Revisiting "the Farm"

 this episode just prior to Labor Day weekend, Jim Chapman brings you inside the 1998 academy award winning documentary “The Farm” based off of life inside of Bloody Angola.

For commercial free early releases and more join us at: https://www.patreon.com/bloodyangolapodcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody in Gola, a
podcast of one hundred and forty two years in the making,
the complete story of America's Bloody is prison. I'm Jim Chapman,
and I have a special presentation for you today. Look,
Labor Day is Monday, so rather than bring you a

(00:20):
brand new episode this week, there's something I'm working on
that has taken me a little longer to research than
I anticipated, but I wanted to bring you something this week.
So here's what I'm gonna do. Many of you have
emailed me in the past and you've mentioned The Farm,
which is the Academy Award winning documentary based off of

(00:45):
Life Inside in Gola, and I was really surprised how
many people have not seen or heard that documentary. I'm
going to bring you The Farm and you're going to
be able to listen to it right here on Bloody
and Gola. Pot. I hope everyone has a phenomenal Labor
Day weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Be safe.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's wild out there, and I will be talking to
all of you next week. So here it is.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
The form down in Louisiana lies America's largest maximum security prison,
surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River and thirty
miles from the nearest town. Angola is a world and
to itself. There are over five thousand inmates here, serving

(01:32):
some of the longest sentences of any prison in America.
Nearly eighty five percent of those who enter the gates
will die here. This is the story of six men
trying to overcome the odds.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Timea on.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
If only go On.

Speaker 6 (02:07):
Lost.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
George Crawford was found guilty of first degree murder and
received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
He is twenty two years old.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Louisiana is known to have the harshest sentencing in the country.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
And while the common perception is.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
That prisoners don't serve their full terms, for those heading
to Angola prison life means life and ten dollars.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Shoot sigh that hood.

Speaker 7 (03:07):
Every Monday, new uh in mats come in and in
the process.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
We're all guaranteed a job.

Speaker 8 (03:15):
We have a good job.

Speaker 9 (03:16):
Security number place thirty seven fifty nine or the suiceige
ten di had a buck zero one twenty two sixty nine.

Speaker 10 (03:27):
Alright number thirty four twenty seven thirty one, shueiarge eight
and a half.

Speaker 11 (03:32):
They a buck one twenty eight seventy seven.

Speaker 12 (03:34):
Alright, no to judge, he said, I I have a
natural life.

Speaker 11 (03:39):
No parole, uh anything like that.

Speaker 12 (03:42):
Alright, number that is twenty three. Basically, e sorr.

Speaker 13 (03:45):
You never coming on there the buck you you you
can never come on.

Speaker 9 (03:48):
That's on a forty both shue size eye.

Speaker 13 (04:03):
Cause I ain't no perfect child. I done did thirty
as I was coming up. I have sold drug, I
have stole things. I have lied, I cheated, but I
have never killed anyone. I ain't furfe that what I
wanna get across. I ain't furthe everything I did that

(04:27):
I ain't get called for, get.

Speaker 11 (04:29):
Caught up with.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
In nineteen ninety seven, almost nine hundred young men was
sent to Angold. More than half of them have life sentences.
Seventy seven percent were African American.

Speaker 12 (04:48):
I'm from New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
I grew up in a project.

Speaker 13 (04:52):
I dropped out of school I in eighth grade.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
I wanted things. I saw the.

Speaker 14 (04:58):
People w.

Speaker 13 (05:00):
Cars, golds, you know, women, houses, you know I want.
I wanted them type of things, material things. I hold

(05:26):
a lot of buying, going far as rape killings.

Speaker 11 (05:30):
You know how they treat you.

Speaker 13 (05:34):
You gonna do what they take to survive. Yeah, I'm scared.
I'm scared. I'm scared that I ain't gonna never get
a chance to see my luck ones again.

Speaker 10 (05:56):
Do you think you can take care of self up
here and the problems and why take 'em standards?

Speaker 15 (06:01):
That's it?

Speaker 2 (06:02):
You get any relatives over here?

Speaker 16 (06:04):
That's uh what relationship cutting cut gonna go?

Speaker 12 (06:10):
Maximum?

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Be even three?

Speaker 12 (06:11):
Really camp?

Speaker 11 (06:13):
D okay?

Speaker 12 (06:14):
I say two man sail walk, two man sellwack. You
have a salemate, grow out the work bay, light hours
and seeking to sale at night recreation on the weekend.

Speaker 17 (06:24):
All calls are fifteen minute collect calls. M All calls
can be monitored or recorded at any time, except for
your legal phone calls, which cannot. At the beginning of
each phone call, there's gonna be a tape recorded message
stating at the callers coming from a male penal institution.

Speaker 16 (06:43):
So we've cut it on the way yet I don't
know why I have all Nope, forty three letters with terror.

Speaker 12 (06:57):
If you leave your pairs, can I can consent?

Speaker 18 (07:06):
Ego you consider the v I go take on cinemon.

Speaker 19 (07:09):
Yeah, I remember that first day coming in to get

(08:14):
was October the fourth, nineteen Uh.

Speaker 8 (08:18):
Uh fifty nine on the on the on the Wednesday. Oh,
it must have been about twenty four years old, the.

Speaker 11 (08:29):
Twenty four.

Speaker 8 (08:34):
My name is Eugene China here junior, and uh, I've
been here in Louisa State Penitentia since nineteen fifty nine,
going on my third eighth year. This something like I've
been raised here. I'm sorry to said, but it is
I've been raised here.

Speaker 7 (08:52):
Oh look, yeah, this is what you call as long
as I've inmate, what's the thing that we allowed to have.

Speaker 8 (09:01):
That the system condoms?

Speaker 14 (09:06):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (09:07):
These is my marble books.

Speaker 8 (09:12):
Just keep me from the existence of the tension that
exists in here, see that re tension around that. Three
things that goalie would do for a man. Number one,
he would bring you to the cross road of a
ton in pipe. Number two, kid would hearten you that

(09:39):
you would come to be a hard criminal and that's
all you will desire to do and you will become
better on the inner part of your life. Number three

(09:59):
he'll be kidding you.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (10:04):
Serving time is if like a puzzle, a two thousand
piece farther that is, throw it to you and it's
scouted as the Buchu way and now put it back together.
That's the way your life is. When you sell us
to a penal institution, your life is scattered. You the

(10:25):
one got to put it back together.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Once a slave's plantation and God was turned into a
prison at the end of the Civil War. During its
one hundred year history, and Gola has been known as

(11:15):
the most dangerous and bloody prison in America. And also
times have changed, the place still strikes fear in the
hearts of people throughout the South.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
So be careful when you get involved in things like that.

Speaker 12 (11:56):
See, this is a prison, and everything.

Speaker 5 (11:57):
Here is valuable to everybody that's here.

Speaker 12 (12:00):
All right, there's drugs. There's drugs everywhere.

Speaker 20 (12:02):
You know what one giant calls you here five facts
of cigarettes, So it would be stressed.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
There was a time in the not so distant past
when orientation at Angola consisted of a beating and the
advice to purchase a weapon.

Speaker 12 (12:15):
Are you thinking about your backside?

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Nowadays, the prison offers a full day orientation led by
some of the old timers.

Speaker 7 (12:21):
You got butteries and all the penitential change people.

Speaker 14 (12:25):
How many you all are serving life sendsing in there.
I mean, if you all a servant over twenty years Okay,
so the majority of you, all the long terms, the
one thing I want to explain, I'm explain something a
little bit about myself and then you'll understand where I'm
coming from. In January of nineteen seventy two, while under
the influence of LSD, I came through Shreveport, pulled off

(12:45):
a robbery, led to shootout with police, to police, was shot.
I was shot and my fall partner was shot, but
nobody died. Nine months later, I will sendence to seventy
five years in prison. I've been here since. It's over
twenty five years. One of the things you find out

(13:07):
why you're in penitentiary is that everybody who's close to
you over a period of time, they're always gonna fade away.
First it's gonna be your associates and friends, all your homies.
They gonna cut you loose. The old lady, she's gonna
cut you loose. Your children, aren't a lot of you
All who might have children now as they grow up,
they gonna forget you. You that daddy usually the person

(13:27):
that's gonna stick with you. It's gonna be your mother,
your father, may be a close brother or sister.

