Heather

Heather was arrested when she was 35, and at 36 he was incarcerated at SCI Muncy. She is 53 years old, and has served 18 years of her sentence of life without parole.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We'd like to acknowledge for our listenersjust upfront that what you will hear from
individual incarcerated women throughout the episode youmay find to be emotionally charged and even
disturbing. So we just want toacknowledge that and make you aware of that.
Furthermore, something that listeners probably don'trealize is that all of our individual

(00:25):
conversations with each woman was recorded insidea maximum security prison, a State Correctional
Institution SCI Munsey in Pennsylvania here inthe United States. So the noise,
there's any chatter, anything in thebackground. For our listeners just to understand
that we actually recorded inside a prisonwhere the day goes on. The women,

(00:51):
the officers, the staff, theyall have their jobs. Just because
we're there, it doesn't stop.Well, everything becomes quiet. So if
you do, as listeners here inbackground noise, please understand that is part
of being inside a prison. Thankyou for listening to our podcast, Self

(01:19):
Identities Conversations with Convicted Women. Myname is doctor Catherine Whiteley. I'm a
feminist criminologist and I'm visiting today theState Correctional Institution SCI Munci. It's a
state prison in Pennsylvania for women andI'm grateful to have sitting opposite me today.

(01:40):
Heather. Welcome, Heather, Greatto see you. Good to see
you, doctor Kith. Now it'slovely. Now we have known each other
for maybe twelve thirteen years at leastat least, and on that journey,
you have participated in a book thatI'm writing. You have your own chapter
coming out in this book that I'mwriting, and that's just been part of

(02:01):
our journey, hasn't it. Yes, Yes, I've known you quite a
while and you've always been a veryimportant part of my incarceration journey. Just
the hope that you give me.Oh, that is lovely, lovely to
hear and appreciate you as well.Okay, so for our listeners, would
you mind sharing, if you could, how long you've been incarcerated, how

(02:27):
old you were when you first cameto sci Muncy, and how old you
are today, if you don't mindhim not at all. I was arrested
when I was thirty five, cameto Munsey when I was thirty six.
I've been incarcerated eighteen years. I'mfifty three, serving life without parole sentence.

(02:50):
Thank you. So I'm going totake you back to your childhood or
some of your childhood. Would yoube able to share growing up? What
was it like for you you andwhere did you grow up? I grew
up in Wilmington, Delaware. Suburbof Wilmington, it's called the Pike Creek
Valley. My father was an elementaryschool principal, and my mom stayed at
home with the three girls. Iwas the youngest of three, and we

(03:15):
had kind of on the outside whatlooked like an idyllic life. You know,
we lived in a beautiful community.My father was respected in the community.
You know, we dressed up prettyfor church every Sunday. But what
was going on inside the house wasvery different from what appeared on the outside.

(03:36):
There's a lot of alcoholism, alot of violence. What I look
back at those years of thinking,it was a formative time for me to
learn that I should always put ona good show. I should always as
long as things look good on theoutside, and I can hide what's really
going on. That that was kindof how you get through life. So

(03:59):
I I learned young to not talkabout the truth and to not talk about
my feelings and to kind of finda way to be okay no matter what.
And that's what I thought life meant, you know, and how how
old when you think back to thosetimes, how how old were you when

(04:23):
you you know, you realized,you know, you couldn't go forward and
move forward and say something that youreally felt, you know how what was
the time frame then? How oldwere you young? My parents got divorced
when I was twelve. The timeleading up to that was very chaotic in
my household. I had a sisterwho was an older sister who as she

(04:49):
went through puberty, I guess,she started to show symptoms of mental illness.
It became a big focal point ofthe house, so there was a
lot of energy directed towards her mentalillness. I became very quiet, almost
lost, like I just didn't wantto cause any chaos in the house.

