Jesus the Ex-Con

DEDICATION

For Raven,

I put you through unthinkable misery and yet you remained a constant source of love and encouragement. Thank you for showing me heaven even when I was putting you through hell. You’re truly a godsend.

CONTENTS

One Man’s Journey from Life

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

INTAKE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

Discharge

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to the Cell Block 7 Prison Museum for allowing me to use their pictures of the prison. Because of their graciousness, readers will receive and even fuller perspective of the reality of incarcerated life.

I would also like to thank Randall Neighbor for his invaluable editing assistance and advice.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

You’re about to read a true and unrestricted account of my time behind the walls of one of the world’s most notorious prisons. Many of the stories are derived from a prohibited journal I secretly kept while incarcerated. Please be advised that you’ll encounter descriptions of violence and other mature subject matter.

Additionally, I share intense details leading up to my arrest and conviction, including my childhood abuse and other factors that contributed to my criminal lifestyle. This content helps paint a complete picture of my past and is not intended to glamorize criminal activity or excuse my behavior.

Furthermore, to protect the privacy of individuals mentioned throughout this book, I’ve altered most names and some identifying details. I carefully chose only the people, events and experiences that would best convey my story.

Wherever possible, I’ve described conversations and events with accuracy. However, as with any memoir there were instances where my memory failed me. On these rare occasions, I relied upon a little creative liberty to tell my story.

I used to have secrets. Now I have a story.

INTAKE

(Introduction)

Jackson state prison is infamously known as the world’s largest walled penitentiary. Since its opening more than 175 years ago in Jackson, Michigan, the ominous compound has confined some of the state’s most notorious criminals, many of whom died behind the massive walls serving their sentences.

Jackson State Prison is known by several names, but inmates have more sarcastic names for it: Jackson State Motel or the Big Motel. It was our small way of softening the harsh reality of the prison.

Shortly after my 23rd birthday, the state booked me for an extended stay at their castle-like, flagship prison. The following is my firsthand review of the institution.

The Big Motel

The Big Motel boasts nearly 6,000 single-occupancy guest rooms, each about the size of a small closet. The furnishings include a writing ledge, a sink, and a foul-smelling toilet. And just like Motel 6, Jackson State Motel will leave the light on for you, but they’ll never completely turn it off. From the tower spotlights to the dim, yellowish halogen lights lining the block and the guard’s flashlight in your face when you’re trying to sleep, there’s always a light on. Darkness is non-existent except for the doom and gloom covering most inmates’ lives.

At the Big Motel, there’s no such thing as a good night’s sleep.

The drab green, plastic covered bed mat is super thin, and our windowless lodging suffered from poor ventilation, making the air musty and humid. Then there’s the hotel staff, known for their special wake-up calls at all hours of the night—seemingly for their own entertainment.

The official wake-up call arrives abruptly at 5 a.m. when the guard breaks open each row of 50 cell doors using a giant wrench. From the time he swings open the massive locking system, you’ll have approximately five seconds to grab the hardened steel bars and slide open your cell door. If for some reason you’re still sleeping and miss opening it, you’ll pay dearly. Inmates who oversleep miss breakfast and sit in their cells until lunch.

Every meal at The Jackson State Motel is served several hundred yards away at the chow hall—unless you’re disobedient. If you’re a good boy, you’ll fall in line and eat the continental breakfast with the rest of the guests, which usually consists of a peanut butter sandwich and two hard-boiled eggs or the mystery porridge. If you act up, staff will deliver your brown bag breakfast directly to your administrative segregation cell (aka the hole) through a small opening in the solid metal door.

If you’re looking for a swimming pool, free internet or even a TV with free cable, those don’t exist at The Big Motel. But you will get room service. He’s a large, sweaty inmate nicknamed Big D, and he might wink at you while passing out your weekly bed linens and towel for group shower time; that’s where you’ll strip down and stand in line with fifty other naked men, waiting for your 30 seconds in front of the shower head, doing your best to ignore all types of inappropriate sexual activity.

My accommodations at Jackson State Motel were among some of the worst experiences of my young life—yet I’m truly thankful for my stay. In fact, even though its walls are six stories high and topped off with armed guards eager to accelerate a prisoner’s life sentence, like my own, I’d give Jackson State Motel a five-star rating. (Keep reading to learn why I rated my time in this prison so highly).