Speaker 11 (13:31):
And if you stay down on a long period of time.
Those people who do stick by you are gonna get older.

Speaker 14 (13:37):
They're older, and sometime they're gonna die off, So you're
gonna be here alone. But one of the things I
wanna show you is that when you start going through
those pains and finding out that the people you thought
were close, you begin to cut you loose. Don't get
hooked up into the negative activities. It can get you
stuck here forever, despite the fact that you're doing life.
Since there's always hope. All right, I'm gonna talk.

Speaker 11 (13:58):
To y'all later.

Speaker 14 (14:02):
When I came, you know, like I say, ain't Goola
was classified as the blood Is prison in the Nation Mark,
And I know, my focus was on surviving.

Speaker 11 (14:10):
I was gonna do whatever it was necessarily survive, you know.

Speaker 14 (14:13):
And I ended up going to the cell block when
I got busted with two nines.

Speaker 11 (14:17):
While I was in the cell block, you know, that's
when I really woke up to myself.

Speaker 14 (14:20):
I said, Man, all I'm doing is really digging a
whole deeper and deeper for myself. I didn't have any
family down here, I didn't have any friends down there,
so what I had to do was focus on how
I can get out that cell block and get involved
in some positive things where I can redevelop my life
and show somebody that I really deserved to be out.

Speaker 21 (14:36):
Ye, it was a put M nine sixty, I.

Speaker 11 (14:40):
Said fifteen twelve.

Speaker 14 (14:42):
You know, the person who was arrested twenty two years
ago went totally different person. Since I've been here, I've
been through classes, programs, projects, within the heads of numbers
of organization. I've done everything in in prison that I
should've done as a community leader and society.

Speaker 11 (15:00):
He was with you, what was the one what was
our table doing?

Speaker 14 (15:04):
I went up for parole originally in July nineteen ninety four,
and despite my good conduct record, I was denied a hearing.

Speaker 11 (15:14):
I'm currently working on trying to get a rehearing. This
is my parole board file.

Speaker 14 (15:22):
Basically, it comprises a good percentage of the things that
I've been involved with over the years, and you know,
some of the things I've left off because it would
be too thick. This is the actual statement of support
of my parole hearing. This a two page statement, has
them to be forgiven for the crime that I committed,
taking responsibility for the crime that I committed, that happened

(15:43):
twenty five years ago. This is a hard time because
of the conservativism all the way across the board. But
you know, sometime, even in the midst of all of that,
sometimes God.

Speaker 11 (15:54):
Touches a person's heart and miracles happened.

Speaker 14 (15:57):
So I've got faith, you know, I've got faith. Once
a parole board makes this decision, that's that's the decision.
It's fine, and I will walk out.

Speaker 22 (16:14):
Didn't have this park the other day, HOBt what happens
to ones where the fluid just stays there and doesn't
circulate that you're gonna get in Aumonia And if you
get in, Youumania.

Speaker 12 (16:24):
Wanna beat you out.

Speaker 23 (16:25):
I know I'm gonna have to get out for something
to do.

Speaker 18 (16:29):
You need our help, let me know.

Speaker 24 (16:32):
Okay, that's a good nurse. She's a bad nurse. She's
a good nurse's she's tough too, So well, this is tough.
This is not as terrible a place as you would
think it is.

Speaker 23 (16:53):
I'm not saying that your life isn't torn awake. Say like,
you come here and you're never gonna get out, but
then you can still have a life inside. She can
help other inmates. You can do different things. You don't
have to just say, well, I'm dead because you're here.
There's other things you can do. You can learn the trade,

(17:14):
you can learn.

Speaker 25 (17:15):
To be a lawyer.

Speaker 23 (17:15):
You could and help other pew that's that's not always self.

Speaker 12 (17:20):
You have to look to.

Speaker 23 (17:23):
My name's glowing Tario and I'm in the Angola hospital
cause of cancer in the lunger. My wife and I
had a little trouble and uh I killed her. I

(17:44):
was working overseas and I came back home and she
was pregnant for one of my friends. And uh, then
she hated the baby and uh, she'd she'd mistreated and everything.
And I told her to I put the baby in
my name and everything. And I told her, said, if
you mistreat that baby, i'm'a hurt you, you know. And

(18:04):
uh the baby was three years old and she was
still mistreated, and I told her if she done it,
done it one more time, I'd kill her.

Speaker 12 (18:12):
And I did.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
What.

Speaker 23 (18:16):
Uh what happened years agos happened and you can't undo it.
Excuse me, you can't undo it.

Speaker 11 (18:27):
You can't fix it up.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
It's done. All you can say is.

Speaker 23 (18:32):
You don't know whether you done the right thing or not.

Speaker 18 (18:35):
What uh the tart.

Speaker 26 (18:36):
Lessons for going.

Speaker 14 (18:39):
Very four.

Speaker 22 (18:41):
My understanding is that he's been told that, in all
likelihood he will not live to see Christmas.

Speaker 23 (18:47):
Oh do you think, first your life's not finished just
because you're an Angle.

Speaker 18 (18:53):
Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 12 (18:56):
A lot of people think it some way, but it's not.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Inmates assigned to field duty, the lowest class of Angelist jobs,
are awake at five am and sent to work on
the farm. The pay is four cents an hour. The
best jobs at Angola pay twenty cents an hour.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
That's good.

Speaker 16 (20:22):
Oh, the first time you ever worked with fil first
time working my life?

Speaker 21 (20:28):
Excuse it's like.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
A big plantation in days youmby.

Speaker 12 (20:41):
We hate to call it that.

Speaker 7 (20:42):
In a way, that kind of is because we have
the you know the it then make it prove this
was a plantation and this land had been farmed and
it was cleared in the early eighteen hundred. The region's
name Angola is because the slaves that worked these fields

(21:04):
came from Angola and Africa, and it picks up its
name from there.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Forden came runs Angle to prison, with responsibilities ranging from
the administration of executions to overseeing the farm's multi million
dollar enterprises.

Speaker 7 (21:28):
Everybody here works in the field lines with hoes and
ditchbank blade.

Speaker 12 (21:31):
It's going to be about twelve.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
To fourteen hundred a day. With hope.

Speaker 7 (21:35):
There's gonna be a vast number driving attractors, operating all equipment,
unloading and loading trucks, and traders running a warehouses.

Speaker 12 (21:42):
Everybody had a job.

Speaker 7 (21:44):
Everybody Angola works every day. This is really good from
around Angola because you start out with a ditchbank blade
in the field or hope, and you can have illusion
to the grinder that you might at some point get
to drive attracted what is it the big warehouse and

(22:04):
locked in the sail never to come out. You come
outside and in the sunshine.

Speaker 12 (22:08):
You're out here working.

Speaker 18 (22:09):
It's good for you and you feel like you're healthier.

Speaker 7 (22:11):
You're going to get live longer and make them business
so they're less violent too.

Speaker 12 (22:18):
You have to be good business man too. The run this.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Player at eighteen thousand acres and Gola is the largest
prison in America. There are six complexes called camps spread

(22:47):
across the landscape to keep this massive institution running. The
prison employs eighteen hundred workers to be prepared for any emergency.
A town was built within the prison gates, called the Beeline.

(23:08):
There are two hundred employee families raising their children here,
and although the baseball field is only a quarter mile
from Death Row, the residents call it the safest town
in America.

Speaker 27 (23:31):
Good afternoon is here as CALSP nine N forty seven
film on your radio, Dob, and we broadcast daily from
the Louisiana State Penitentia at Angola. I'm going and I'll
be here with you all the way through. With the
beautiful and inspirational souls of the gospel.

Speaker 11 (23:46):
I like to take this opportunity to.

Speaker 5 (23:47):
Be wish y'all.

Speaker 12 (23:48):
Are the brothers up on dead Row? A very beautiful day.

Speaker 27 (23:51):
And I tell you what, precious Lord, if he's with you,
he'll definitely go take your hand.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Right.