(05:13):
So I remember being gone a lot, like I had friends in the neighborhood
and I would always eat dinner attheir house, or I just wanted to
be away, and it was almostlike my parents didn't notice how much I
was away. So I kind ofrealized that if I could just become like
invisible, that it made things mucheasier, and I felt like easier on

(05:36):
my parents. I just didn't wantto be a burden to them, so
I did what I could to stayout of trouble. I did very well
in school, you know. Iknew the things that were expected of me,
and I tried to conform to thosethings. But what that created in
me was a lot of misconceptions aboutwho I was and what really mattered.

(05:59):
And I started to feel very unlovedand unwanted, and those were the things
that I was holding in at avery young age. I developed what now
I know as OCD when I wasreally really young, and I think that
was the way I coped with theanxiety of everything that was going on around

(06:20):
me because I knew I couldn't talkabout it. As soon as my parents
got divorced. Right around that sametime is when I started experimenting with drugs,
and it was like I found mysalvation. The drugs did for me
what I couldn't do for myself.They calmed that anxiety. Heather, could

(06:44):
you just share with everyone when yousay, you know that's when you you
know, you became aware of drugsand you started, well, what did
that look like? What was yourday for Heather? When drugs, shall
we say, became part of yourreal life? When I was young,
I just hung around with the kidsthat were doing drugs. So started to

(07:05):
not do so well in school becausenow all of a sudden, you know,
I'm kind of with a different crowdand other things became important. So
through middle school through high school,my grades started to slip. I would
spend time, like I grew up, Pike Creek Valley is like, there's
woods, there's a golf course,there's shopping centers, there's not much going

(07:29):
on, you know, for kids. So we used to hang out in
the woods and smoke pot and drinkbeer, and that was pretty much what
I was doing with my time.My family didn't really notice, I don't
think what was going on with mebecause of everything else that was so much
bigger than the problems that were happeningwith me. When my parents did get

(07:53):
divorced, I moved in with myfather and he didn't pay attention to me
at all. So then it waswhen things really started to escalate. And
because I was hanging around with kidsthat were using drugs, I found out
that I had access to a lotof different kinds of drugs. So at
a very young age, I wasexperimenting with anything anything I could get my

(08:18):
hands on. By eleventh grade,I had an incident in school one day
and I was hungover from a nightof drinking all night, and I went
into school and I always sat inthe back. I didn't talk to the
kids that were in school with me. I just felt very much not a

(08:39):
part of that, you know.Whereas when I was young, I did
a lot of things, like Isang, I played sports, I was
on the swim team, I wasvery active and involved. All of that
started going away by the time Iwas eleventh grade. I didn't even talk
to anybody in my school. Icertainly didn't participate in anything. I dropped

(09:01):
out so I was hungover. Iwent to school and I remember throwing up
all over my desk in the backof the room, and nobody noticed.
And then there was five minutes left, and the teacher said, just,
you know, go ahead and talkamongst yourselves for the last five minutes till
the bell rings, and all ofa sudden, like something started dripping on

(09:24):
the side of my desk, andall the kids turned around to look,
and I remember that feeling of themall looking at me and just being so
ashamed. And nobody said anything,but they were all staring at me,
and I stood up and I walkedout, and I walked out of the
school and I never went back.So in eleventh grade, I just I
quit school And it was only outof that like embarrassment and not wanting to

(09:46):
be there and feeling very isolated andvery alone. So that was probably when
things really started to fall apart fromme. My father had gotten remarried,
his new wife didn't want me inthe house. I ended up going to
stay at a juvenile of placement atthe good A House. What was that

(10:07):
experience like when you said a juvenileplacement and how old were you? Fifteen
or sixteen? Okay, it washorrible. The rejection I felt by my
father was something that clearly I carrywith me to this day. Yes.
Yes, my dad's new wife justthought that, you know, she didn't

(10:37):
want me around, and to mymind, over magnified the things that I
was doing and made any problem thatwas going on in the house my fault.
So gave my dad a choice eitherget rid of her or I'm leaving,
and he literally chose her over me. I tried to go and be