Inmate, the county jail deputy yelled in his drill sergeant voice, move forward to the next cell and stop!

The potbellied deputy held a large skeleton key in one hand and a baton in the other. He opened the solid steel door and then motioned me into the cell.

Clank! The heavy cell door slammed against the metal frame behind me and I flinched. At that moment, my fraudulent hardcore criminal façade was exposed and the other inmates picked up the scent of a fresh jail virgin.

Nine other men clad in green and white striped coveralls stared at me, waiting for my response. I tried moving but my feet felt like they were cemented to the floor. I was frozen in place, my body unwilling to adjust to the menacing surroundings and the rancid odors.

I was on the verge of a psychotic breakdown and I had yet to arrive at the prison. This was my introduction to the county jail—a dismal and dirty facility filled with a variety of criminals, from drunks and addicts to petty thieves and even molesters and murderers.

If I’m going to survive, I’ve got to pull myself together, I thought. If I don’t, the only way I’m getting out of here is in a body bag.

I managed to maintain my composure long enough to find an empty bunk, but the only vacancy was above an inmate experiencing a severe drug withdrawal. He was curled up in a fetal position, shaking and sweating profusely. I didn't necessarily want to sleep above a junkie whose outward symptoms mirrored my inward turmoil, but I soon realized he was the least of my concerns.

The Skinheads

In the back of the cell, I noticed four middle aged inmates sporting shaved heads and swastika tattoos. When the ringleader saw me, he unreservedly yelled, thank you—he’s not a nigg*r! Then he looked me over with a sinister grin. He liked my pale skin, light-colored hair, and blue eyes. It was as if a child molester was stalking me, waiting for the right time for the abduction. I made sure to ignore his lustful glances and appear disinterested in whatever candy he was offering.

As the day wore on, the skinhead ringleader and the other members of his gang did their best to stir our emotions by spreading hate-filled propaganda. They stood in the center of the cell and preached how all blacks were secretly involved in a grand scheme to poison the purity of the perfect white race. It was so absurd that I nearly laughed but they were serious. This became evident when they threatened anyone who disagreed with their bigoted agenda.

I thought, was this really happening in 2003? I had a difficult time accepting what I was experiencing. My mind raced as I considered ways to get out of the cell. It was only a matter of time before they discovered I was married to a black woman and had mixed-race children. There was no way I could take on four men by myself and survive.

Within just a few hours, these self-proclaimed Neo-Nazis—who purposely shaved their heads as a mark of division and disdain for anyone who looked different from themselves—created so much stress in the cell that my own hair was falling out. I guess the skinhead savages were content to have my scalp anyway they could get it!

As evening came, I found myself lost in extremely dark thoughts. I wrestled with the fact that I had fallen so low and was locked up in a grungy cell with a bunch of white supremacist skinheads. And, of course, my mind was also on my family. That was a long first night that I will never forget.

Facing Reality

It was clear that I wasn’t prepared to deal with incarceration. I heard stories and I’d seen depictions in movies, but what I was experiencing was unimaginable. I was living inside a horrific nightmare and I wasn’t waking up from it anytime soon.

After a harsh introduction to my new cold and hardened residence, I was forced to come to terms with my surroundings and my new identity. I was barely out of my teenage years as a recent Bible college graduate. Now I was reduced to nothing more than a convicted felon, one of the lowest, most detested labels afforded to men on this earth. And if that wasn’t enough, the state presented me with a rare and unexpected, indeterminate life sentence for my crimes.

Even though most of the other inmates maintained their innocence and claimed wrongful convictions, I was overdosing on guilt and shame. The back of my striped jail jumpsuit may have been stenciled with the words County Jail, but to me, it read Guilty as Hell. I was the worst of the worst, a criminal with a life sentence awaiting transfer to the world’s largest and most notorious walled prison. Short of taking my life, nothing was lower than the place in which I found myself. I was living in the valley of the shadow of death . . . and, yes, there was plenty of evil to fear. But I would be negligent if I didn’t also share the encounter I had with a peculiar hope—a hope that eventually swallowed up the evil and allowed me to escape every personal prison I built for myself with open doors to an abundant life.

As we journey ahead I’ll introduce you to that hope and the miraculous plot twist. But first, let’s rewind several years to a more innocent time in my life to explain how it unraveled.

CHAPTER 1

The Onset of my Problems

Something was seriously wrong with me. One minute I was playing preschool games with my friends, and the next I was vomiting and painfully urinating blood. Nervously, my parents rushed me to the emergency room.