Speaker 28 (24:01):
I had been doing coke all that day and I
had run out and I needed some more, and I
was still kind of weird, like desperate. I knew I
had to get some money to could try to get
out of town. And I seen this couple and I
approached him, and that's where the crown happened.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
I told him, man, give me his money, and he
started fighting.

Speaker 12 (24:28):
He wanna give it to me? And his wife was clean.

Speaker 18 (24:37):
Think did you have a card or what would you.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
I had life? How were you go out there? For
now twelve years? He keeping herself for twenty three hours
a day.

Speaker 28 (24:54):
He can't come out and you're not supposed to come
into contact with other people unless you handcuffed m I
mean it was kind of weird.

Speaker 5 (25:01):
Cause after awhile you developed.

Speaker 28 (25:04):
Into that, and then when you get around people, it's
kind of strange, kind of like an animal.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
I guess.

Speaker 28 (25:22):
I like to listen to music. I like to listen
to that. Other teams and right or being got TV
in from myself. I don't like TV too much, and
look out the window. I got a big window across
from myself. I could see the hills back there. I
seen some years back there. One day the first time

(25:43):
I seen some live DearS wasn't.

Speaker 12 (25:44):
In the zoo.

Speaker 26 (25:45):
Yeah, man's been all right, you know it?

Speaker 5 (25:48):
About then I got I changed since I've been out there.
When I was coming up, there wasn't nothing there that
was really party like this, didn't really care. But now
I have more concern about myself and others and.

Speaker 12 (26:04):
Felt good.

Speaker 5 (26:06):
It's more worse, more not worry, if that makes sense, small.

Speaker 21 (26:09):
Worried, and things have more meaning.

Speaker 5 (26:12):
Now he's sweeter and sad, two things. Then you realize good.

Speaker 29 (26:17):
Now that you realize what it's about, you don't really
have the opportunity to act upon it.

Speaker 30 (26:22):
And so it's kind of mixed up in the medical And.

Speaker 10 (26:31):
I didn't worry for some reason. I felt that some
way I would be able to prove my innesss. I
didn't think it was gonna take this long. My name
is Vincent now for Simbers uh. I'm forty five years
old born February the seventeenth, nineteen fifty two.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
My uh my.

Speaker 10 (26:57):
The original charge that I'm in prison for it is
aggravated rate. I've been down on the charge for twenty years.
I've been counseantly of fighting my case in the courts
for the past twenty years.

Speaker 11 (27:13):
I am an innocent man.

Speaker 12 (27:17):
One of the victims.

Speaker 10 (27:18):
They asked him, would you ever be able to identify
this person again if you saw them?

Speaker 12 (27:22):
She said no.

Speaker 10 (27:23):
Sheriff asked her why cause she said all niggas look alike.
That's in her statement and also in her statement, she
said that they wanted someone for the for the charge.
They wanted to punish someone for the crime. The sheriff said, well,
we're gonna do justice, and.

Speaker 11 (27:46):
I guess I'm the example.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Although he had only a sixth grade education with no
money to pay for an attorney, Vincent Simmons, like many
other angle and inmates.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Was forced to represent and himself.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
After petitioning twelve different courts over a seventeen year period,
Simmons was finally given the information the courts claimed they
had lost back in nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 10 (28:25):
My attorney had never sought discovery and I had never
been provided with this evidence. The jewelry have never reviewed
this evidence. This is the exculpatory evidence of my innocence
of the aggravated grave choice. This is my first parole
here and in twenty years, and I hoped to accomplished

(28:48):
my freedom.

Speaker 12 (28:57):
Are the victims he yet business sy all to take them?
We take them from him?

Speaker 5 (29:05):
Hey, how y'all doing this morning? You say to me,
glad y'all if it's coming, you know it wasn't easy.

Speaker 12 (29:12):
Okay, just be relas.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Given minutes he took all the time, and.

Speaker 21 (29:25):
Just be calm.

Speaker 31 (29:27):
And that's all I want to say is in the
past twenty years, the only company that we've had was
to know that he cannot hurt us or our family
or someone else. And that's the only peace of mind
that we have found and that we have and we're
just here to ask that you don't take that from us.

Speaker 18 (29:47):
Well, let me let me say this, because you're very nervous,
and admittedly.

Speaker 11 (29:50):
I beat you.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
I'm a victim pride to avathing.

Speaker 11 (29:53):
I'm stay president of crime Fighters. I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 12 (29:56):
Okay, I'm a retired police officer.

Speaker 32 (30:00):
His good time date is twenty twenty eight, and by
my calculations, he'll be around seventy four when and if
he lives that long.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
You know, anybody else want to say anything?

Speaker 10 (30:11):
Indeed, I've lived in a lot of fear.

Speaker 33 (30:18):
I have a problem with black people. I can't.

Speaker 12 (30:23):
Full up at the store and.

Speaker 18 (30:26):
There'll be black man.

Speaker 9 (30:27):
I have a hard time.

Speaker 5 (30:29):
You're scared of him.

Speaker 12 (30:32):
Not scared of me?

Speaker 23 (30:32):
This mor morning, No, I wouldn't, but.

Speaker 18 (30:35):
I wouldn't be alone with you either.

Speaker 12 (30:37):
But school, there's just a lot of fear. How were
you when this happening? Fourteen?

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Cool?

Speaker 2 (30:45):
It happened, Yeah, twenty years ago.

Speaker 31 (30:46):
Twenty years means nothing to me.

Speaker 10 (30:49):
That's yesterday to me. I got two grand babies, both
of them murals, one of five and one's two.

Speaker 12 (30:56):
And I was just sitting here thinking and looking at you.

Speaker 15 (30:59):
Oh.

Speaker 12 (30:59):
I don't know what I was the last thing like
that happened to my brand babies.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
I just know.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
We feel solid, we feel you sold.

Speaker 11 (31:09):
This boy is very sympathetic to you.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
Thank you.

Speaker 12 (31:13):
You can rest assured. That's uh, this boy sitting there
doing stupid thank you you take me said no, no,
I'm not sitting.

Speaker 5 (31:24):
Well, I don't have that to say time, but I'd like.

Speaker 12 (31:27):
To hear what he said. I'm gonna hear what he said.
What do you ask him?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Leading the chair right here?

Speaker 5 (31:38):
Come in and have a seat.

Speaker 12 (31:40):
I have gomf uh right, good morning.

Speaker 5 (31:44):
The Simmons.

Speaker 32 (31:45):
I'm gonna properly identify and then uh, the boy would
likes you. Questions there and then you you can say
a few words on your own.

Speaker 5 (31:51):
Behalf of tells you.

Speaker 21 (31:52):
So.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
The full name is Vincentate Simmons.

Speaker 32 (31:56):
You were sentenced to one hundred years of hard labor,
and you're as Davis Mort's sixteenth twenty seventy seven.

Speaker 12 (32:04):
Is that correct? That's theory, and.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
You've been locked up how many years as of now?
Mister sunny years twenty years.

Speaker 32 (32:10):
Yes, Uh, would you answer mister Magick's questions?

Speaker 12 (32:15):
You know, sir, you committed these two rats? No, sir,
but you say no such.

Speaker 11 (32:27):
Tell me what happened?

Speaker 10 (32:29):
Well, I have newly discovered the evidence, cause I've been
trying to uh get the evidence since I've been.

Speaker 12 (32:35):
Here to prove my innocence. I was you put your
no sufer.

Speaker 34 (32:40):
Okay, they tell you said that they want to be
a a maker of confession, and I told 'em that
I wasn't gonna make a confession cause I was insert
and uh, they'd say, one of one of the offics
hit me and when I tried to jump up, the
other officer jumped up in the shop me and it
in in the police station.

Speaker 5 (32:59):
And then your version is that, uh they just shot you.

Speaker 32 (33:04):
Yes, that I was, and uh, their version is you
grabbed a pistol and you tried to kill them, and you.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
Kept pulling the trigger and it wouldn't go off, and
another officer came in and shot you.

Speaker 11 (33:16):
I was.

Speaker 12 (33:16):
I was handcuffed when out when I was brought in.

Speaker 32 (33:19):
I understand that, but you could still grab a pistol,
now you know you did?

Speaker 5 (33:22):
You contending, now you didn't grab it.

