Guilty

     The days dragged by as I trudged my way through the court process.  There was very little to do in the cell. I listened to the radio, read novels and worried about what would come next. I had plenty of time to go over every regret in life. My life consisted of waiting for the next court hearing to arrive until early 1996, when my trial date finally came.  I was taken to the court house and the ever present reporters were there waiting.  The week before, my public defender told me he had spoken to the district attorney and my trial would be postponed.  There were some motions that had not been heard yet.  Since I believed the trial would not begin, I had called my family and told them not to come.

     Inside, I was the first person to go before the judge.  The public defender asked for the postponement as planned, but the district attorney objected and asked that jury selection begin at once.  The judge agreed.  I was shell shocked.  I would be going to trail that day, and knew I was about to get, not only the book, but the entire library thrown at me.  My public defender tried to explain to the judge he had already arranged for a postponement with the prosecution and he was not prepared to go to trial.  The D.A. denied he had agreed to anything.  The judge called all the lawyers into his chambers, and a few minutes later, the public defender came back and told me what had happened.

     According to him, he said he had been led to believe the district attorney was going to agree to a postponement.  The D.A. denied it which led to the two of them trading punches in the judges chambers.  After they were separated, the judge decided the trial would go forward. The judge also sent me a personal message.  I was to plead guilty and agree to testify against Sarah in exchange for a thirty-five year sentence.  If I refused, I would be found guilty and given the maximum sentence of ninety-nine years.  Had I any legal knowledge and not been in a state of such, I may have realized this was highly unusual.
I balked.  The enormity of the sentence scared me to my very core.  I knew I could receive a life sentence in Mississippi, but that was still distant and seemingly far away.  This was here and now and all too real.  My lawyer kept pressing me to accept it, telling me I had no chance to win in a trial.  He was right because my defense team was unprepared and not ready to go to trial.  Finally, I caved in.  The only thing appealing about the deal was the chance to testify against Sarah and pay her back for turning me in for the Mississippi murder.

     Before I accepted, I asked if I could call my mother for advice.  He left to get permission and returned a few moments later to lead me to a break room where a phone was.  I called and my mother picked up the phone.  I explained to her the situation and asked what I should do.  She still wanted to believe there was some way they would just let me go even though she knew it was impossible.   Despite everything, she still wanted to believe I was innocent. Finally, after many tears, she told me to take the deal.  In truth, there was no other option. Later that day, I stood before the judge and pled guilty.  Sentencing would take place after Sarah's trial.  I would have to wait in the parish jail until then.

Another Brick in the Wall

     One day in August of 1995, a trustee who cleaned the walkway in front of my cell told me he had seen Sarah talking with some people who had come from Mississippi.

     My heart sank.  In the back of my mind I had always suspected they would show up eventually, but it was still a shock when they actually came.  A few days later, I found out through the same trustee that Sarah had taken a lie detector test, and I knew I could look forward to new charges in the near future.  I didn't learn the full details about what was going on until my mother sent me an article from the Muskogee newspaper.  Sarah had confided to her lawyers about the Mississippi murder, and they advised her to work with the authorities if they could get her immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony against me.  Eventually, he spoke with the district attorney from Mississippi and secured the deal.
The night I found this out, I made plans to kill Sarah and then myself.  I didn't see the point of going on, knowing the severity of the crime in Mississippi. This was the plan. The sheriff’s deputies usually brought us to and from the court house together because reporters always waited for us outside like swarms of bees around honey.  Normally, male and female prisoners were always kept apart, but it was easier for them to keep us together and made for a good clip on the news.  The next time we were placed together, I planned to strangle her with the waist chains wrapped around us while we were locked in the back of one of the transportation vans.  Thanks to my slim and flexible wrists I could slip my hands out of the handcuffs whenever I wished and strangle Sarah before the officers would be able to stop the van and pull me off of her.

     Someone must have been looking over her, though.  From that day on, we never rode together in the van again.  I never told anyone my plans, so I know no one told on me.  Eventually, my rage towards her lessened and the plan for her death was abandoned. Still, I hated her intensely.

     Once when I saw her pass near my cell, I screamed at her through the Plexiglas until I lost my voice and bloodied my knuckles pounding on the walls.  The guards rushed to my cell to find out what was going on and found me red-faced at the door of my cell.

     The funny thing was, even with all the rage that would serge through me when I thought about her, I still had moments when I only wanted to be loved by her again. It was confusing and made the situation all the hard for me to process.