November 2, 2025 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, every Sunday, Our American Stories' host, Lee Habeeb, speaks with Mitchel Rutledge, an inmate serving life in Alabama, over the phone about life, faith, and redemption behind bars. This is the third installment of our ongoing series with him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.
His next story is about a friend of mine. We're
close in age, but have little else in common. Mitchell
Rutledge aka Big Mitch, was born black and poor in Georgia.
I was born kind of brown and middle class in
New Jersey. He never met his father. I still talk
(00:33):
to my ninety four year old father every week. He
dropped out of high school in his early teens and
was illiterate into his early twenties. I was surrounded by
books growing up and finished graduate school in my early thirties.
Big Mitch spent the last forty four years of his
life in Alabama prisons for killing a man. But this
(00:55):
is not a story about an innocent man sentenced to
prison for a crime he didn't commit. Big Mitch never
denied the crime or made excuses for it. This is
the story of my friend's spiritual transformation while serving his
life sentence. It's also about a friendship. Only God could
(01:16):
have engineered a friendship that began with a single Sunday
morning call. Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come
to know and love him as much as I do.
Welcome to Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch. Here's episode three,
My Conversation on January twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, where
(01:37):
Mitch recounts first finding out about his charges, not understanding them,
and having no one to call for help.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
This is a free call from an.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
To accept this pre call press one to refuse this
pre call press too. Thank you for using It's curious.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You may start the conversation. Now. I had just got
out of prison, so I hadn't been out for eight months.
So I telled the captain I was drawn, I was high,
I was on cocaine and so on and so on,
and I committed a murder, so saying that it's just
(02:25):
like released me at least some stress off me. Anyway,
So he woke with murder and robber. So uh. Later
the next day they came back, they said, well, we
want to hear everything on record, so that like I said,
you know, I didn't know anything about a lawyer. I
didn't know anything about the reading and writing, and so
(02:46):
I couldn't read and write. So he was reading something
to me, but be honest, I couldn't comprehend what he
was reading and Uh. At that time, I couldn't even
realize to spell my last name correctly. But it's true.
I was really illiterated. So I signed over all the
rights and I confessed, so they got everything on paper.
(03:10):
He took me back upstairs, and I didn't have anybody
to call. I gonna try to call my aunt to
an eventually I need to call him, but I didn't
have couldn't call my grandmother because I don't think my
grandmother had a telephone.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Not quite understanding what the electric chair was and what
being on death row actually meant, Mitch was longing for help.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I'd been up there about a week and black officer
came up. He said, hey, young man, he said, come here.
I went up to him and he said, do you
know he talking about putting you in an electric chair?
And at that time, I never I had no idea
what the electored chair were.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You know, I said, elmer chair? I said, he said, man,
he tell my kid that you're young man. And when
he told me that, I went around in the bull
pain and where everywhere it was, I was acting, guy,
how to buy it?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Man? What does he left the chair? What is it
you do? And because I had no idea that it
was his delta.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Big Mitch's life was upside down. He had that Bible,
but he couldn't read it. He learned to start memorizing
words he told me, and the guys around him started
reading words to him and for him.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I got me a Bible, but I can't read, so
I said, man, I need to learn how to read
so I could read the Bible. So I got on
the knees. Thank God to help me to learn how
to read, so I could read the Bible. I had
a good memory. So they would let us go out
(04:53):
to the law library every week. The whole kid can
go out. But that once they went to the law
light Burier, that was the time to air differences. You know,
you go out there and fight, make gamble. You know,
most of them did do legal work. That gave them
an opportunity to get out to sell the social line
with each other, because normally you by yourself all the time,
(05:16):
but just the only time that you can mingle with
each other, and we really just more people each other anyway.
But they didn't have enough time to really try to
get everybody out there like this, so they just send
the whole tier out there, who want to go? And
the fourteen sails, So everybody went to get out the sale.
Because we stayed out there five or six hours. You
have one minute left. So once I got out there,
(05:38):
you asked the more guys that was, you know, into
the Bible, and I told him at that time right there,
you know, I let the guys know, hey, many I
can't read. So so the guys started to like read
certain words and stuff. I'm watching it and I'm learning it.