Speaker 12 (33:24):
I didn't grab the pistol. I was never charged with
the crime.

Speaker 21 (33:28):
Uh.

Speaker 12 (33:30):
They'd tried to justify shooting me the four sip if.

Speaker 14 (33:33):
The officer wanted to kill you when he he wouldn't
shot me.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
He shot me.

Speaker 10 (33:37):
Tew many have me ready right above the hut. Later on, Uh,
I got out the hospital. They appointed me two attorneys,
and they talked to me once and then I went
to truck.

Speaker 12 (33:51):
We didn't have none of this evidence.

Speaker 10 (33:53):
None of this evidence was presented before the jury, because
the d had it in his files. And in these files,
the doctor's report indicate that the girls were vertrips cause
they were examined after the hour was arrested.

Speaker 12 (34:08):
They said, why.

Speaker 5 (34:09):
Haven't those reports by the sides. They said that they
was virgin.

Speaker 12 (34:12):
I'd like to.

Speaker 21 (34:13):
See h.

Speaker 12 (34:36):
They testified before the jury that they were brutally.

Speaker 10 (34:39):
Rik They repeatedly asked 'em would they be able to
identify this person again if they saw him?

Speaker 12 (34:47):
They say no, because all blacks look alike.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
And they put you in the lineup, then't you listen
to the line up? Put you in the line up,
and they said they all picked out.

Speaker 12 (34:58):
The man know when they brought me and I was
handcuffed and they was there.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
Where's that line up to you?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
The picture that.

Speaker 5 (35:18):
You were the only one handcuffed in the lineup.

Speaker 12 (35:20):
I'm the all in one. That's the other half.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
They just didn't have the water.

Speaker 11 (35:26):
Why an't they ever?

Speaker 26 (35:27):
No more?

Speaker 12 (35:28):
Ain't h.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
Are you bringing this case up.

Speaker 34 (35:36):
For rehearing from it presently going to the United States
Supreme Court.

Speaker 12 (35:40):
I'm trying to get it announced to this cuan coat.

Speaker 32 (35:44):
InChI yeah, I've been relat Okay, Uh we shall step
out way and discuss the case.

Speaker 12 (35:53):
It would you have the different call? Yah?

Speaker 31 (35:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 35 (35:57):
Kay take pa have to take the mone goodness, Yeah,
twenty years I call up something to go.

Speaker 32 (36:14):
Yes, he did me, you know about Mama says they
had don't write too much, you know, s we canna
get this.

Speaker 12 (36:21):
Take a little bit.

Speaker 32 (36:21):
You can write a book on it after you get
to the office.

Speaker 5 (36:29):
He did it, He just didn't. Uh you know I
have that, you know?

Speaker 32 (36:43):
Okay, Uh, bring miss Simmons back in just chter Simmons.
Its Simmons have to uh listen to testimony going over
the reports the board his votes this time to deny
your quest for and certainly you have a right to
uh to pursue your k aged through the United States
have been important.

Speaker 5 (37:03):
I certainly would do that, you know, that's that's your
legal right.

Speaker 36 (37:08):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 26 (37:13):
H m.

Speaker 36 (37:28):
H m hmmmm.

Speaker 12 (37:49):
A hundred years I did twenty on one hundred.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
That mean I got eighty.

Speaker 30 (37:56):
More eat, sleep and work. You know, surviving. I survived

(38:38):
all my life, you know, enjoy the time on my
own on the streets or that won't be no problem survive,
you know, knowing.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
The problem that's getting out, it's the only frible.

Speaker 30 (38:52):
I ain't too concern about surviving, did you Asublin?

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Excuse me?

Speaker 37 (39:00):
Six no figger sec twenty s.

Speaker 11 (39:09):
I'm all right, you know, I'm just trying to make about.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Now my f first of the pas boschay.

Speaker 13 (39:14):
What I'm all right, y'all can come see me this week.
But but you know you're gonna come. That's how you
get them gold.

Speaker 20 (39:32):
Though he tried to make me think that he was alright,

(40:08):
but I know better, like I hear in his voice
he was scared. He said he's not, but he is
because I feel like reality didn't sit in now, you know,
and you know this is not no dream of this
is nothing made up?

Speaker 21 (40:21):
This is for real.

Speaker 12 (40:47):
How do you do slut or anything?

Speaker 26 (40:49):
You are made?

Speaker 4 (40:50):
Then I have a cold.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
Yeah yeah, he sure don't.

Speaker 11 (40:56):
Be all right, and you'll normal be all y'all.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
So I don't even know if the lawyer filed for a.

Speaker 20 (41:05):
Field or i'm'a try to get in touch with him.

Speaker 4 (41:08):
No more.

Speaker 11 (41:09):
Ah, he don't represent me no more, you know, so
it ain't his job.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
He can't do name.

Speaker 15 (41:13):
But it ain't nothing need to do it, no, y'all?

Speaker 30 (41:22):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I needed some sod so some TV shirt.

Speaker 11 (41:29):
You about to cry or what?

Speaker 15 (41:31):
I don't know'm'a y'all, all right, stop crying?

Speaker 2 (42:02):
What seven dollars?

Speaker 8 (42:03):
I ain't nothing to tell you.

Speaker 33 (42:04):
I just I just pat to see it, like, just
cause I still don't think you got a fair drive yard.

Speaker 20 (42:12):
But he's accused of nobody. I'll go to my grave
saying if nobody could make me think my baby did
there say now he got a.

Speaker 12 (42:19):
Bum deal in coat.

Speaker 24 (42:21):
He really did.

Speaker 20 (42:23):
It's it's fad when you don't have no money. If
you have money, money, A lot of people say money
don't mean nothing, but that's not true, cause if you
have money, money works out a whole lot of stuff
and we just didn't hang up.

Speaker 25 (42:35):
And he's going on now, I.

Speaker 11 (42:42):
Can't go out there. I see you later, right, I
love you.

Speaker 12 (42:46):
Ye love you too, mcau because I know you will.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Ye see say suge.

Speaker 18 (42:54):
While I can walk out there with her, I ain't
think so.

Speaker 26 (43:00):
M I love you.

Speaker 38 (43:18):
Oh, I'm going over there.

Speaker 7 (43:39):
Idea, Well, give you idea, Shrivings handles, Wembley.

Speaker 11 (43:46):
That all right, let's see. I'll tell us going that
we can rock. Oh Heaven his father to dam and
your son Jesus Christ. We come together, touching the degree
and ask you to to give us for.

Speaker 14 (43:55):
Our sins and forgive the sins of anybody who was
sinned against us.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
It took a Shawnty Witherspoon over ten years to go
from the lowest status inmate to become a Class A trustee.
He and a handful of other prisoners at Angola are
allowed to participate in programs that take them out of
the prison and throughout the state of Louisiana.

Speaker 11 (44:14):
A man here, rough, you don't come side with that, right,
it's always excited. Just like Ronald here, you know, like
he goes up. Sometimes some of us who have been
going off for for years. We you know, we go.

Speaker 14 (44:32):
If it was a long trip, we would go to
sleep and then wake up, or we get close to shup.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
I count to bleds of grass when I'm going out.

Speaker 12 (44:38):
I don't lose nothing.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
I don't sleep, I don't blink mind, I watch everything.

Speaker 14 (44:43):
Ronald has never gone to sleep on the trip, he said,
he doesn't even blink.

Speaker 10 (44:47):
Yeah, cause I hadn't been out for twenty four years,
and I was, you know, very happy to go out
out for his trip.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah, it was a long trip.

Speaker 12 (44:57):
At that.

Speaker 14 (45:28):
Three breath, I find your landmark again.

Speaker 11 (45:34):
Same ay you came up. Pays you hall the hand
over there, lock your fingers and elbows.

Speaker 14 (45:39):
Fifteen ten, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven,
twelveth Okay, as you all know, I'm Georgia Shante Witherspoon
and I'm the president of the CPR team.

Speaker 11 (45:52):
We're serious about what we do with CPR.

Speaker 14 (45:54):
You know, we just travel and teach anywhere we can go,
and we're trying to do this as a means to
reach and give something back to society. But we deal
with people who live in at risk life scoles like
you all, or whether there's younger people and so forth.
We're trying to touch them so that they don't come
down the same roads as we do. That you all
are in a good position now to really redirect your life.