(11:01):
on my own, staying with friendswhen you're fifteen, that doesn't really work.
My friend's families went home be like, why aren't you going home?
What are you doing here? Iwould not go with my mom because I
knew she wasn't going to allow meto do the things have the freedom that
I was having. Her drugs wereabsolutely not going to be tolerated in her

(11:22):
house. When I finally got tothe juvenile facility, I remember being scared
to death at night. They werejust they were nice. They were walking
me around and showing me, youknow, this is your room and you
have to get up in the morningand make your bed. We all meet
downstairs for breakfast at a certain time. Everybody has a job. Your job
is to mop the floor of thekitchen after we're done eating, And I

(11:45):
remember looking at that floor thinking,I have no idea how to mop a
floor. I'd never mopped a floorin my life. You know, I
lived a very sheltered, spoilt life. But it was a realization to me,
like I'm not going to be ableto do the things, you know,
the discipline that they wanted me tohave. You know, I was

(12:05):
so far removed from that that Icalled my mom crying that night and said,
you've got to come get me.I'll do whatever you want. And
she said, well, then you'regoing to rehab and you're going back to
school, and you and I did, and thank god, because I I
did get clean. I went toan adolescent rehab at sixteen years old and

(12:26):
went back to summer school and tooka full load in the summer school,
took a full load my senior yearand graduated high school. And I actually
got the highest math I got anaward for having the highest math average in
the school. They brought me upon stage at graduation, which I didn't
even know if I was going tobe able to graduate, you know,
because I got straight f's my eleventhgrade year, except for my English teacher,

(12:48):
who gave me a C. AndI went back to her later and
said, why did you give mea C? She said, Heather,
you're brilliant, she said, andif you'd have been here, you'd have
gotten an A. So I averagedit out and gave you a C.
And if she hadn't done that,I never would have been able to finish
the classes in summer school that Ineeded and graduate high school. So she
really saved me. But when Iwent up on that stage and got that
award. It was the first timethat I felt out of myself. Yeah,

(13:15):
and I couldn't believe it. Idon't know what that makes me emotional
now thinking about that, but itwas a big deal. Yes, I
moved in with my mom and sheencouraged me to go to college. My
father wouldn't pay for it, sowe figured out a way. My mom
wasn't making any money. I rememberher first job when they got divorced was

(13:37):
she became a secretary for Catholic SocialServices, making like ten thousand dollars a
year. I don't even know howwe lived, but somehow she figured it
out and we survived, and wefound a way to help me go through
school with loans and grants and scholarshipmoney. And I ended up getting a
bachelor's degree from the University of Delawareand got married, had a wonderful husband,

(14:05):
a wonderful life. I was sober. I was going to AA for
seven years. I was sober.I never I never had a better time
in my life than those seven years. I'm going to Actually, no,
you don't a lot. You're doinga great job. I want to go
back. So what is your degreein? If you could share what was
it in My degree is in agriculturalengineering with a minor in civil engineering.

(14:31):
I went into the School of Agriculturejust to get money because Delaware is a
land grand school. I would havenever been able to afford college. University
doll was very competitive in engineering,so I couldn't major in civil engineering,
so I just I went in throughagriculture, minored in civil got kind of
an like I focused on environmental engineeringback then. I graduated college in nineteen

(14:56):
ninety two, which sounds like amillion years, but back then there was
no degree called environmental engineering at thebachelor level. There was a master's degree
in that, but not so Ikind of did what I could to take
all environmental classes. Ended up gettinginto the environmental insurance field when it was

(15:16):
a startup industry, which was weirdthat I happened into that, but and
did very well in that industry.Could you share, because I know a
lot about your background, but couldyou share. So from that degree and
a little bit later in life,you lived is correct to say in New
York City. I did for awhile. I lived in Manhattan for a

(15:39):
very brief period of time. Imoved out to Jersey City, so I
lived in Jersey City. I commutedinto Manhattan. I took the path.
I lived in man Or. Iworked in Manhattan when nine to eleven happened.
That was probably the next big traumaof my life. I was not