And then I started to like, once I'm watching TV,
I started looking at it from mercers and stuff, like
(06:01):
they had taken words from that. Like I said, good memory.
So I'm loared, I'm cousing brain. I still ain't got
nobody come to see me. St you didn't got no
better to do that in plund me.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And you've been listening to Mitchell Rutledge, whom I affectionately
call Big Mitch and who has become a close friend.
But boy, you're hearing about the early stages of his
prison life. And he had indeed just taken the life
of another human being. And as you'll hear in coming
segments and episodes, he had deep regrets, bad dreams about
(06:37):
this and the kind of man he was that could
do such a thing, had tremendous remorse, a tremendous guilt
over it, and had a true conscience, which in the
end was so much a part of his humanity. He
didn't make excuses for this crime, as I said earlier
and we'll say again and again, and didn't ever claim
his innocence or not getting his due process or legal rights.
(06:59):
Attend to all of those things happen when we come
back more of the rest of the story of Big
Mitch's early days in prison, knowing that he was about
to be on death row in his early twenties. This
is Our American Stories, Lee Hubib here, and I'd like
(07:30):
to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on
Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear
again can be found there daily again. Please subscribe to
the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app,
(07:52):
or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep
these great American stories coming. And we continue with our
American Stories and Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch our third
(08:14):
episode and we talk now about an article in Time
magazine about Big Mitch that changed his life, bringing him
friends he could have never imagined, friends he'd never known,
friends he'd never had.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Time magazine was doing articles in each state, web d
and death city in I'm sure how God worked in
my life.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Now, when they get.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
To the state Alabama, the Southern Partty Law Center, they
contacted them and asked them to recommend a road inmate
to be interviewed with this interview on death road in
the state Alabama. Now, at this time you had we
more intellectual, well known individuals on death row then myself.
(09:06):
But then his bosket, which is my attorney. He represented
the Southern father of the Law Center represented about twenty
five guys on death row. But anyway, he picked me
out of all the folks in the world, he picked me,
and I told him yes, So I went out there,
we talked and everything, and so the article came out. Jane,
(09:28):
we're twenty third, nineteen eighty one, and at the time
magazine said that the death row is at the same
side in the state of Alabama where we have a
twenty three year old and Mitchell Religion IQ eighty nine
rat above retardation. He did committed murder individuals like him,
(09:53):
a gun shooting young talk who cares forget about him,
let him sit. It's true. In his eight by five
in Alabama death Row, that's pretty much with Dollier said.
You know, guys on death row, they would make a
card of the man you read above, reparding you know you.
(10:13):
I Q eight it, you know. So at that time
I had found Jesus so and I had more confidence
in myself, and I felt better about myself, So I
really didn't that that bothered me.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The Time Magazine article changed many things for Big Mitch,
and the biggest change of all was his first real
encounter with a stranger who would end up loving him,
and that began with the first letter he received from
Sister Lillian.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
About a week later, Time Magazine sent me a lot
of with their monogram on me, and I thought it
was just something about art of the magazine. But it
was a letter in there from a sister Lillian Oliver
from Santa Monica, California, amaca with hard community, and when
(11:04):
I started living there, I couldn't read it. So what
I did I opened up the hive loop. I gave
the letter to walk. At this time we didn't have
the chicken walk over the front of the sales. So
I said, well, reading this from me man, So he
began to read it from me, and as he read it,
he said, my name is sister Lulie and Oliver. I'm
(11:27):
from the Mica with hard community, and God sent me
in your life. You're not alone anymore. So she was
reading especially, Ain't that amazing? So I had been tinkling
around with writing from watching the commercials and stuff, writing stuff.
Now I had a good memory. I messed around and
(11:48):
uh I had copy words town, so I knew what
thank you meant from guys telling me what it is
for me saying you know what have you on TV?
I knew what it was. I remember what it was.
So what I did I couldn't write cursing now the
only could print, and I had a bad, ugly print.