Speaker 39 (46:15):
Become independent, become healthy, become whole, and stay out here
in the streets and live your life because if you miss,
if you slip, you will be angle a bound.

Speaker 11 (46:30):
Don't allow I've tried for twenty five years to get
out of prison. Just suait until the family.

Speaker 14 (46:35):
Right now, we're right here in the heart of Badon Rudge,
downtown Baton Rudge before what's this bank one?

Speaker 2 (46:40):
And I'm out here.

Speaker 11 (46:41):
I'm out here with you all, filming and so forth.

Speaker 14 (46:43):
You know, there wouldn't be any problem for me to
walk away. But the point is I've changed. The point
is the thing that I need to do is to
be free, and escaping won't give me any type of freedom.
Escaping I'm still on the run. I'm still trapping. I'm
still bound by the same thing that I was bound
by twenty five years ago. I want real freedom. I

(47:08):
want to be able to walk out of prison and
actually say that I'm free.

Speaker 15 (47:17):
Don't tell me, I.

Speaker 26 (47:25):
Say, don't you gonna see this?

Speaker 40 (47:27):
Here?

Speaker 8 (47:30):
I don't think I could be this free on an outside,
not from withind You got men walk around out that
they have the liberty of the physical body, but they
don't have it.

Speaker 11 (47:44):
But the anybody I was told ignant when I came here.

Speaker 8 (47:48):
Now they worried ignorant is a not a mob, but
it's spt meaning the lack of knowledge.

Speaker 11 (47:54):
And I was really itch did when I came here.

Speaker 8 (47:59):
So now on through the years I submitted myself and
now well they be to educated myself. I'll come to
be I damn minister. So that's mean to call me
a bishop?

Speaker 11 (48:09):
Tiny yell.

Speaker 12 (48:12):
Mm, so I'll get that respect.

Speaker 25 (48:53):
Now I'm moving out the way.

Speaker 41 (48:54):
We don't get bishop up and just let the Lord
use him as you will.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Amen, Oh, yes, the count all right, Yes you found
all right?

Speaker 5 (49:19):
I bet you you may be, can't y'all?

Speaker 4 (49:21):
Hear me on them?

Speaker 12 (49:23):
Praise God?

Speaker 27 (49:27):
That is the way to the state.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
And to be born again.

Speaker 42 (49:33):
And lito a holy life, yea, a victoris life. I'm
God for life, said well, what about being behind Bob, Bishop?
God still exists behind bringing Bob, Thank you diesels. He's

(49:55):
sanctified and he qualifies and he's where shall the individual.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
That take knowledge of him and repent.

Speaker 6 (50:09):
I don't care how holdly.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
That you are.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
I don't care how sanctified that you are.

Speaker 42 (50:14):
I don't care how rich that you are, or how
much you come.

Speaker 40 (50:17):
To take, Jesus said repet.

Speaker 43 (50:22):
Repent.

Speaker 40 (50:24):
I was a young maid, twenty four year old.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Thank you, Jesus, not a maid.

Speaker 5 (50:31):
It was a maid of good maid on the railroad
track one morning.

Speaker 6 (50:35):
And with the crap of my hide and I took
that made.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Life, went on down the railroad.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Track, got in the.

Speaker 42 (50:43):
Rock and roll start, and does attained but to pick
me up and restcute me, putting me in jails.

Speaker 40 (50:53):
I found out that everybody's hated me and despite me.

Speaker 25 (50:57):
But I begin to look beyond the cloud, fed the.

Speaker 6 (51:01):
Bright glory a pound out a.

Speaker 15 (51:09):
Love.

Speaker 40 (51:16):
You said, Lord, I'm saying of what I've done. I'n't thread,
but I'm done.

Speaker 6 (51:22):
I'm sorry for what I've done.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
Wots me save.

Speaker 6 (51:39):
Repet repetet.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
After thirty eight years in Angola, Bishop Tennehill was recommended
for pardon to walk out a freeman. All that's required
is the governor's signature.

Speaker 44 (52:00):
So why isn't you think, Jen that the governor hasn't
signed the party.

Speaker 11 (52:03):
God having submitted him to sign it.

Speaker 8 (52:08):
I believe God is still God, and he controlled all nature,
and he's the God of all flesh.

Speaker 11 (52:15):
I don't think that's nothing too hard for him to do.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
If I was ready.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
From within.

Speaker 8 (52:24):
To meet the channel from without, then God knows.

Speaker 22 (52:43):
Mister Terrio is not eating.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
He's continuing to lose weight.

Speaker 45 (52:48):
There's nothing you can give him that he wants to eat.

Speaker 22 (52:53):
He's reached the point now to where he's telling us
to me Friday. I think it was that he wanted
us to move him into a room and just make
sure that he wasn't in pain, because he didn't want
any heroics or anything.

Speaker 45 (53:08):
When a time came for him to die, just let
him die. But I cannot put him in a room.
He needs stimulation. He needs people around him. He has
friends from the dorm where he used to be that
comes to see him and they sit and talk to him,
and that cheers him up a little bit.

Speaker 12 (53:28):
And I'm ready for it. I figured a couple of
weeks I'll be leaving this planet.

Speaker 15 (53:35):
Ready to eat.

Speaker 12 (53:35):
How I've been ready.

Speaker 23 (53:37):
I'm strayed with the Lord and I know his word,
and I'm ready to go that's nothing years not a
year for you.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
No, not really.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
No, I'm not sad.

Speaker 12 (53:51):
I'm happy, you know, I'm I'm happy to be going.

Speaker 15 (53:57):
Where did he get?

Speaker 12 (53:57):
He very Oh, I'm not worthy about that.

Speaker 23 (54:01):
I'm not worried. I have Uh, I have a plot.
My hometown paid for it. Everything, all my systems blows
all paid for it. And and uh, I think everybody's
gonna be judged and according to to their works and

(54:24):
according to their feelings. And you see, every everybody has
a spirit in it, and every you have a conscience,
and it tells you what to do. And if you
do what it tells you to do, uh, you can
pretty well bet you be on the safe side, you know.
But if you tell it, if you do what it
tells you not to do, you can very well be

(54:47):
on the wrong side.

Speaker 12 (54:50):
It's it's not very hard to understand. And I think
I'm up on the right side. It's just getting time
course to good, that's all I've.

Speaker 23 (55:02):
Got to pack it up and.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Good, I'm ready.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
With little possibility of early release, more and more men
are facing the likelihood of dying in prison, and while
many are taken out and buried by their families, those
inmates without resources are brought to point book out the
prison cemetery.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
For most, it's their worst nightmare.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
To address these and other issues important to the inmate population,
and Goa's nationally acclaimed prison magazine has been publishing uncensored
investigative reports for the past two decades. The editor of
The Angel LIGHTE. Wilbert Rido, himself a former death row inmate,
has interviewed every man executed in Louisiana during the last

(56:13):
twenty years.

Speaker 41 (56:15):
Filer, you know, thirty five thirty five since you were
first locked up at age twelve.

Speaker 12 (56:22):
How long have you been free altogether since you.

Speaker 18 (56:25):
Were twelve, since you're first locked up?

Speaker 5 (56:27):
Yeah, every about four years all together.

Speaker 12 (56:29):
Since twelve, just four years of your life.

Speaker 11 (56:32):
I've been in the world, Uh bothers me and I
want to know who the bothers John is.

Speaker 25 (56:41):
Uh yeah, the way I see, uh, well, the cases
that I'm aware of down down the walk and some
on death Row.

Speaker 12 (56:49):
There's hundreds of cases that are a lot worse than years.

Speaker 5 (56:51):
Yes, I guess they felt like I've been messing.

Speaker 12 (56:54):
Up so long they were gonna punish me for it.

Speaker 18 (56:57):
You've uh thought about what it's gonna be like, man,
what do you conclude?

Speaker 28 (57:10):
H Well, I don't like the part where said I've
had the process. They go strough and the far way
they stop you from breathing. I just soonly skip over
that part and stop my heart.