(16:00):
at work that morning. My grandmotherhad died, so I was heading back
to Delaware for her funeral, andmy mom called me in the morning and
said turn on the TV. AndI watched the planes fly into the towers
and couldn't get a hold of anybodyI worked with. We worked, our
building was right across the street fromthe towers, and all the communications for

(16:21):
all of Lower Manhattan were down,and it was I'm sorry I went completely
someplace else, but no, itwas horrific. It was. And what
was your role? What did youactually do for work? As opposed to
the company worker? But what didyou do? What was your role?
I started in the industry as whatthey call an environmental underwriter, so I

(16:44):
underwrote risk. The idea was theinsurance industry had lost so much money paying
out environmental claims and there was noinsurance available for environmental risks. So some
very smart people created a niche instreet where they took people like me scientists
or people with the background in environmentalsciences and said, if you can underwrite

(17:10):
the risk and pick the good risks, we can ensure them the bad risks.
We can maybe either not provide themthe insurance that they need to continue
on as a company or help improvethe risk. So that's what we did,
and we wrote environmental insurance for fixedfacilities or contractors who did environmental cleanup

(17:32):
projects, environmental consultants, you know. We wrote transporters of hazardous waste at
anybody who had an environmental exposure landfills, chemical plants. So that was my
job and then I was good atit. Well, how long will you
employed within that company or other companiesfight wrong? I kept getting recruited by

(17:52):
headhunters to go to other companies fora higher position, more money, and
that I just followed the money formany years. So I worked for some
of the biggest multinational insurance companies thereare and became a manager. I was
a training coordinator at one company,helping people understand how to do this.

(18:15):
My last job within the industry wasas a vice president. It was a
startup and I was in charge ofthe operations in the United States, and
that was when my addiction really startedbattling with me. But overall, I
think I was in the industry forabout twelve years, right, And I
am going to take you down thatpath of addiction. As I said,

(18:37):
we've known each other for many yearsand we've discussed this or you've shared with
me, particularly about addiction and thepath moving forward. Could you share with
listeners what you experienced later in life, and of course for people that don't
know, you're incarcerated with the possibilitythe addiction was part of your life and

(19:00):
that's why you're here. I believethat I look back and think if I
had never used drugs, Wow,how different my life would be. Like
I said, drugs and alcohol enteredinto my life at an early age.
I did have a period of sobriety. What I didn't really do was learn

(19:23):
how to deal with the emotional realitiesof life. So when my husband and
I started having problems in our marriage, instead of having any ability how to
work that out, I ran away. I shut myself down. I remember
telling him I didn't love him anymore, which is just not the truth.
That I just didn't I was scaredand I didn't know how to handle those

(19:45):
kind of strong emotions. I didn'tknow how to handle anger or rejection or
fear, so I tried to shutit down. My husband and I ended
up getting a divorce, and immediatelyI relapsed and started using drugs and alcohol
again. It started off pretty manageable, started kind of where I started for

(20:08):
the first time, smoking hut drinking. And I'm telling myself, like,
is now I've graduated college, I'mworking in this great industry. You know.
I go around and meet with youknow, CEOs of fortune five hundred
companies. We go to business lunchesand you know, I feel very sophisticated
now. So I'm like, oh, I can handle it. I'm not
just some kid from the Pike GreekValley in Delaware, like you know.

(20:33):
And I started to think that,you know, my drinking, I could
control it, right, But everytime my life, in my personal life
had a setback, my addiction tooka turn for the worse, and I
watched this pattern. I didn't knowit was happening at the time, but
now I can see it all veryclearly that whenever there was a personal say,
tragedy in my life, like Igot into a relationship after my divorce

(20:59):
and when that relationship ended very badly, I started drinking all the time.
Because I was drinking all the time, I started using cocaine. That was
the only way I could kind ofkeep functioning and with my job, because
then as the pressures from my jobincreased, I needed to find a way
to manage all of that, andthat was my solution cocaine. It was

(21:22):
not a good solution, but fora while it did kind of keep me
going. And again got this,you know, let me just pretend like
everything's fine. So if anybody everasked me, you okay, of course
I'm okay. Why would you askme if I'm okay, I've got this,
you know? But I did not, and the cocaine then turned into