But I sat down and uh I got me an
(12:11):
im aloaf and I comfit the address and put my
address on the air and I put thank you and
uh trying my name send it back out and that
we started to h she's sending me a like alphabets
and stuff like that, And then uh I got the
Bible open, and I'm getting words out of the Bible,
(12:33):
because because if a God read something to me, I
can remember what the word pretty much is. But I see,
so I began to just do the best again to
correspond back with her by using like her letters. She
would print it to me, and some of the words
that you used in there once it got read, and
I used those same words back in the letter to
(12:56):
her in a sense. And eventually she's sitting on her
phone number. So we were being to talk and she
was I ain't your God. She was God's sin, if
you can recall, But I told you how to kind
of kill. And I asked the little dude up on
the table with God real and he told me she man,
(13:17):
you know, my mama says, you want no God, really
ask God to touch you. So I pray God touch me.
And after that, if you can recall, I told you
that I asked God to send somebody in my life
to be there for me. Well, that's with her.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So the question still remained, how did Big Mitch manage
his own life, manage his own conscience knowing he's taking
the life of another man.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I lean on God, lean on GE's crash and keep
faith alive, keep open eyes, and know that at the
end or the day, regardless, we'll go on. And God
in charge. He's Christ and one that I pray. And uh,
that's why I'm still here. I'm starting on my forty
four year I started h January speaker one on forty
(14:06):
four years. So a lot of guys in there say, well, man,
how you do that? Man? To stay positive and stay
upbeat and still have your right mind. So they try
to give me a lot of accurate ads. R give
me a lot of credit. But I tell them, I said, jeez, Christ,
and I'm not joking. I'm I'm living witness. It's Christ
(14:28):
Esus that still have me here and not angry and
bitter and and what have you. And then I also
tell the individual's accountability, responsibility and owning up to the
wrong you d you know, and you go out, no
God to forgive me, you know. So God forgave myself
(14:50):
and other people just gave me. But that's the most
important thing. So that's one of the reasons I tell him.
I said, well, man, I'm not better than angry. I'm
not angry with design, I ain't ready with anyone owning
up to what I did. You know, a lot of
people in priers ain't gonna do that.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So I'm just a unique cage right there, and I
thank God for that, and it gives me a lot
of freedom. I'm a lot more frill than a lot
of dudes that dark gill can't claim it can't take
responsibility of good, it ain't own up to it. And
so that gives me a lot more freedom to be
able to. I ain't mad with nobody, but I tell
(15:31):
guys that all the time. You know, I got a
pH d in prisonology. I tell him that all the time,
as long as happens after So I got a doctorate
in psychology for being institutionalized learned by experience. But that's
all going on with me. I'm gonna let you go
to church and I talk for you thirst.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
I look forward to it.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Let you go go, Ravens. Yeah, okay, all right now,
think yeah, lovelass.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And you've been listening to Mitchell Rutledge, aka Big Mitch,
And from now on that's all I'm gonna call him
this Big Mitch twenty three years old. And there it is,
that article in Time magazine the death penalty had just
been reinstated, and Time magazine went around the country interviewing
and or learning about various inmates, and my goodness, the
(16:25):
words they wrote about Mitch IQ of eighty eight or
eighty nine, just slightly above the IQ of a retarded
person in pardon for using that phrase that's time's not mine.
Let him stew it is eight x five in Alabama.
They also had a line that said something like some
people aren't worth killing. They talked about how much money
(16:46):
it would cost on appeal to kill him. Everyone in
prison made fun of him, but this Jesus experience had
changed his life. And then he got that angel that
he'd been praying for, and that was Sister Lilian. God
sent me in your life. She wrote, you are not alone,
my goodness, Sister Lily, and eventually sent her phone number,
(17:09):
and she was indeed an angel sent from God. Big
Mitch said, I prayed God would touch me, and I
asked God to send me somebody. Big Mitch said, how
did he handle taking the life of another man. I
leaned on God. I gave it to God.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
How do you do it?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
How do you stay positive? He said, Well, I give
credit to Jesus first, but I emphasize accountability, personal responsibility,
and owning up to what you did. I am not angry.