Speaker 29 (57:23):
Really well, they're saying a paper where people take deep.

Speaker 28 (57:28):
Breath bef you already paralyzed, and what's happening is you suffer,
you suffocating and you trying to get a breath.

Speaker 5 (57:35):
They ain't gotta stop for breakfast. Really, you know, I'm
gonna sell and you paralyze so it won't look violid.

Speaker 28 (57:41):
Yeah, but inside your mind is still alive even though
you're supposed.

Speaker 5 (57:44):
To be asleep, And I wonder about that. That's that's
gonna be a trip.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
The execution room, known as the death House, is located
in the most remote camp of the prison. Periodically throughout
the year, the staff performs an execution rehearsal to stave
off any last minute glitches.

Speaker 7 (58:17):
I started a pair of good to come right here
with you. Could you find a vine with him? With
that much pressure on him? They would be difficult?

Speaker 2 (58:30):
When not do?

Speaker 12 (58:33):
Because there which one is? Where's the problem?

Speaker 25 (58:37):
Okay?

Speaker 12 (58:37):
So this is this is what happens.

Speaker 11 (58:39):
This is.

Speaker 12 (58:42):
Okay. Actually I'm coming up now.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
One't tend you don't want to cut these things?

Speaker 14 (58:46):
Do go?

Speaker 24 (58:48):
You stick them?

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Trained up? You want to cut these off?

Speaker 12 (58:50):
If that's probably gonna here, I don't want you to
cut them off. Hey, let's kind of attach you stick
it now.

Speaker 14 (58:55):
Let it.

Speaker 12 (58:55):
Let's pretend something to cover everything.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Everybody go out.

Speaker 12 (58:59):
Let's pretend were doing it.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
See he got his head up pretty good?

Speaker 12 (59:05):
Okay? Did it take you for y'all?

Speaker 7 (59:06):
Holy you ain't ain't leaving this no pressure, pressure or
turning head and see what happened?

Speaker 43 (59:16):
Still you let's just say that.

Speaker 12 (59:20):
All right, that's good, that's good. Tough one?

Speaker 14 (59:22):
Two?

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Three to can y'all hear me talk? Can y'all hear me?

Speaker 26 (59:25):
Pretty good?

Speaker 12 (59:27):
I'm whispering.

Speaker 7 (59:28):
Come be a witness right over here and see if
this blocked your view. And if he's laying on a
table and you're set, if you were sitting down though
it block your view. Lord van Noy, you'll you be
the one that's a signed when when you go back out,
you'll move it over to here.

Speaker 12 (59:44):
Okay, that's that we did. Okay, how that feel?

Speaker 3 (59:59):
H John Brown's only hope to avoid execution is a
stay from the courts or a pardon from the governor.
The process begins with a hearing before the pardon board.

Speaker 33 (01:00:13):
We because they to consider the application John Ashley Brown,
who has been sence to jail. Mister Brown, it has
a five or commutation or that that's sense to a license.

Speaker 44 (01:00:32):
John Brown fully emmits's taard than it's terrible pawn and
for not one moment had he ever sought to blind
anybody else. This is not a case about actually any sense.
This is not a case started leading technicalities. This is
a case that dues in our minds to the lawyer

(01:00:54):
serious constitutional issues that we had to be addressed, and
that had him not an address by the chorus.

Speaker 37 (01:01:02):
We've heard about mister Brown's part and Remo's untimely and
violent death part very skillfully chosen.

Speaker 11 (01:01:11):
His part.

Speaker 37 (01:01:11):
His part was to choose a weapon, find a victim,
kill them and take their money. That's his part beginning
to end totality. No parts about it. We've heard about
about brain damage, but we know about the brain damage
inflicted by a seven inch bowie k I threw the
nose and into the brain that in the second stab
wound which went through the heart, surely felt mister Laflin's death,

(01:01:35):
but that wasn't enough. There were eleven more stab wounds,
wounds in the back, wounds on the leg. We've seen
testimony that the perpetrator was out of breath and covered
with blood.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Of course, he was in literally a life and death struggle.

Speaker 37 (01:01:47):
We've heard today about the letter writing campaigns from death row,
yet the postman never fraught my mother a single vetter
for remorse from anywhere. We've heard about deathbeds inversions. We've
heard about nuns going to comfort a man on death row.
These people called my mother. Nobody called and said, I
want you to understand mis Laughlin, that while we are
standing up for this man, we understand that you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Have concerns too.

Speaker 37 (01:02:09):
We could trace the supposed rehabilitation and have a supposed
progress that a man who's majored in gold. But at
the same time I have an unfinished astray from an
arts and crafts kit that my mother was unable to complete,
a project made.

Speaker 43 (01:02:23):
For a five to eight year old.

Speaker 37 (01:02:25):
My mother, while on the eighth floor of Toro Hospital,
was unable to complete the simple asterrak. She's gone through
powerwood fits of putting a luminum four on the windows
so that people couldn't look in. Slept for a year
with a gun under her pillow for fear that someone
could escape from Angola and come seek revenge on her, revenge.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
For what.

Speaker 12 (01:02:49):
My family is not calling for vengeance.

Speaker 37 (01:02:51):
There will be no celebration, no cause to celeb There'll
be no rejoicing in this at all. It will, however,
we will take some home in knowing that there's a
closure to this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Ugly chapter in our lives.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
The Pardon Board rejected John Brown's application for Clement City.

Speaker 7 (01:03:26):
I wish there were more forgiveness from the victims, for
those of them made who actually are worthy of forgiveness.
And then you say, well, he murdered and killed, and
he did all the trible things. He's never worthy of forgiveness.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
But it's not medical.

Speaker 12 (01:03:39):
If you're a Christian, you gotta believe in forgiveness.

Speaker 11 (01:03:42):
Reel hard.

Speaker 7 (01:03:43):
He murdered my son, You needn't be hard. That's the
battle between the spiritual and the world. That's the struggle
of life itself. And you see that struggle at the prison.
We see that struggle better than anybody else.

Speaker 12 (01:03:57):
We see what nobody else sees. No, it's sad what
we say.

Speaker 13 (01:04:03):
And this afternoon you're listening to KSP ninety one point
seven on your family dollar from Louisiana State Penitentiary, and
it ain't going.

Speaker 11 (01:04:13):
This is the Rock and Robin and this is December.

Speaker 13 (01:04:17):
The twenty four is Christmas Eve, and I'm gonna play
you some Christmas music.

Speaker 11 (01:04:22):
Hope you're doing. Find out there and remember to keep.

Speaker 25 (01:04:24):
Up the Christmas spirits and remember the loved ones out
there celebrating Christmas.

Speaker 11 (01:04:28):
And I know they wished to we could be there.
It w'et but morning day maybe we will.

Speaker 30 (01:04:40):
Oh oh oh oh oh ohouh oh oh oh oh oh.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
In Camp Jay and Goala's most restrictive and punitive cell block,
inmates are in twenty three hours solitary lockdown to stave
off suicide and violence caused by holiday depression. The administration
organizes religious visits.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
We just want you to know that you're not totally forgotten.

Speaker 31 (01:05:27):
Jay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
See how are you doing?

Speaker 11 (01:05:30):
Bet you ain't seen a sideline?

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Isn't a while we can trying to figure out who does?

Speaker 21 (01:05:35):
It?

Speaker 26 (01:05:35):
Gives me a fair strang.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Okay, tomorrow's Christmas.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
And just remember what it's all about.

Speaker 41 (01:05:44):
It's not it's not all of this mine of gifts
and everything that's from the man upstairs.

Speaker 4 (01:05:51):
Just remember that.

Speaker 41 (01:05:52):
Word, it's all about. That will build you up, Okay,
And I can guarantee you we'll be back open.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
I may not land like you here for next Christmas.

Speaker 11 (01:06:03):
No, don't you know. Yeah, we come up and checking
on y'all for the holidays.

Speaker 41 (01:06:07):
You have to see what's going on and say, make
sure y'all spirit yea heading up at least, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
For the holidays, see what keeps you going.

Speaker 25 (01:06:18):
And we wanna come and check on y'all for the holiday, say.