(21:47):
an addiction to crack cocaine. OnceI started smoking, and I was I
never thought i'd smoke crack, youknow. I would say that to people
like, you know, I wouldnever smoke crack. How old were you
then? It wasn't long before whenI got arrested. I'd say I was
probably thirty two or thirty three whenI first started, and it wasn't even

(22:11):
experimenting with crack. I will tellyou the first time I smoked it.
I was like, okay, yes, that's it, you know, and
it very quickly took over priority inmy life. So my addiction spiraling out
of control. I have this vicepresidency job, I have no relationship.
I never had any children, soI felt like I had nothing to kind

(22:33):
of more me into, like toreality. I was just getting worse and
worse out of control. My bosscalled me in and he was like,
what is going on with you?But he wasn't nice about it, and
he said, you either can resignand I'll give you, you know,

(22:55):
like sixty days severns, or youcan stay, but you're going to be
on probation for ninety days and thefirst time you step out of line,
I'm firing you with nothing. Iknew I couldn't do that because I was
so far gone, you know,I was showing up late to work.
The final straw with my boss wasI missed a flight to go to a

(23:15):
presentation I was supposed to make.It's like, you don't do that,
not when you're in the kind ofjob I was in, making the kind
of money I was making, Like, no, this isn't acceptable. I
knew I couldn't do it, soI took the severance package, and that's
probably the worst thing I could havedone, because then I just became really
suicidal, and it was like Ijust burned through the money, you know
that, literally, I smoked,I cashed in all my retirement accounts.

(23:41):
I didn't care anymore about the future. It was like, I can't kill
myself. I was scared, soI just thought if I'd just be as
reckless as possible, maybe this needthe drugs will take me out. I
remember a few times doing really stupidthings, taking handfuls of pills, or

(24:02):
like just hoping that I wouldn't wakeup, just kept waking up. Thank
you, Heather, when you firstarrived here in sci Muncy all those years
ago, can you share with thelisteners who was hither then? I was
a monster? I remember feeling thatway that how could I have let this

(24:25):
addiction take me that far down?How could I have done the things that
I had done? So jail isthe only place where you withdraw. Don't
give you anything, at least backthen when I got arrested, and I
remember my mom telling me that later, like she was very worried about me,

(24:47):
but I wouldn't listen to her.And her friends would say, probably
the best thing that could happen forHeather is she go to jail, because
it'll force her to get clean.But it was true, and I remember
be the first place where I gotarrested was down south. I was on
the run. I was arrested inNorth Carolina and they wouldn't even put me

(25:07):
on cell block with the rest ofthe women because I was so out of
control, screaming and just hitting things, and they had me in handcuffs and
they threw me on a cell blockby myself behind a locked door, and
I just remember for like twenty fourhours straight just screaming and hitting those handcuffs
against the metal door. Once thedrug started coming out of my body and

(25:33):
I was withdrawing and just being soalone and so like, literally you have
nothing when you're locked in a cellby yourself and thinking, you know,
who is this? This isn't thisisn't me, this isn't you know.
I don't know how that all happened, but those I was in that jail

(25:55):
in North Carolina for about three weeksbefore they extra up to Pennsylvania, and
during that time that the detectives fromBucks County came down to talk to me,
and they said, you know,have they at least because I was
telling them how they were treating me, like these conditions are terrible and I
wasn't talking about why they were doingthat, but they said, well,

(26:19):
have they at least let you makea phone call. And I said,
I don't want to make a phonecall. I don't have anybody to call,
and they said, well, maybeyou want to call your mom because
she's very worried about you. Itwas that moment when I called my mom
and she started that phone call withthis message among conditional love. That's something

(26:42):
inside me just broke. And Ithought, after all of this, and
I'm wanted in Pennsylvania and I'm onthe run, and you know, we
had had it a huge falling outwhere I was very mean to her,
like you know, after all ofthat, her her words to me were,
I don't know what happened, butI love you. And then I

