The Confession (51 page)

Its senior pastor was retiring.

T
he Schroeders celebrated Thanksgiving with Dana’s mother in Lawrence. Early the following morning, Keith and Dana left the boys at their grandmother’s and flew from Kansas City to Dallas, where they rented a car and drove three hours to Slone. They roamed around the town, looking for points of interest—the Baptist church, the football field with a new press box under construction, the charred remains of a few empty buildings, the courthouse, and Robbie’s office at the old train station. Slone seemed very much at peace, with city crews stringing Christmas decorations back and forth over Main Street.

From his first visit two weeks earlier, Keith remembered little about the town itself. He described to Dana the ever-present smoke and the constant wail of sirens, but looking back, he had been in such a state of shock that everything had been a blur. At the time, the thought of returning never entered his mind. He was in charge of Boyette; there was an execution pending, a body to locate, reporters everywhere. It had been frantic chaos, and his senses could only handle so much. Now, driving the shaded streets of downtown, he found it difficult to believe that Slone had recently been occupied by the National Guard.

The feast began around five, and since the temperature was in the high sixties, they gathered beside the pool, where Robbie had rented tables and chairs for the occasion. His entire firm was there, with spouses and partners. Judge and Mrs. Henry arrived early. The entire Drumm clan, at least twenty in number, including small children, arrived in one wave.

Keith sat next to Roberta. Though they had been in the same witness room when Donté died, they had never actually met. What do you say? At first the conversation was awkward, but before long they were on the subject of her grandchildren. She smiled often, though it was obvious her thoughts were elsewhere. Two weeks after losing Donté, the family was still in mourning, but they worked hard to enjoy the moment. Robbie proposed a toast, a lengthy tribute to friendship, and a brief memorial to Donté. He was so grateful that Keith and Dana could join them, all the way from Kansas, and this brought light applause. Within the Drumm family, Keith’s mad dash south in an effort to stop the execution was already a legend. When Robbie finally sat down, Judge Henry stood up and tapped his wineglass. His toast was to the courage of Roberta and her family, and he ended by saying that something good comes from every tragedy. When the speeches were over, the caterers began serving thick sirloins smothered in mushroom gravy with more sides than could possibly fit on a plate. They ate well into the night, and though Roberta drank only tea, the rest of the adults enjoyed the fine wine Robbie had shipped in for the occasion.

Keith and Dana slept in the guest room and left early the next morning to eat breakfast in a Main Street café known for its pecan waffles. Then they drove again. Using Robbie’s directions, they found the Greenwood Cemetery behind a church at the edge of town. “The grave will be easy to find,” Robbie had said. “Just follow the path until you see fresh dirt.” The footpath was grass that had been worn thin. Ahead, a group of ten or so pilgrims were holding hands around the grave and having a prayer. Keith and Dana pretended to look for other headstones until they cleared out.

Donté’s grave was a neat pile of red dirt ringed by dozens of bouquets of flowers. His large headstone read: “Donté Lamar Drumm, born September 2, 1980. Wrongfully executed by the State of Texas on November 8, 2007. Here lies an INNOCENT MAN.” In the center was an eight-by-ten engraved color photo of Donté in shoulder pads and blue jersey, all suited up and ready to play. Keith knelt by the headstone, closed his eyes, and offered a long prayer. Dana looked on. Her feelings were a mix of grief for the tragic loss, sympathy for her husband, and an ongoing confusion about what they were doing at that moment.

Before they left, Keith snapped a quick photo of the grave. He wanted a memento, something to keep on his desk.

The conference room at the train station hadn’t changed. Robbie and Carlos were toiling away, on a Saturday morning, with files and stacks of paper scattered among plastic coffee cups and empty pastry wrappers. Robbie gave Dana the grand tour, complete with an overblown history that Keith had managed to avoid on his first visit.

Their first farewell had been deep in the woods at Roop’s Mountain, and at the time they were not sure if they would ever see each other again. Now, two weeks later, when they embraced, they knew it would not be for the last time. Robbie thanked Keith again for his heroic effort. Keith demurred and said that Robbie was the real hero. Both agreed that they had not done enough, though they knew they had done everything possible.

