Читать книгу Betrayal In Blood - Michael Benson - Страница 14

CHAPTER 7

Vermont Law School: 1985–88

In the autumn of 1985, Kevin Bryant was twenty-seven years old. He was born on February 22, 1958. Kevin’s life had centered around two things: bad health (a congenitally bad heart) and—like the Bassetts, who had raised Samantha and Tabatha—the Community of Christ Church.

Kevin’s dad, Vivian, was an official with the church. Vivian Bryant and his wife Joyce lived in Penfield and belonged to the Pittsford branch of the church. In fact, Vivian Bryant knew Essie Bassett from church get-togethers dating back to the 1950s.

Kevin had always been smart as a whip, but he had been held back by his bad heart. He was nicknamed “AV boy” as a teen because, in school, he was frequently seen pushing audio-visual equipment. He graduated from Penfield High School in 1976, by far the smallest boy in his class.

At age twenty-seven, he had achieved his bachelor degree and was ready to enter law school. There were only a few independent, private law schools in the country—that is, not affiliated with a university. In 1985, Kevin was accepted at and attended Vermont Law School, the only such school in Vermont.

Kevin was not the sort of guy to strike terror in anyone’s heart as he walked down the street. He was five-two—five-four with his shoes on—and bespectacled. He did not radiate a picture of health, but he was neat, both in grooming and in dress. His black hair was always freshly combed.

Tabatha’s father, Leroy Bassett, who had known Kevin ever since Kevin was a little boy, had always assumed that he was unhealthy just from the looks of him. “Kevin had always been kind of sickly,” Leroy said years later. “His health was not the greatest. I lived on a farm. He lived in the city. I thought city folks were strange anyway.”

Vermont Law School’s “Mission Statement” proposes: “To educate students in a diverse community that fosters personal growth and that enables them to attain outstanding professional skills and high ethical values with which to serve as lawyers and environmental and other professionals in an increasingly technological and interdependent global society.” Its motto, “Lex pro urbe et orbe”, means “Law for the community and the world.” The nineteen-building, thirteen-acre campus was small and beautiful, located in the village of South Royalton, on the banks of the White River, in a National Register Historic District. There were only a little more than six hundred full-time students and less than forty full-time faculty members.

Although it’s unknown if this factor entered into Kevin’s thinking when he was looking for law schools, Vermont Law was considered one of the top law schools for women anywhere in the country. Even back in the 1980s, more than half of the students were women. The student body was a tad older than at most law schools as well, with the average age being twenty-eight. Age-wise, Kevin fit right in.

It was a new school. When Kevin first began attending classes there, the school was only thirteen years old. Kevin completed a three-year program and earned his J.D. degree, which qualified him, depending on his passing of the bar exam, to practice law anywhere in the United States.