(27:07):
went like I started going. Iwas just reaching out for anything. I
started going to any kind of likeBible study or AA meeting or anything they
had on the block. And Istarted hearing about this god who could forgive
people anything, and I was like, yeah, not me. That's how
I felt. And it was likebetween the idea that maybe God could forgive

(27:30):
me my mother loves me, Likewhere do I go from here? But
doesn't that bring us to where weare today with what you do here in
Sci Munsey when we talk about faithand religion, So when you arrived at
Sei Muncie, throughout the years youhave been shall we say, working on

(27:56):
your faith? Can you share usa little bit about what you do inside
here? Yeah, because you've gota lot to share. And well,
I feel like it started then withthis like I can't be this person and
I knew enough from AA the onething I remembered, I mean I remembered
a lot from AA, but Areally shapes my idea of what recovery is.
And one of the things that theyused to say was the same person

(28:19):
will drink again. And I justthink drink drink to me means drinking,
you know, drink, drugs,anything but the same person. So I
knew I had to change everything aboutmyself and re like get down to who
am I really? Yes, becauseall of this wasn't really me. And
that's what I started, this journeyof healing, of recovery, of just

(28:45):
being brutally honest. For the firsttime in my life, I wasn't hiding
anything, and and through that,not only have I been able to heal
myself, but I've been able toreach out and make connections with women that
had been very meaningful, you know, in my life and have taught me

(29:06):
that part of who I am issomebody who cares about other people, who
is compassionate towards their plight, whowants to help alleviate their suffering. I
never knew that about myself. Inever explored that part of me here.
The one thing that having this timehas done is given me a chance to

(29:30):
really see, you know, thereal me without covering it over with other
people's expectations of what I should bedoing or any of that kind of stuff.
And the faith journey goes hand inhand with that, because through all
of this, I went from notunderstanding anything to really feeling deeply connected to

(29:52):
a God who loves me and whocreated me and created something good in me.
So I've been on this, uh, you know, I hate to
keep saying journey. I know itsounds so, but of finding out who
was I created to Yeah, yeah, Heather, could you share for our

(30:15):
listeners. What have you been doinghere too, here in Pennsylvania over the
years to you know better yourself?You know? Is it through faith?
You know, organizations or agencies withfaith, Christianity? What have you been
doing right? I think that beinga life sentenced in me, you don't

(30:38):
always get opportunities inside the prison.I've been very fortunate to be able to
participate in a lot of the programming, and the program has helped me a
great deal. But I also knewthat I had to find other ways,
so I reached out to outside organizationsearly on. I became aware of the
Pennsylvania Prison Society early on in mystay because they I remember going to a

(31:02):
meeting here where the head of thePrison Society back then was talking about fighting
this lawsuit with the Department of Correctionsto change the law for lifers that to
make commutation more possible, you know, And I just remember from that whole

(31:25):
experience thinking there's a way to kindof fight against this sentence, this system,
this, you know. And thePrison Society inspired me because it was
like, you can speak up andsay I don't think this is right and
there has to be a better wayto do this. So I got involved
with the Person Society early on andgot involved in working towards creating a more

(31:52):
just society so through sentencing reform,and that's taken a lot of you know,
roles during the years. But intwenty twenty two, the Prison Society
actually awarded me as their Incarcerated Personof the Year. And I remember thinking
why would I get that award?And the people who nominated me said,

(32:15):
because I've spoken to the Sentencing Commissionseveral times about incarcerated women and their needs,
and you know how sometimes we getoverlooked, so I try to talk
to legislators about that. You know, I have the ability to speak to
people, and I use those giftsto try to help the women, you

(32:38):
know that I'm incarcerated with. Theysaid, basically, for my advocacy for
incarcerated women and for speaking up aboutour plight. That's why they gave me
the award. And that felt reallygood to be congratulation right by such a
reputable organization for doing something good foranother human being. That's all good,

(33:00):
because I wasn't doing anything really goodfor anybody in the life that I had
prior to this incarceration. Congratulations,Yeah, thank you. Wonderful you did
just touch a little bit on abouthow you felt that. I'm assuming like
women here in the prison system beinga little bit left behind. Were you're

(33:22):
comparing that with what male populated youknow, incarcerated populations. Is that what
you're referring to. Could you justvery briefly share a little bit about what
you see here, not necessarily Pennsylvania, but what you believe the women do
need that are not receiving as opposedto what the men already do receive.