The drive to Austin took seven hours.

———

On Sunday, Keith spoke to an overflow crowd at Unity Lutheran Church. He told the story of his improbable journey to Slone, and then to Huntsville, to the death chamber. He dwelled on the death penalty, attacked it on all fronts, and got the clear impression he was preaching to the choir.

Since it was an official trial sermon, the church covered all of the
expenses for the trip. After the service, Keith and Dana lunched with the Pastor Search Committee and the Reverend Dr. Marcus Collins, the retiring senior minister and a much-revered leader. During lunch, it became obvious that the church was enamored of the Schroeders. Later, as the prolonged good-byes were under way, Dr. Collins whispered to Keith, “You’ll find a wonderful home here.”

O
n December 22, the Chester County grand jury, called in session for a rare Saturday meeting, indicted Travis Boyette for the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of Nicole Yarber. The interim DA, Mike Grimshaw, had assumed his responsibilities with strict orders from Judge Elias Henry to get the indictment.

The day had been carefully chosen by Judge Henry to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the arrest of Donté Drumm. At one o’clock that afternoon, a crowd gathered in his courtroom for an unusual hearing. Robbie had filed a motion to declare Donté not guilty and exonerated, and the state, acting through Grimshaw, was not contesting the motion. Judge Henry wanted the event covered and publicized, but he detested the notion of cameras in his courtroom. Several reporters were present, but none with cameras.

It was another Robbie Flak show. For an hour, he went through the facts, as they were now known, and clicked off the mistakes, lies, cover-ups, and such. With the outcome of the hearing certain, he did not belabor any point. When he finished, Mike Grimshaw stood and
announced, “Your Honor, the State of Texas does not dispute anything Mr. Flak has said.”

Judge Henry then read a short order that he had obviously prepared long before the hearing. Its final sentence read: “This court hereby finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that the defendant, Donté L. Drumm, is not guilty of all charges, is absolutely innocent of all charges, and is hereby fully and completely exonerated. His conviction is hereby reversed and his record is expunged. On behalf of this court, and on behalf of the State of Texas, I offer a sincere and thoroughly inadequate apology to the Drumm family.” With great drama, Judge Henry signed his order, then handed it down to Robbie. As scripted, Robbie walked to the bar and handed it to Roberta Drumm in the first row.

———

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was still in its bunker. A mole had begun whispering, and when news broke about the “duty judge,” the story hit page one. Though the court did indeed close at 5:00 p.m., even on execution days, Chief Justice Prudlowe assigned one of the nine as a duty judge, who was actually inside the building and supposedly monitoring the last-minute appeals. In theory, a frantic lawyer could call the duty judge and get some type of response from the court. It was a reasonable idea and not unusual for courts weighing life and death. However, the story exploded when it was learned that death-penalty lawyers in Texas knew nothing about the court’s use of duty judges. Their existence was kept quiet by the court itself. So when Cicely Avis arrived at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals at 5:07 on the day of Donté’s execution, one hand holding a box of papers and the other hand banging on the locked door, there was actually a justice upstairs in his office ostensibly on guard.

The court announced that it was adopting the electronic filing of all petitions and pleadings, but denied that this change in procedure was a result of the Drumm case.

A complaint against Prudlowe was filed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Two years would pass before the commission
ruled that while his conduct was unprofessional, he did not engage in serious wrongdoing and he should keep his job.

The petition that did not get filed included the affidavit signed by Joey Gamble, the only alleged eyewitness at the trial. Legal experts debated the significance of his last-minute recantation and what the court should have, or would have, done with it.

Joey left Slone, then Texas. He blamed himself for what happened to Donté, and found solace only in the bottle.