After check-in, a team of doctors met with us to explain the severity of the situation. Within minutes the medical staff rolled me into a sterile room filled with an array of beeping monitors and bright exam lights.

When the surgeon’s assistant walked in to hang up blood bags and arrange scalpels, my overactive, four-year-old imagination created an alternate reality. I wasn’t really being prepped for emergency surgery to remove my diseased kidney. In fact, I wasn’t even in a real hospital! I was in a mothership and the extraterrestrials were disguised as doctors, waiting to harvest my organs to study the humanoid species.

Then the head alien entered the room.

He said something but I couldn’t make it out. His mask and protective blood-splatter shield moved up and down, but I couldn’t see his lips, only his weathered forehead and steely eyes. His deep voice caused my body to tense up and I gripped the gurney in panic.

Let’s go ahead and turn on the sleepy machine. The surgeon told his assistant. Then he held up a teddy bear and asked me to name it.

Hey, why are the lights dimming? I wondered. I tried to fight off the drowsiness, but I couldn’t shake it. In a matter of a few seconds, I faded off into an unremembered dream and the aliens had their way with me.

Several hours later, I woke up surrounded by a dozen balloons and cards and my own personal attendants who kept asking if I wanted ice cream. With a push of a button, they came running to do my bidding! It was every child’s dream—well, all but the pain, a foot long surgical scar, and Nurse Beatrice. She was always pushing to give me a sponge bath. No, thank you!

Resting in recovery, I overheard the doctor explaining to my parents that the situation would have been grim had they not made it to the hospital that day. He continued by sharing all the special attention I needed and a list of restricted activities to ensure I lived a healthy life:

Absolutely no contact sports of any kind. No football, martial arts, hockey, or wrestling. He even mentioned soccer.

As a result of my life-altering surgery, my parents became severely overprotective. If there was even a hint of contact in a sport, I wasn’t allowed to participate (they provided me notes to opt out of gym class for just about anything other than square dancing and badminton). They also spoiled me by allowing me to eat as much food and sweets as I desired. It wasn’t long before my inactivity and overindulgence caught up with me and I became obese. (Let me be politically incorrect here: a little over a year later, I was fat!)

Kindergarten

How can kindergarten aged kids be so mean? I wondered. The bus rides to and from school were the worst. The bus driver was oblivious to the inappropriate behavior occurring in the back of the bus. At first, the kids immaturely teased me, but there was always one kid who acted as though it was his daily mission to break me down and remind me how I didn’t measure up to his standards. The insults hurt badly, but at least he wasn’t putting his hands on me . . . yet.

Hey, look, it’s fatso!

Why don’t you just go on a diet, fat boy?

Hey, we can use Scotty’s shirt for the parachute game!

Scotty’s so fat he leaves stretch marks on his chair!

No, he’s so fat he bleeds red frosting!

I couldn’t wait for the weekends so I could escape the verbal teasing. There were no bullies at home or at church—well, that is until one of the bullies from school showed up at church one Sunday. When I saw him, I wanted to leave and never return. I thought church was supposedly full of loving people, but my day of rest soon became a day of resentfulness.

By the time I enrolled in second grade, the insults became so common that if someone said the word fatso, I came running. There was no relief from the cruelty, but then our family went through a major change and a glimmer of hope surfaced.

The Move

Scott, we found a new home. We’re moving in a few weeks. My mom giddily smiled.

Where? In our same neighborhood? I replied.

No, we’re moving to the country, out to Michigan. Do you remember that house we visited last week? My mom and dad put their arms around each other and smiled while sipping their coffee.

The one with the marsh and all the mosquitoes? Yep, I remember. I didn’t like it. I sarcastically responded.

Oh, it won’t be that bad. You’ll like it . . . and there are fewer troublemakers as well.

My parents did their best to convince me that moving from the Northern Indiana suburbs to a new home on 40-acres in Podunk, Michigan was for my benefit.

My sister, who was ten years my elder, rebelled in her high school years and my parents didn’t want a repeat with me. They felt a smaller community and school would keep me from following her same path, but I still resisted their idea of a move to the country. Being a chubby eight-year-old, I had only a few friends, and I wasn’t sure if I could make new ones—oh, that and the fact that there was no pool, no air conditioning, and we were so far out into the