(33:46):
I feel like the men receive alot of attention. The people are very
aware of the play of the maleprisoner, of the male lifer. They
know their stories. I feel likea lot of the men have women helping
them, supporting them in their fightfor freedom and justice. They create organizations,
they do all these wonderful things.And that's how I even found out

(34:09):
a lot about them, is becausethey create publications. And then I was
reading publications early on, and itwas very much about the male experience,
and I just felt that the femaleexperience ours is very different. Women are
different than men. And I rememberhearing that early on, people would say
that women are different than men,and I'd be like, that's such a
silly thing to say. It meanssomething completely different to me today than it

(34:30):
did eighteen years ago, because inthe way we become incarcerated, in the
way our pathways towards violence, inthe way that we heal, the way
that we change, the way thatwe advocate, it's all very different from
a male perspective. So I thinkthat it's important, and that's why I

(34:53):
love working with you, doctor Kate, because you want to tell our stories.
You want to show people who weare, that that we have changed,
you know, from the worst thingwe've ever done. And while we
hold that with us forever, itdoesn't mean it has to define everything we

(35:13):
do going forward, you know.And I and I want that idea of
who we are to start to resonatewith people and to see that to continue
to incarcerate people after they've been ifyou want to say rehabilitated, which is
a word I have some problems with. But then there there there should be

(35:37):
opportunities for mercy. Right in oursystem. We say that we're a merciful
society, you know, but Ifeel that there's so many opportunities to present
that in a in a better way. I feel that because of the location
of some of the mail jails,they get a lot of you know,

(35:57):
traffic, people will go visit thema lot. And for a long time,
we didn't have that kind of youknow, attention from lawmakers, professors,
you know, it was here andthere. So the more that happens,
then I feel that this is whatour advocacy does. It's bringing people's
attention to the fact that there arewomen serving life sentences in Pennsylvania, that

(36:23):
some of our women have been incarceratedfifty years. Yes, that these women
that I know very well are notof risk to society, you know,
So how do we have that conversationabout balancing punishment and redemption? And it's
a difficult and I get it.It's not an easy thing. And people

(36:44):
say, well, then what's theanswer, Heather. It's not an easy
answer, and I understand that.But I also understand that women with the
proper resources and the proper support cando great things despite their pasts, and
I feel that they should be betterutilized to help a community outside of this
prison that's suffering right now. Andwe could be looked at as people who

(37:09):
have something very valuable to help,and right now we're kind of looked at
more as people who can be thrownaway and forgotten about. So interesting.
I think that's where my advocacy comesfrom, is don't forget about us,
Yes, and don't forget how valuablewe can be. Yes. Yeah?
And what about when you think likewhere you are today and what does the

(37:34):
future hold for Heather? Do youconsider aging the deaths dying in the prison
system? Do you ever think aboutthat, Heather, Because you've been here
for a few years, Yeah,I will say that my perspective on it
has changed greatly. You know,over the years, I know that it's
a possibility that I will serve fiftyyears and die in this prison. Also

(38:00):
know there's a possibility that that mightnot be the case. I really try
not to dwell on what the futureholds, because I know all I really
have is today. I've seen womenwho were never supposed to get out of
jail be released, and I've seenwomen who were supposed to go home die
here. So I've seen it bothways, and I know that means that

(38:24):
today I have to live the bestlife I can do the best that I
can, be hopeful for my futureand do what I need to do to
make myself a good candidate for commutationsometimes, you know, right now I'm
in a battle of should I putin an application or should I wait a
little bit. I only have eighteenyears in it seems like forever. It

