Whitaker had been running prisons for nearly three decades, and during that time he had seen every kind of final request imaginable. Some inmates asked for steak dinners they barely touched. Others requested to hear their favorite song one last time. A few asked for priests or pastors, hoping for forgiveness in the final hours of their lives.
But the request that arrived at 5:30 a.m. that morning felt different somehow.
The inmate’s name was Marcus Bennett, a former auto mechanic from Houston who had spent the last five years behind bars after being convicted of murdering a wealthy real-estate investor named Calvin Rourke.
The evidence presented in court had once seemed overwhelming.
Marcus’s fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon. Witnesses claimed they had seen his pickup truck near Rourke’s mansion that night. Surveillance cameras had captured a blurry figure leaving the property wearing clothing similar to Marcus’s work jacket.
The jury had needed less than ninety minutes.
Guilty.