Speaker 41 (01:06:22):
I make sure your spirited up and it's all right
and probably just all up and where are Yeah, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
All man.

Speaker 6 (01:06:42):
Might thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Hey, you do it?

Speaker 7 (01:07:10):
Sircus the Maiden, and he'd come here and look down
through here. Ever, look down looks like you're looking through
tunnels and caves to the wady to wire. We'll see
how all this micro security prism as we could keep
the despair down and keep the hope up, and you
won't have anybody try to escape.

Speaker 43 (01:07:27):
And they have to try to learn to get out
the right way.

Speaker 7 (01:07:29):
And that's legally and so forth and uh, even though
you have a life center, he can't.

Speaker 12 (01:07:34):
Give up hope and our job believe to keep the hope.

Speaker 7 (01:07:38):
And I have hope for him, you know, I do
for the good one that wanna do better then you
always like winning the lottery, you know, the hope you
get a the governor signed a pardon for you, and
and maybe someday you'll get out and another few get
goes free. Probably eighty five percent of the inmate here
that are here now would die here.

Speaker 11 (01:08:00):
Just marry Christmas before we'll see what Chrestia.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
No, you're doing good boy.

Speaker 12 (01:08:03):
I appreciate it. Thank you for having my Paul Randy.

Speaker 11 (01:08:06):
Oh yeah, we just waiting for one last document that
he needs. If he gets that up there be able
to complete as old ready I wanted.

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 12 (01:08:14):
I'll tell you what I want to say. This one
ain't my lawyers and why we need in my lawyer?

Speaker 14 (01:08:18):
Did?

Speaker 12 (01:08:19):
We don't want to inviody in our pro that's all
make you left innocent? Answer man ought ought to.

Speaker 38 (01:08:24):
Be in pro.

Speaker 7 (01:08:25):
That's the one thing the lawyer too to do a
real good job of working on read the sentences and
mnciations and then we've seen.

Speaker 12 (01:08:30):
Tonian man go pray later.

Speaker 11 (01:08:32):
That's what's immortal. All right, Okay, okay you take Mary
correct me at Christians Junior family.

Speaker 12 (01:08:37):
Okay, three layers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
All right, how about the.

Speaker 11 (01:08:39):
Time you have well, you know how it's seventy five years.
I've been myself twenty five years on that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
I'm eliens for paroles.

Speaker 12 (01:08:46):
I yelled for now. Yes, come up, okay, got fifty
to go. If you don't, you get a little dread now.

Speaker 46 (01:09:01):
Come to see bombs all right, all right, leaning, yeah, hey,
bom man, we brought you from the bomb.

Speaker 43 (01:09:26):
The boy, he said, oh.

Speaker 11 (01:09:32):
Bomb all right, you can see.

Speaker 5 (01:09:35):
Yeah, all right, young man, you all right?

Speaker 11 (01:09:39):
Yeah, yeah, I brought your salad.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Bro brought your salad. But now we have some more fruit.

Speaker 11 (01:09:44):
But all know, b look a look up there you
getting big now, boy, And that ain't it look good?

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
And I was the other day.

Speaker 47 (01:09:54):
A black hole up them and they tell me you
don't uh union made peace and you you.

Speaker 11 (01:10:00):
Ready to cash in? I said, I made my peace
and ready to cash in.

Speaker 25 (01:10:05):
And people want but I ain't call it the above though.

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
No, hold, I might not do that as a pall.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
It's not where you go it's how you go. You
can the ball, you know what I mean.

Speaker 11 (01:10:29):
You could kick and scream and holler and do everything
you want. And where are you going?

Speaker 12 (01:10:34):
Sad home to the same place.

Speaker 47 (01:10:37):
Most of the guys in this place, none of them
want to go in here, I mean, you know they.
I guess that's the biggest nightmare of the typical guy
in this place is to die in prison.

Speaker 25 (01:10:49):
And if and if you put three feet on the
other side, I'll be have to say, well, I died
out of prison, and stay of mind, you know, just
stay putting me three feet on the other side and buried,
and when you bed to say that I died on
the other sides.

Speaker 18 (01:11:05):
You know, not only diamond prison, but being buried in here.

Speaker 47 (01:11:08):
I guess you're more fortunate than most is. You know
your family was not a tough to take you out.

Speaker 25 (01:11:13):
But I'm gonna tell you the secret before you go
too far.

Speaker 11 (01:11:16):
Well, I'm not going with my family.

Speaker 25 (01:11:19):
I told my sisters there. I had my insurance policy
paid up, my love's paid off park and insurance policy
and everything. And I'm getting very right up here.

Speaker 11 (01:11:33):
That's right.

Speaker 12 (01:11:34):
That's why my friend thought, hmm, that is blessed me.

Speaker 6 (01:11:39):
Oh, Mama.

Speaker 25 (01:11:41):
Always had good jobs, always had this, always had that.
And all I had to do is look up there
and say, God, I'll need something, and you give it
to me.

Speaker 12 (01:11:53):
That's all I had to do.

Speaker 25 (01:11:56):
And I wasn't mad enough to buy down the hill
because I didn't want to be poor, and I wanted
this and I wanted that. I thought that's what it
was all about. I thought all that was about life.
But when it came time to go, I knew I

(01:12:16):
had messed up. I knew right then I had messed up.
I had enough sense to turn around in and ask
him and this some more time.

Speaker 11 (01:12:30):
Even it's in prison.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
I don't like person, you know, I don't believe nobody
likes prisoner. I don't like prison.

Speaker 25 (01:12:39):
But I wanted some more time so I could get
you know it.

Speaker 12 (01:12:44):
And I've done that, and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
That's all that was for me. And I wish Eldiod
could find it.

Speaker 7 (01:12:53):
You know, all the Yoda out of your bluffer.

Speaker 18 (01:13:01):
We fall apart you No, you ain't gonna ball a part.

Speaker 11 (01:13:04):
Yeah, I be good. UH got the last tick care
of him man, and we love it.

Speaker 26 (01:13:09):
Sure work.

Speaker 12 (01:13:11):
We can both love me. Pree you take cam bat
that I'll be back for the week.

Speaker 18 (01:13:16):
After the tat you take candle right very directly, do
you think doing about okay?

Speaker 5 (01:13:20):
I think very alright, very rests ye give me some time.

Speaker 11 (01:13:23):
Way you the brief, see you tomorrow man right, all
Prince's thing, Harry, Christs Christmas.

Speaker 5 (01:13:30):
I'm'a say attend you and Sarah and Bay last year.

Speaker 43 (01:13:33):
Goody eat that's the pigurekay and you got to Uhalian director.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
They gonna take character.

Speaker 12 (01:13:41):
You can be y m you take too, all.

Speaker 25 (01:13:43):
Right, sure, knife and then the cover.

Speaker 27 (01:14:10):
As you fellas know, we're on the flood watch soul.
Just stay prepared and be ready. Warden came to be
in later to let you know the latest update on
what's going on.

Speaker 5 (01:14:20):
We have to evacuate fellas and go to Tenth City.

Speaker 11 (01:14:23):
Be ready to move because the water will take no prisoners.

Speaker 27 (01:14:27):
And as we get ready to go, we're going in
with our regular.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Broadcast in the day's gospel.

Speaker 43 (01:14:32):
Here we go, Jesus, Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
That spring, the Mississippi River rose to its highest level
in a century. If the levees were to break, the prison,
including inmates locked, the cells would be underwater within four

(01:15:14):
to six hours. Plans to evacuate were put in effect,
and all of Angola worked through the night sandbagging to
save the farm from the might of the Mississippi.

Speaker 12 (01:15:34):
So we had to we just had to wipe flame.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Prayer would make it.

Speaker 7 (01:15:38):
When you look over crowds here and you see all
of lights, and you know, know all those inmates ren
noo sails in that prism and you think, no, I
want to go run five thousand out tonight. Well I
don't want to run five thousand now right now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
I'm on white a little longer.

Speaker 12 (01:15:50):
We're gonna keep on white.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
You know, we don't know.

Speaker 12 (01:15:54):
I think we're okay. We just had to sleep. You
can see the water and higher here than than the road.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
There's never been a higher.