(38:45):
sounds like forever. But in thegrand scheme of things, I don't know
if I'm quite the right candidate forcommutation yet. Then I have another voice
that says, any opportunity you haveto fight for your freedom, take it.
You know, every chance you have, take it. So I do
think about it in terms of that, but I can't allow myself to dwell

(39:06):
on it because it just pulls meback into a place of living in that
anxiety which I have worked really hardto come away from in my life.
You know, I don't want depressionand anxiety to rule me in the way
that they used to. So ifI live for today, in this moment,
find some peace and be content withwho I am, and not be

(39:30):
overwhelmed with the insecurities and the doubtsabout myself that come when I think about
what I've done in my past andwhat my future might hold, neither of
those things serve me well. Sothank you, Heather. We're going to
close very shortly. I mean again, our journey is nearly you know today

(39:51):
it's we almost finished. But Iwant to ask you, would you share
something about yourself that you would likethe listeners to know that we haven't touched
on. We've got just a fewminutes to go before we ended house that
I would like to say that Iam a Mercy Associate, which is an
organization that's connected with the Sisters ofMercy. And at one point during my

(40:14):
faith journey, I've done a lot. We had a wonderful priest here for
years and years and he helped me. We worked the spiritual exercises of Saint
Ignatius. We did all this stufflike as I was very much interested in
spiritual development and learning. And oneday I said, I think I want
to be a nun and he said, I'm not sure if you can be
a nun. Maybe, you know, sometimes the bishop makes special appointments.

(40:37):
And then I thought, that's kindof crazy to think that I could be
a nun. But he said youmight be able to be a Mercy Associate,
and I said, what's that?Exactly what is it? And so
I got connected with these the peoplewho are Mercy Associates, which, like
I said, it's lay men andwomen who are affiliated with the Sisters of
Mercy and support them in their missionto witness to God's mercy in the world.

(41:00):
So these wonderful people just happened tolive in Muncie and they started to
visit me. So every month theyvisited me for two years, and I
started on this process of education anddiscernment to learn about who are the Mercy
Associates, what do they do,what does it mean to be a mercy
Associate. And then after two yearsI was actively commissioned as a Mercy Assaiate.

(41:23):
And there was a lot of questionabout would this ever be able to
happen because they've never had a prisonereven asked to want to be a Mercy
Associate before, so they didn't knowreally how to do it. But there
was this amazing nun who would sayto me, don't worry about it,
Heather, You're going to be aMercy Associate. God's going to make a

(41:44):
way. And in twenty seventeen Iwas commissioned for the first time as a
Mercy Associate. And it's on mymind right now because very recently, yesterday
they just re commissioned me. Soyeah, and it gives me a community
around the world that I'm connected withthrough shared prayer, and that doesn't matter

(42:07):
where you are, we are allconnected in that shared prayer morning and evening.
And then I have this beautiful opportunityto meet with my mercy community every
month to talk about how do welive out our commission to witness to God's
mercy wherever we find ourselves. AndI, because of my work here as

(42:29):
a CPS, which is a peercounselor, get to go into the most
difficult places of the prison and workwith women with serious mental illness and be
there to reflect God's mercy to them. And I feel that that's a beautiful
opportunity. It's something that no matterif I'm incarcerated or not incarcerated, it's

(42:50):
the kind of work that I wantto do because I found that I'm passionate
about it, I'm good at it, and it brings meaning and purpose to
my life. Congratulations, your faceis just lit up completely. It's wonderful
congratulation. Thank you. So we'regoing to finish up now. But who
is Heather today sitting opposite me.I'm a woman of faith who has hope

(43:16):
for her future, who isn't definedby the sins of my past, who
is very much loved by very manypeople, and who does the best on
a daily basis to live the lifeGod gave me to live. Thank you,

(43:37):
Heather. And as you know,this is just part of our journey,
our path together. We have morework to do, don't we.
Yes, Thank you Heather, ithas been a pleasure talking to Thank you
doctor Kate. Wonderful, wonderful tosee you again.