"I Killed A Man": What Happens When A Homicide Confession Goes Viral:
Per recommendation from lawyers, Cordle enrolled in a two-week
partial hospitalization program at Dublin Springs, a nearby mental
health and addiction treatment center. His dad picked him up every
morning for the program’s eight-hour sessions. But Cordle wasn’t
benefiting from the program as much as he could have. Lawyers had
advised him not to talk in group settings because prosecutors could
later subpoena someone. He couldn’t say what happened, when it happened,
or why it happened. Everything he wanted to talk about he couldn’t talk
about. It was then he began to realize the route he was taking was
wrong.
One night at the river house, Cordle was as close to insane
as he’d ever felt. The guilt overwhelmed him, and he didn’t know how to
face it. For some reason he fell asleep easily that night, and when he
woke up, he knew he had to plead guilty. He couldn’t take back what
happened on June 22, but he had some control over what happened next. It
was the first time he’d felt any peace since the crash. Cordle told
Sarah about his decision at a Mexican restaurant soon after. “He was so
sure and so confident,” she says. “It was like a weight had been lifted
off of him. He was happier, not as anxious. I remember he came and told
my dad and my grandparents, ‘I’m going to tell them what happened from
what I know, and I’ll let the judge decide and just take it. I’m the one
who has to live with it.’”