In 1997, I started corresponding with inmates in state prisons in Washington and Louisiana. There was a pen pal site for prisoners and I was drawn to it because I was intrigued by the potential sexual aspect of it, like I always was in my previous “relationships.” I liked that it was from a distance, too. I have always felt more comfortable with distance.
One day, I saw a picture of a young man, and I thought, I’m gonna be his pen pal! Not only did we end up writing to each other, but I went to visit him in prison.
His name was Marty. He was in his late twenties and was in prison at Airway Heights Corrections Center, in Washington State. He had been there since he was seventeen, on a first-degree assault charge. His friend had shot someone seven times while Marty was in the same room. He was arrested under the Washington State Accomplice Law and got seventeen years in prison, serving fifteen. He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When I went to visit him at Airway Heights, I was nervous and excited to make the trip. It was clear after a few minutes of talking with him that this was going to turn into some kind of relationship. I wrote to him every week, sending postcards and letters, and we talked on the phone at least once or twice a week. I knew he wasn’t gay, but there was deep caring and warmth in our connection—it became very intimate. We were important to each other—filling a sense of loneliness we each had. Marty is a wonderful guy. Since his release, he’s gotten married and had two kids, and we’ve stayed close through it all. It’s kind of odd how I always ended up keeping these long-term friendships with men I have met over the years, even if they weren’t romantic.
I also started corresponding with another prisoner named Frank, and I was amazed by how handsome he was. He had been convicted of the murder of a deputy, which he insisted he did not commit. Frank and his brother had been in jail in West Carroll Parish Detention Center on a sixty-day sentence for simple assault (he was in a fistfight), when a friend of theirs—who was in a crazed state of mind—arrived at the detention center to aid in their escape. He said Frank and his brother were his only friends. However, in the process, Frank’s friend shot and killed the deputy who was on duty. Frank snatched the gun from his friend because the guy was in a psychotic state and had said he planned to kill his father and girlfriend. At some point, Frank and his brother took the friend to some nearby woods, where he fell asleep. Frank and his brother pretended to sleep as well, but didn’t, instead they gathered up all of the friend’s guns and hid them. Then Frank and his brother went to turn themselves in, because they had left the jail illegally.
Unfortunately, the authorities had seen Frank with the gun after he had taken it from his friend and put him and his brother on trial for murder. They did this even though the police knew Frank and his brother weren’t the culprits, but that it was their friend who killed the deputy. Because Frank couldn’t afford a good attorney, he and his brother were convicted and given the death penalty, even though they were innocent. He ended up spending two decades in solitary confinement. Turns out the attorney who prosecuted Frank was convicted of ethics charges in 1998.
Frank is now incarcerated in Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as “Angola” after the plantation that originally occupied that territory. It is the largest maximum security prison in the U.S. and, like San Quentin, one of the most dangerous. You didn’t go there for committing petty offenses, that’s for sure.
Frank and I talked all the time on the phone; the first time I went to visit him was on July 4, 2002. I went to New Orleans and made my way to the Batiste Bus Line, located at the corner of Jackson & Claiborne streets, in the A-1 Appliance parking lot. I had to be there at 7:30 a.m. for an 8 a.m. departure. The bus ride was over two-and-a-half hours long. It was 100 degrees outside and the air conditioner on the bus had a mind of its own, going on and off all the way to Angola.
Most of the women on the bus were black. When I boarded, one of them looked at me and said, “Honey! Do you know where you’re goin’?” I snapped my fingers very “gayly” and said, “I’m goin’ to see my husband!”
I sat in a seat near the front and noticed an older woman sitting across from the driver. She was also the only white woman on the bus, which I thought was a little curious. About an hour into the trip, we turned into a rest stop and everyone got off to use the restroom and get some food. As I walked down the steps of the bus, I looked at the woman in the front seat, and asked her, “Would you like anything to eat or drink? I can get something for you.”
“No thank you,” she said. “That’s very nice of you, but I do this trip every week and I bring my own food.”
I nodded and smiled and went off to get something to eat, thinking in my restless mind—Do I know that woman?
After I got some chips and a sandwich, I returned and ended up sitting in the seat behind the woman. She turned around and looked at me.
“I guess you’re not from New Orleans, are you?”
“I am not,” I said.
“Would you like to come sit next to me up here?” she offered.
“Sure!”
We started talking about who she was going to visit at Angola and I soon learned she was Sister Helen Prejean. I had seen the movie1 about her, based on her book, Dead Man Walking.2 I couldn’t believe I was sitting next to her!
She was very quiet and soft spoken. She told me how she had become a nun in 1957 at the age of eighteen when she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille (now known as the Congregation of St. Joseph). To my mind, she was a living saint.
Sister Helen began her prison ministry in 1981 when she dedicated her life to the poor of New Orleans. While living in the St. Thomas housing project, she became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers, sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. . . . Upon Sonnier’s request, Sister Helen repeatedly visited him as his spiritual advisor. In doing so, her eyes were opened to the Louisiana execution process.3
When we arrived at the penitentiary, a small van picked us up to drop us at the area where the prisoners resided. I said goodbye to Sister Helen but I saw her around the grounds throughout the afternoon, visiting many of the prisoners.
Before seeing the inmates, we were guided to a “check-in” area, where we had to empty our pockets of all of our personal belongings: keys, money, wallet—everything—and put it all into a locker, which we closed with a key that we hung around our wrists. After we finished, we walked down a hallway through enormous steel doors, which were slammed shut with a bolt after we passed through. The sound of the bolt was deafening, and jolted me. I looked back at it with worry. We were then led into the community room, where I waited to meet Frank.
When I saw him, I was exhilarated. It was our first time seeing each other after a year of writing letters. He was close to six feet tall with dark hair and he was tan from lifting weights out in the sun. I was only allowed to give him a hug, and only one hug at that. It felt very special.
That whole day we sat and played cards and talked. Then I said, “Frank, can I keep these cards when I leave so I can remember today?” Except what I actually wanted was his T-shirt. He had an opened button-down shirt with a T-shirt underneath, but getting that out of the prison without getting caught, well, that was another story.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’m going to the bathroom to take off my shirt and leave it in there. Then you can go in and put it on underneath your own shirt.”
We could have gotten into a lot of trouble if we got caught. They would have likely put Frank back into solitary confinement, and those small cells are designed to drive you stir-crazy.
Luckily, we weren’t caught, and I was able to leave with a little bit of Frank. We continue to write to each other to this day, and we talk on the phone weekly. His lawyer is trying to get his sentence overturned as Frank was not the one who pulled the trigger. Meanwhile, his prison term has been reduced and he is no longer on death row—but is now serving life while a new team of lawyers work to secure his release.