In fact, I'm free because of Jesus and because I
owned up. I have a doctorate in being institutionalized. The
(17:47):
story of Big Mitch episode three. Here on our American
Stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.
His next story is about a friend of mine. We're
close in age, but have little else in common. Mitchell
Rutledge aka Big Mitch, was born black and poor in Georgia.
I was born kind of brown and middle class in
New Jersey. He never met his father. I still talk
(00:33):
to my ninety four year old father every week. He
dropped out of high school in his early teens and
was illiterate into his early twenties. I was surrounded by
books growing up and finished graduate school in my early thirties.
Big Mitch spent the last forty four years of his
life in Alabama prisons for killing a man. But this
(00:55):
is not a story about an innocent man sentenced to
prison for a crime he didn't commit. Big Mitch never
denied the crime or made excuses for it. This is
the story of my friend's spiritual transformation while serving his
life sentence. It's also about a friendship. Only God could
(01:16):
have engineered a friendship that began with a single Sunday
morning call. Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come
to know and love him as much as I do.
Welcome to Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch. Here's episode three,
My Conversation on January twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, where
(01:37):
Mitch recounts first finding out about his charges, not understanding them,
and having no one to call for help.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
This is a free call from an.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
To accept this pre call press one to refuse this
pre call press too. Thank you for using It's curious.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You may start the conversation. Now. I had just got
out of prison, so I hadn't been out for eight months.
So I telled the captain I was drawn, I was high,
I was on cocaine and so on and so on,
and I committed a murder, so saying that it's just
(02:25):
like released me at least some stress off me. Anyway,
So he woke with murder and robber. So uh. Later
the next day they came back, they said, well, we
want to hear everything on record, so that like I said,
you know, I didn't know anything about a lawyer. I
didn't know anything about the reading and writing, and so
(02:46):
I couldn't read and write. So he was reading something
to me, but be honest, I couldn't comprehend what he
was reading and Uh. At that time, I couldn't even
realize to spell my last name correctly. But it's true.
I was really illiterated. So I signed over all the
rights and I confessed, so they got everything on paper.
(03:10):
He took me back upstairs, and I didn't have anybody
to call. I gonna try to call my aunt to
an eventually I need to call him, but I didn't
have couldn't call my grandmother because I don't think my
grandmother had a telephone.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Not quite understanding what the electric chair was and what
being on death row actually meant, Mitch was longing for help.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I'd been up there about a week and black officer
came up. He said, hey, young man, he said, come here.
I went up to him and he said, do you
know he talking about putting you in an electric chair?
And at that time, I never I had no idea
what the electored chair were.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You know, I said, elmer chair? I said, he said, man,
he tell my kid that you're young man. And when
he told me that, I went around in the bull
pain and where everywhere it was, I was acting, guy,
how to buy it?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Man? What does he left the chair? What is it
you do? And because I had no idea that it
was his delta.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Big Mitch's life was upside down. He had that Bible,
but he couldn't read it. He learned to start memorizing
words he told me, and the guys around him started
reading words to him and for him.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I got me a Bible, but I can't read, so
I said, man, I need to learn how to read
so I could read the Bible. So I got on
the knees. Thank God to help me to learn how
to read, so I could read the Bible. I had
a good memory. So they would let us go out
(04:53):
to the law library every week. The whole kid can
go out. But that once they went to the law
light Burier, that was the time to air differences. You know,
you go out there and fight, make gamble. You know,
most of them did do legal work. That gave them
an opportunity to get out to sell the social line
with each other, because normally you by yourself all the time,
(05:16):
but just the only time that you can mingle with
each other, and we really just more people each other anyway.
But they didn't have enough time to really try to
get everybody out there like this, so they just send
the whole tier out there, who want to go? And
the fourteen sails, So everybody went to get out the sale.
Because we stayed out there five or six hours. You
have one minute left. So once I got out there,
(05:38):
you asked the more guys that was, you know, into
the Bible, and I told him at that time right there,
you know, I let the guys know, hey, many I
can't read. So so the guys started to like read
certain words and stuff. I'm watching it and I'm learning it.
