In the summer of 1990, the life of 27-year-old Linda Renee Blackmon was tragically cut short in Elbert, Georgia. On or around June 13, she was the victim of a brutal murder. Her body was later discovered on July 1, 1990, in a lake, weighed down with a brake drum. An investigation revealed she had been shot in the head with a shotgun and her throat had been cut multiple times.
Two men, Leonard Maurice Drane and David Robert Willis, were with Blackmon on the night she was killed. Following their arrests, both men were charged with her murder. The case against them unfolded over many years, marked by separate trials and lengthy legal battles. Drane maintained his innocence from the beginning, claiming that Willis was the one who had unexpectedly shot and then cut Blackmon's throat. He stated that he was in shock and that Willis had threatened him to keep quiet. Drane cooperated with law enforcement, leading them to the locations where the murder occurred and where her body was disposed of.
Despite Drane's cooperation and his insistence that he did not participate in the killing, he was convicted and sentenced to death. Willis, on the other hand, initially refused to testify. The evidence against Drane at the time of his trial was described as 'slight.'
Years later, in a significant turn of events, David Robert Willis confessed to being the sole perpetrator of Linda Blackmon's murder. In 2010, while being evaluated for parole, Willis admitted that he alone had killed Blackmon, and that Drane had been merely present at the scene. This confession supported the account that Drane had given to the police nearly two decades earlier. This admission became a central point in Drane's appeals to overturn his death sentence.
