d lost track of time, then realized that dawn was approaching. He had to get home. He had to get rid of her body. On the Route 244 bridge over the Red River, at approximately 6:00, on the morning of December 5, he stopped the van. It was still dark, she was still very dead. He tossed her over and waited until he heard the sickening splash below. He cried all the way back to Slone.

For three hours, Kerber coached him, prodded him, corrected him, cursed him, reminded him to tell the truth. The details had to be perfect, Kerber kept saying. At 8:21 a.m., the video camera was finally turned on. A wiped-out, stone-faced Donté Drumm sat at the table with a fresh soft drink and doughnut in front of him, visible so that their hospitality could be shown.

The video ran for seventeen minutes, and would send him to death row.

Donté was charged with abduction, aggravated rape, and capital murder. He was taken to a cell where he promptly fell asleep.

At 9:00 a.m., the chief of police, along with the district attorney, Mr. Paul Koffee, held a press conference to announce the Nicole Yarber case had been solved. Sadly, one of Slone’s former football heroes, Donté Drumm, had confessed to the murder. Other witnesses verified his involvement. Sympathies to her family.

The confession was attacked immediately. Donté recanted and his attorney, Robbie Flak, went public with a scathing condemnation of the police and their tactics. Months later, the defense lawyers filed motions to suppress the confession, and the suppression hearing lasted for a week. Kerber, Morrissey, and Needham testified at length, and their testimony was hotly challenged by the defense. They steadfastly denied using threats, promises, or intimidation. They specifically denied using the death penalty as a means to frighten Donté into cooperating. They denied verbally abusing the suspect or pushing him to the point of exhaustion and collapse. They denied that Donté had ever mentioned a lawyer, or that he wanted to terminate the interrogation and go home. They denied any knowledge of his father’s presence at the station and his desire to see his son. They denied the fact that their own polygraph tests showed clear evidence of truthfulness, but instead testified that the results were “inconclusive,” in their opinions. They denied any trickery with the alleged statement of Torrey Pickett. Pickett testified on Donté’s behalf and denied telling the police anything about an affair between Donté and Nicole.

The trial judge expressed grave concerns about the confession, but not grave enough to exclude it from the trial. She refused to suppress it, and it was later shown to the jury. Donté watched it as if he were watching a different person. No one has ever seriously questioned the fact that it guaranteed his conviction.

The confession was attacked again on appeal, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously affirmed the conviction and death sentence.

When Keith was finished, he left the table and went to the bathroom. He had the feeling that he had just been interrogated. It was well after midnight. Sleep would be impossible.

CHAPTER 8

By 7:00 on Tuesday morning, the Flak Law Firm was bustling with a frantic, nervous energy one might expect from a group of people fighting both the clock and some very long odds to save a man’s life. Tension was palpable. There were no smiles, none of the usual smart-ass remarks from people who worked together each day with the absolute freedom of saying anything to anyone at any time. Most of those present had been around six years earlier when Lamar Billups got the needle at Huntsville, and the finality of his death had been a shock. And Billups had been a nasty character. His favorite pastime had been beating up people in bar fights, preferably with pool cue sticks and broken bottles, and the state finally got fed up with him. On his deathbed, his last words were “See you in hell” and away he went. He was guilty, and never made a serious claim otherwise. His murder had been in a small town sixty miles away, hardly noticed by the citizens of Slone. He had no family, no one for the firm to be acquainted with. Robbie disliked him immensely, but clung rigidly to the belief that the state had no right to kill him.

The State of Texas versus Donté Drumm was a far different matter. Now they were fighting for an innocent man, and his family was their family.

The long table in the main conference room was the center of the storm. Fred Pryor, who was still in Houston, was on the speakerphone, giving a quick update on his efforts to flip Joey Gamble. The two had spoken by phone late Monday night, and Gamble was even less cooperative.

“He kept asking about perjury and how serious a crime it is,” Pryor said, his voice at full volume.

“Koffee’s threatening him,” Robbie said, as if he knew it to be true. “Did you ask him if he’s talking to the district attorney?”

“No, but I thought about it,” Pryor replied. “I didn’t, because I figured he would not divulge that.”

“Koffee knows he lied at trial, and he’s told the kid that we’ll make a last-minute run at him,” Robbie said. “He’s threatened him with a prosecution for perjury if he changes his story now. Wanna bet on that, Fred?”