The Confession Read Online Free PDF Page A

knew nothing more. Boyette had some prescriptions, but they were his business. It was a medical matter and off-limits.
    Dana thanked him and reminded him that St. Mark’s welcomed everyone, including the men from Anchor House.
    She then called Dr. Herzlich, who was a thoracic surgeon at St. Francis and a longtime member of St. Mark’s. She had no plans to inquire into the medical status of Travis Boyette, since such nosiness was far out of bounds and certain to go nowhere. She would let her husband chat with the doctor, with his door shut, and in their veiled and professional voices they might find common ground. The call went straight to voice mail, and Dana left a request for Herzlich to phone her husband.
    While she worked the phone, Keith was glued to his computer, lost in the case of Donté Drumm. The Web site was extensive. Click here for a factual summary, 10 pages long. Click here for a complete trial transcript, 1,830 pages long. Click farther down for the appellate briefs, with exhibits and affidavits, another 1,600 or so pages. A case history ran for 340 pages and included the rulings from the appeals courts. Therewas a tab for the Death Penalty in Texas, and one for Donté’s Photo Gallery, Donté on Death Row, the Donté Drumm Defense Fund, How You Can Help, Press Coverage and Editorials, Wrongful Convictions and False Confessions, and the last one was for Robbie Flak, Attorney-at-Law.
    Keith began with the factual summary. It read:
    The town of Slone, Texas, population forty thousand, once cheered wildly when Donté Drumm roamed the field as a fearless linebacker, but now it nervously awaits his execution.
    Donté Drumm was born in Marshall, Texas, in 1980, the third child of Roberta and Riley Drumm. A fourth child arrived four years later, not long after the family moved to Slone, where Riley found a job with a drainage contractor. The family joined the Bethel African Methodist Church and are still active members. Donté was baptized in the church at the age of eight. He attended the public schools in Slone, and by the age of twelve was being noticed as an athlete. With good size and exceptional speed, Donté became a force on the football field, and at the age of fourteen, as a freshman, was starting linebacker for the varsity at Slone High School. He was named all-conference as a sophomore and junior, and had verbally committed to play for North Texas State before a severe ankle injury ended his career during the first quarter of the first game of his senior year. Surgery was successful, but the damage was done. The scholarship offer was withdrawn. He did not finish high school, because he was incarcerated. His father, Riley, died of heart disease in 2002, while Donté was on death row.
    When Donté was fifteen years old, he was arrested and charged with assault. It was alleged that he and two black friends beat another black youth behind the gymnasium at the high school. The case was handled through juvenile court. Donté eventually pleaded guilty and was given probation. When he was sixteen, he was arrested for simple possession of marijuana. By then, he was an all-conference linebacker and well-known in town. The charges were later dismissed.
    Donté was nineteen years old when he was convicted in 1999 for the abduction, rape, and murder of a high school cheerleader named Nicole Yarber. Drumm and Yarber were seniors at Slone High School. They were friends and had grown up together in Slone, though Nicole, or “Nikki,” as she was often called, lived in thesuburbs while Donté lived in Hazel Park, an older section of town that is primarily black middle-class. Slone is one-third black, and while the schools are integrated, the churches and civic clubs and neighborhoods are not.
    Nicole Yarber was born in Slone in 1981, the first and only child of Reeva and Cliff Yarber, who divorced when she was two years old. Reeva remarried, and Nicole was raised by her mother and stepfather, Wallis Pike. Mr. and Mrs.