And then I started to like, once I'm watching TV,
I started looking at it from mercers and stuff, like
(06:01):
they had taken words from that. Like I said, good memory.
So I'm loared, I'm cousing brain. I still ain't got
nobody come to see me. St you didn't got no
better to do that in plund me.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And you've been listening to Mitchell Rutledge, whom I affectionately
call Big Mitch and who has become a close friend.
But boy, you're hearing about the early stages of his
prison life. And he had indeed just taken the life
of another human being. And as you'll hear in coming
segments and episodes, he had deep regrets, bad dreams about
(06:37):
this and the kind of man he was that could
do such a thing, had tremendous remorse, a tremendous guilt
over it, and had a true conscience, which in the
end was so much a part of his humanity. He
didn't make excuses for this crime, as I said earlier
and we'll say again and again, and didn't ever claim
his innocence or not getting his due process or legal rights.
(06:59):
Attend to all of those things happen when we come
back more of the rest of the story of Big
Mitch's early days in prison, knowing that he was about
to be on death row in his early twenties. This
is Our American Stories, Lee Hubib here, and I'd like
(07:30):
to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on
Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear
again can be found there daily again. Please subscribe to
the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app,
(07:52):
or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep
these great American stories coming. And we continue with our
American Stories and Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch our third
(08:14):
episode and we talk now about an article in Time
magazine about Big Mitch that changed his life, bringing him
friends he could have never imagined, friends he'd never known,
friends he'd never had.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Time magazine was doing articles in each state, web d
and death city in I'm sure how God worked in
my life.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Now, when they get.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
To the state Alabama, the Southern Partty Law Center, they
contacted them and asked them to recommend a road inmate
to be interviewed with this interview on death road in
the state Alabama. Now, at this time you had we
more intellectual, well known individuals on death row then myself.
(09:06):
But then his bosket, which is my attorney. He represented
the Southern father of the Law Center represented about twenty
five guys on death row. But anyway, he picked me
out of all the folks in the world, he picked me,
and I told him yes, So I went out there,
we talked and everything, and so the article came out. Jane,
(09:28):
we're twenty third, nineteen eighty one, and at the time
magazine said that the death row is at the same
side in the state of Alabama where we have a
twenty three year old and Mitchell Religion IQ eighty nine
rat above retardation. He did committed murder individuals like him,
(09:53):
a gun shooting young talk who cares forget about him,
let him sit. It's true. In his eight by five
in Alabama death Row, that's pretty much with Dollier said.
You know, guys on death row, they would make a
card of the man you read above, reparding you know you.
(10:13):
I Q eight it, you know. So at that time
I had found Jesus so and I had more confidence
in myself, and I felt better about myself, So I
really didn't that that bothered me.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The Time Magazine article changed many things for Big Mitch,
and the biggest change of all was his first real
encounter with a stranger who would end up loving him,
and that began with the first letter he received from
Sister Lillian.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
About a week later, Time Magazine sent me a lot
of with their monogram on me, and I thought it
was just something about art of the magazine. But it
was a letter in there from a sister Lillian Oliver
from Santa Monica, California, amaca with hard community, and when
(11:04):
I started living there, I couldn't read it. So what
I did I opened up the hive loop. I gave
the letter to walk. At this time we didn't have
the chicken walk over the front of the sales. So
I said, well, reading this from me man, So he
began to read it from me, and as he read it,
he said, my name is sister Lulie and Oliver. I'm
(11:27):
from the Mica with hard community, and God sent me
in your life. You're not alone anymore. So she was
reading especially, Ain't that amazing? So I had been tinkling
around with writing from watching the commercials and stuff, writing stuff.
Now I had a good memory. I messed around and
(11:48):
uh I had copy words town, so I knew what
thank you meant from guys telling me what it is
for me saying you know what have you on TV?
I knew what it was. I remember what it was.
So what I did I couldn't write cursing now the
only could print, and I had a bad, ugly print.