Speaker 7 (01:16:13):
If their horses saddle, they say, when we move the horses,
they're gonna know it's serious if we like the horses.

Speaker 12 (01:16:22):
But we're gonna all hanging together. Let's see those roofs.
You can't even get out of this on the roofs.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
M The river forced its way right to the edge
of the prison, but a week later gently subsided.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
It was back to business as usual at Angola.

Speaker 14 (01:16:45):
Mm HMMs about.

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
So they shot off.

Speaker 15 (01:16:56):
Cries plcasts, Yeah, the off top.

Speaker 33 (01:17:03):
So what's next when he steps to hear from the
court justce eve meen sometime.

Speaker 11 (01:17:06):
But I I gotta move in themorning.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
They gonna move in the morning.

Speaker 29 (01:17:10):
To twenty seven year. If we don't hear nothing about
a season, I gotta start it. I don't wanna say
sort my stuff out?

Speaker 26 (01:17:18):
Yea, what do I want to do?

Speaker 5 (01:17:20):
What I want to send home or what I want
to get into the family.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
See, he's still pretty off on it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:27):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
It ain't finally yet, especially cause I don't wanna.

Speaker 12 (01:17:31):
Go to my style.

Speaker 29 (01:17:33):
So I'm hope when they do it, well, if they
don't rule it go all the way over into tomorrow
to the actual dent.

Speaker 5 (01:17:41):
It'll still be pending here.

Speaker 29 (01:17:44):
But they said he was gonna over it yesterday or today,
And the longer they hold it it stops us from
going in the other courts.

Speaker 12 (01:17:54):
I don't really have an opinion.

Speaker 7 (01:17:55):
I think it probably might pretty good chance it will,
but he thinks it's not now. If it does happen,
once he realizes it's gonnappen, he gonna think it's not
all the way up to the end, and finally he
gonna I don't know if he ever thinks it will,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
With the sixteen hours remaining before his scheduled execution, John
Brown is transferred from death row to Camp F the
death house.

Speaker 14 (01:19:09):
M m.

Speaker 36 (01:19:35):
Mmm mm.

Speaker 45 (01:19:50):
I wonder what you give in salatis in court.

Speaker 5 (01:19:53):
Well, evidently they having a conflict. It could be good,
it could be bad, but they seemed to be kind
of mixed right now. We just hope our side went.
Somebody's pansy bricks read it. We just hope inside breaks
four hours. So if you've never been down here before, no,
I ain't never been here before.

Speaker 21 (01:20:12):
It I.

Speaker 5 (01:20:17):
Like the son.

Speaker 12 (01:20:26):
At eleven o'clock. We're gonna read the scripture with all
the folks over there, with our people. We're gonna do it.
We talked to that already about it.

Speaker 18 (01:20:31):
We're gonna do it.

Speaker 12 (01:20:32):
We're gonna read we have We're gonna read the We're
gonna we're gonna read it again.

Speaker 7 (01:20:36):
We're gonna say a prayer for ourselves. Were gonna ask
forgiveness if we're doing something wrong. And uh, that's what
we're gonna do. This is this is just life and
that's what we do. And I feel real good with it.
You know, if I didn't feel good with it. I
wouldn't do it.

Speaker 12 (01:20:47):
Now that I want to do it, I like to
do it. But we're okay, we're gonna be fine.

Speaker 7 (01:20:53):
We're gonna all die and he's just getting out of
this worldless way tonight and so let's just hope he
goes to heaven.

Speaker 12 (01:21:00):
I feel like he will, so we feel okay.

Speaker 18 (01:21:04):
Do you believe in God?

Speaker 12 (01:21:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 18 (01:21:09):
Did you believe in having?

Speaker 35 (01:21:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 18 (01:21:12):
What's it take for you to get to have him?

Speaker 5 (01:21:17):
To be christ Like as much as you can? And
I don't know if I got that for yet.

Speaker 7 (01:21:36):
He had a meal of of a boil cross fishes
what he wanted to eat, and he ate plenty, ate
a lot and.

Speaker 12 (01:21:42):
Uh and his crackers and coats and such as that.

Speaker 7 (01:21:48):
When his family left then he got upset pretty much
was he would normally maybe expect. We did our own
thing with him as best we could and cut him
backgrounded at twelve twelve pm.

Speaker 12 (01:22:09):
We sent a soul for final judgment. The last thing
he said he actually said a wow.

Speaker 7 (01:22:38):
Yeah, Well, I don't think we ever give up hope,
And that's where God comes to play in it, because
when we give up hope of being free here we
have to pick up and say, well, we're going to
be free when we die.

Speaker 12 (01:22:59):
It's the Thank God, and believe in heaven.

Speaker 7 (01:23:01):
Thank God.

Speaker 12 (01:23:02):
We believe it's not over. When it's over, it's just
over here.

Speaker 14 (01:23:13):
The first thing I wanna do when I get I
don't wanna take a bath. I know that might sound strange,
but you know the little small things that you missed
by being incarcerated that you remember it brought you so
much joy when you were younger. And I like to
go out, and you know, I like to take a back.
I like to sit down in the bathtub. It's soaking
a bathtub and just enjoy Its just just sitting there
for a little water.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
You get out of what was the first thing you're doing.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
Oo.

Speaker 8 (01:23:47):
It would be so much overfloating for joy Ad, and
it would be hard for me to really express myself
because he would be such a joy and such a
womanness just to even smell the atmophear of society, to

(01:24:10):
be at libert there.

Speaker 11 (01:24:14):
He would be out of sight for me.

Speaker 12 (01:24:35):
I loved freedom for years.

Speaker 10 (01:24:38):
I've had dreams of traveling through tunnels, and when I
got to the end, that was freedom.

Speaker 12 (01:24:48):
If it's the Lord's will for me to be free,
be free, and I believe that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Just thank me, Mama. Ever leaves, just please if I'm
ever leave, that my main concerned. That's what I'm focused
on right now. I'm ever leave.

Speaker 14 (01:25:51):
Really vurial committee up in there and go and y'all, Bones,
everybody was killing Yeah, let's selling.

Speaker 11 (01:25:57):
Okay, you're a sign. Hey man, your dad was a
great man. He was the inspirational you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
Know man, he was the last thing.

Speaker 14 (01:26:03):
He told us the other day that uh, you know,
he got right with God and he was prepared, you know,
and they got a couple of guys here was gonna
talk to you lay there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
But we knew Bones. He always told us that this
is where he wanted to be.

Speaker 11 (01:26:15):
You know why why this lot some plate?

Speaker 14 (01:26:20):
Well, he said and quote, you know, you didn't know
anybody out there, and he loved y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 11 (01:26:26):
He wanted to be here because his friends, you know,
we'd be able to come back and holler at him,
you know, take care, Bones.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
She wouldn't really know anybody out there.

Speaker 10 (01:26:33):
But y'all, really, bottom line, after he's dead, you can
do anything you want.

Speaker 11 (01:26:39):
And I understood there was some of the ship was
my sister.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
He gave her a palm of attorney, and she didn't
even ask his chalk. She didn't ask me because it
wouldn't have happened like this.

Speaker 43 (01:26:50):
You would have taken oh, yes, I'd have taken.

Speaker 47 (01:26:52):
Him, y'all would not y'all would have took him to Yes,
we'd have taken him even though he wanted to be
buried here.

Speaker 11 (01:26:58):
Yes, we didn't put him as to Mom and Daddy
for bloone.

Speaker 7 (01:27:04):
His promised he didn't want to be a burden words
and he wasn't a burden.

Speaker 11 (01:27:09):
No, he wasn't a burden.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
I'll see that.

Speaker 15 (01:27:11):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
We love I mean, we love your dad, man, I
mean we loved it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:20):
Free, I free, no long about no more change in me.

Speaker 11 (01:27:35):
My soul in resting?

Speaker 4 (01:27:40):
Did that some blessed? Really? Lord, Loulia and free and
free fred long free, Oh my.

Speaker 15 (01:28:23):
Boy?

Speaker 26 (01:28:31):
Coming?

Speaker 40 (01:28:35):
Then come the Lord com faultily my.

Speaker 15 (01:28:47):
Sole, this wepping.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
That the blessing? Yeah, Lord,