———

On December 28, the last Friday in 2007, Keith and Dana walked into an empty courtroom in Topeka, at 4:30 p.m., and were met by Elmo Laird. Matthew Burns showed up for moral support, though Keith needed none. A judge appeared, then an assistant prosecutor. In less than ten minutes, Keith pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice. He was fined $1,000, given one year of probation and one year of unsupervised parole. Elmo Laird was confident that within three years, his record would be expunged.

When asked by the judge if he had anything to say, Keith replied, “Yes, Your Honor. I would do the same thing again, if presented with the opportunity.” To which the judge said, “God bless you.”

As expected, the Monk informed Keith that he was immediately being placed on a leave of absence. Keith said not to bother—he was resigning. On Sunday, Keith announced to his congregation at St. Mark’s that he was leaving to become the senior minister at Unity Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas.

———

Travis Boyette now faced life in Kansas, death in Missouri, and death in Texas. For a year, the three states wrangled, often publicly, about what to do with him. When he told a Kansas judge that he strangled Nicole in Missouri, the judge ordered him transferred to Newton County. Since he had confessed repeatedly, he had no desire to defend himself in a trial. Sixteen months after his trip to Slone, he was sentenced
to death by lethal injection and sent to the Potosi Correctional Center.

Paul Koffee was eventually disbarred by a state ethics panel. He left Slone and became a bail bondsman in Waco. Drew Kerber filed for bankruptcy and moved his family to Texas City, where he found a job on an offshore oil rig.

Martha Handler won the race to the printing press and published the first of what promised to be a flood of books about the Drumm case. Her book was on the best-seller lists for almost a year. Her relationship with Robbie and the Drumm family soured when they could not agree on splitting the money.

———

The indictment of Travis Boyette and the exoneration of Donté Drumm put even more pressure on Governor Gill Newton to summon the legislature to Austin to deal with the aftermath of the execution. The governor and his advisers had hoped the passage of time would erode interest in the matter, but that was not happening. Death-penalty opponents were ramping up their efforts and sharpening their tactics, and they were being cheered on by much of the national press. The Black Caucus, led by Senator Rodger Ebbs of Houston, had only grown louder. Their vow of closing down the state’s government until a special session was held appeared more and more likely. And the poll numbers were not trending the governor’s way. A clear majority of Texans wanted the state to take a hard look at its execution business. They still wanted the death penalty, and by a wide margin, but they wanted some assurance that its use would be limited to those who were actually guilty. The idea of a moratorium was so widely discussed that it was gaining support.

Finally, the poll numbers got the best of him, and Governor Newton called the 31 senators and 150 House members to the Capitol. Since he dictated the limits of what could be considered, the agenda would be (1) a resolution on Drumm, (2) a moratorium on executions, and (3) the creation of an innocence commission to study the problems. It took
three days to pass the resolution, which upon final approval declared Donté exonerated of all guilt and awarded $1 million to his family. When filed, and every member of the Black Caucus was a co-sponsor, the bill called for an award of $20 million, but the legislative process had whittled away all but a million. The governor, a tightfisted fiscal hawk, at least on the campaign trail, expressed his usual concern over “excessive government spending.” When the
Houston Chronicle
ran its front-page story, it included the fact that the governor and his staff had spent over $400,000 on their recent trip fighting terror in Fallujah.

The moratorium bill ignited a political war. Its original language sought a two-year stop on all executions, during which time the death penalty would be studied from all angles and by all manner of panels and experts. Committee hearings were televised. Witnesses included retired judges, radical activists, well-known researchers, even three men who had spent years on death row before being exonerated. Outside the Capitol, rowdy demonstrations were held virtually every day. Violence erupted on several occasions when death-penalty proponents got too close to its opponents. The very circus the governor feared had come to town.

Since the moratorium fight originated in the Senate, the House began work on what was initially known as the Donté Drumm Commission on Innocence. As conceived, it would be a full-time commission with nine members who would study the roots of wrongful convictions and work to correct the problems. At the time, Texas had seen thirty-three exonerations, most by DNA evidence, with an alarming number from Dallas County. Another series of committee hearings were held, with no shortage of enthusiastic witnesses.