only that the smudge on Ed’s shoe was
“protein of human origin,” which could
have been anything from sweat to spit.
Although Ed had been in trouble with
the law—besides his trouble in Oklaho-
ma, he’d also been busted several times
in Tyler for misdemeanor theft as well
as for forging a check—he had no history
of violence. The jury, which included
two African Americans, couldn’t reach
a unanimous decision and after two
days was deadlocked at 8 to 4 for guilt.
Finally, on the third day, Judge Louis
Gohmert declared a mistrial.
Ed thought that he had finally put
his troubles in Smith County behind
him. He asked Kim to marry him on
Christmas Day. At their wedding the
following April, Ed, a towering figure
in a white tuxedo, danced with Kim to
“For You I Will,” a soaring love ballad.
“I will stand beside you,” sang R&B star
Monica, “right or wrong.”
Yet one hundred miles away in Tyler,
the DA’s office was working in earnest
to try him again. After the mistrial,
Gohmert had scheduled a hearing for
a second trial, and investigators, hoping
to find Ed’s DNA profile at the crime
scene, had conducted DNA testing for
the first time on some crime scene hairs.
None, though, proved to belong to him.
Then, two weeks after Ed’s wedding,
on a day he was supposed to appear in
Gohmert’s courtroom for another pre-
trial hearing, he was instead waiting in
the Dallas County jail, having been mis-
takenly arrested on a warrant for one
of the old Smith County misdemeanor
theft cases that had already been dis-
posed of. Gohmert revoked Ed’s bond
and had him transferred to Tyler and
put behind bars.
Sitting in a crowded cell, Ed met
a man named Kenneth Snow, an ex-
con and professional boxer who was
charged with two robberies, including
one in which he was accused of beating
up a man. Snow had once been a con-
tender for the middleweight crown, and
he still had dreams of climbing back
into the ring. The two jailmates became
friends, playing Spades and sharing
the Kools that Ed’s grandmother hadbought him. After Ed bonded out, Snow,
still in jail, would even call him at home.
By then Ed and Kim had purchased a
small brick house in a new subdivision
in southeast Dallas.
When Ed went on trial again, in Au-
gust 1998, his lawyers still thought the
state didn’t have much of a case. Kim,
five months pregnant with their second
child, initially didn’t even join Ed in
Tyler, but when he told her there were
no black jurors (Dobbs had struck six
African Americans from the jury pool,
in a city where one in four people were
black), she became worried. She took
time off from work, left Kyra with her
parents, and drove to the Tyler court-
house. This time prosecutors had a
secret weapon: Ed’s new friend Kenny
Snow, who was still awaiting trial for
the robberies. Ed stared in disbelief as
Snow, who had a reputation as a snitch,
testified that Ed had tried to get him
to lie on the stand and point the finger
at someone else. Snow swore that Ed
had paid him to tell authorities that
he’d overheard another inmate, a man