But I sat down and uh I got me an
(12:11):
im aloaf and I comfit the address and put my
address on the air and I put thank you and
uh trying my name send it back out and that
we started to h she's sending me a like alphabets
and stuff like that, And then uh I got the
Bible open, and I'm getting words out of the Bible,
(12:33):
because because if a God read something to me, I
can remember what the word pretty much is. But I see,
so I began to just do the best again to
correspond back with her by using like her letters. She
would print it to me, and some of the words
that you used in there once it got read, and
I used those same words back in the letter to
(12:56):
her in a sense. And eventually she's sitting on her
phone number. So we were being to talk and she
was I ain't your God. She was God's sin, if
you can recall, But I told you how to kind
of kill. And I asked the little dude up on
the table with God real and he told me she man,
(13:17):
you know, my mama says, you want no God, really
ask God to touch you. So I pray God touch me.
And after that, if you can recall, I told you
that I asked God to send somebody in my life
to be there for me. Well, that's with her.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So the question still remained, how did Big Mitch manage
his own life, manage his own conscience knowing he's taking
the life of another man.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I lean on God, lean on GE's crash and keep
faith alive, keep open eyes, and know that at the
end or the day, regardless, we'll go on. And God
in charge. He's Christ and one that I pray. And uh,
that's why I'm still here. I'm starting on my forty
four year I started h January speaker one on forty
(14:06):
four years. So a lot of guys in there say, well, man,
how you do that? Man? To stay positive and stay
upbeat and still have your right mind. So they try
to give me a lot of accurate ads. R give
me a lot of credit. But I tell them, I said, jeez, Christ,
and I'm not joking. I'm I'm living witness. It's Christ
(14:28):
Esus that still have me here and not angry and
bitter and and what have you. And then I also
tell the individual's accountability, responsibility and owning up to the
wrong you d you know, and you go out, no
God to forgive me, you know. So God forgave myself
(14:50):
and other people just gave me. But that's the most
important thing. So that's one of the reasons I tell him.
I said, well, man, I'm not better than angry. I'm
not angry with design, I ain't ready with anyone owning
up to what I did. You know, a lot of
people in priers ain't gonna do that.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So I'm just a unique cage right there, and I
thank God for that, and it gives me a lot
of freedom. I'm a lot more frill than a lot
of dudes that dark gill can't claim it can't take
responsibility of good, it ain't own up to it. And
so that gives me a lot more freedom to be
able to. I ain't mad with nobody, but I tell
(15:31):
guys that all the time. You know, I got a
pH d in prisonology. I tell him that all the time,
as long as happens after So I got a doctorate
in psychology for being institutionalized learned by experience. But that's
all going on with me. I'm gonna let you go
to church and I talk for you thirst.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
I look forward to it.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Let you go go, Ravens. Yeah, okay, all right now,
think yeah, lovelass.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And you've been listening to Mitchell Rutledge, aka Big Mitch,
And from now on that's all I'm gonna call him
this Big Mitch twenty three years old. And there it is,
that article in Time magazine the death penalty had just
been reinstated, and Time magazine went around the country interviewing
and or learning about various inmates, and my goodness, the
(16:25):
words they wrote about Mitch IQ of eighty eight or
eighty nine, just slightly above the IQ of a retarded
person in pardon for using that phrase that's time's not mine.
Let him stew it is eight x five in Alabama.
They also had a line that said something like some
people aren't worth killing. They talked about how much money
(16:46):
it would cost on appeal to kill him. Everyone in
prison made fun of him, but this Jesus experience had
changed his life. And then he got that angel that
he'd been praying for, and that was Sister Lilian. God
sent me in your life. She wrote, you are not alone,
my goodness, Sister Lily, and eventually sent her phone number,
(17:09):
and she was indeed an angel sent from God. Big
Mitch said, I prayed God would touch me, and I
asked God to send me somebody. Big Mitch said, how
did he handle taking the life of another man. I
leaned on God. I gave it to God.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
How do you do it?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
How do you stay positive? He said, Well, I give
credit to Jesus first, but I emphasize accountability, personal responsibility,
and owning up to what you did. I am not angry.
In fact, I'm free because of Jesus and because I
owned up. I have a doctorate in being institutionalized. The
(17:47):
story of Big Mitch episode three. Here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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