March 25, 2025 • 34 mins
At 45, Shonda reflects on a life shaped by love, loss, and an unthinkable fate. Raised in a home filled with strong, caring women, her childhood was good, despite her parents' divorce. But at 23, everything changed. Arrested and sentenced to death, she spent 11 years on death row before her sentence was reduced to life without parole. Now, she shares her truth from behind bars. Join us as we uncover the complexities of Shonda’s journey.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
We'd like to acknowledge for our listeners just upfront that
what you will hear from individual incarcerated women throughout the
episode you may find to be emotionally charged and even disturbing,
So we just want to acknowledge that and make you
aware of that. Furthermore, something that listeners probably don't realize
(00:22):
is that all of our individual conversations with each woman
was recorded inside a maximum security prison, the State Correctional
Institution SCI Munsey in Pennsylvania here in the United States.
So the noise, there's any chatter, anything in the background.
(00:44):
For our listeners just to understand that we actually recorded
inside a prison where the day goes on. The women,
the officers, the staff, they all have their jobs. Just
because we're there, it doesn't stop or everything becomes quiet.
So if you do, as listeners here any background noise,
please understand that is part of being inside a prison.
(01:17):
Hello everyone, and thank you for tuning into our podcast
Self Identities Conversations with Convicted Women. My name is doctor
Catherine Whiteley. I am a feminist criminologist and today I
am visiting SCI Munsey, a state correctional facility for women
(01:38):
in Pennsylvania in the United States and joining me today
is Shonder. Welcome, Shonder.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
It is great to finally meet you in person. Yeah,
because other than once we've met via zoom, we've not
had he had any shall we say, engagement prior to that.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I mean we kind of ran into each other couple
of times when you were touring the campus.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
There you go, there you go. That's great. To be corrected, everyone,
Thank you very much. This is what makes a podcast real.
That's right. We did very very briefly.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
You can't mean you were coming out of the chap
I was coming out of the chapel. You're h you
were getting a tour of the campus.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Oh, there you go. Thank you, well, correct me there,
that's great.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You needed to see the puppy. Puppy's called to you.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They do and I love them very much. We thank
you anyway. Okay, Seanda, So what I'd like to do,
if you don't mind, is if we could go back
to your childhood growing up and share a little bit
about what your childhood was like, the important people or
non important or the relevant things that happened as in
(02:45):
your childhood. Could you share that for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Okay, I grew up in a small town, Pennsylvania. It
was a nuclear family. My dad wasn't there. He they
got divorced some point in time. I don't remember when
my mom and him I were divorced, But I grew
up with my mom, my aunt, my Graham, and my sister.
We all lived in the same house, household of women.
A lot of bathroom time, little bathroom time. Everybody was
(03:13):
in the bathroom. But it was, it was. It was
a good childhood. I was a happy kid. Just go
about my business.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And when and when you say go about your business,
what is that you know?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
When school, school, playing outside, playing with the neighbors, Yes,
run around the neighborhood, yes, yeah, playing cap guns usually
because I lived around a lot of boys. There wasn't
really a lot of girls, so I hung out with
boys mostly.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And did you enjoy going to school your education.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
For the most part, Yeah, I like to learn things.
I think I had a touch of adhd. I had
to pay a little more attention than other kids had
to pay.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Did you And what was something that you liked about
your education?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The teachers good, They were interested in wanting kids to learn.
Had we had a good school district, Like I know,
a lot of kids. Girls talk about their schools and
there they didn't have the education. Nobody seemed to care.
But we had a very broad rounded school district, so
we learned a lot of everything.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And what grade did you complete? Want you to do?
Complete in school?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I graduated from high school and I started a year
of college.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And what was that that you started?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, I thought I was going to do graphic design.
Then there was a math class they required me to
take that I really just didn't want to do. It
was I'm really not good at probability and statistics. For
some reason, I'm really bad at it. Give me algebra.
I can do calculus, even though I don't really like it.
I just I'm really bad with probability statistics. I don't
(04:51):
know why. So I changed my major to architectural design,
and then I had a baby and dropped out.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Okay, thank you on that note, So how old were
you when you had my daughter? Your daughter?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Nineteen?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Okay, nineteen, So we're going to look at that time frame.
Can you share a little bit about what was your
life like then?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well? I was being a normal I guess teenager, hanging
out with your friends. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke.
I tried weed for my first time at eighteen, but
I didn't do really anything else. I was just hanging
out with friends and then I got right now.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, and throughout that period of time, is this some
one or people of persons that you looked up to
or that helped you throughout that period?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
My mom, my mom, my family, my teachers. I stay
in touch. I still stay in touch with some of
my teachers.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Do you speaking of teaching or education? I hear you
a bit of an artist. I do more than a
bit of an artist. I hear you very very good.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm crafty.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I've seen some of your work, but I do hear
about that. So we talk a little bit about that
later on. So let's just keep moving through. What about
relationships with your family? And you mentioned your had a daughter.
Would you share your relationship with your family and friends.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I don't know that it's different than most people's. It's
mother daughter. We didn't really fight, you know, you have
your normal annoyances when people don't. Actually, I was the
clean one, so I was constantly cleaning up after everyone everyone.
It was kind of annoying, but that was something that
we were made to do. In my family too, Like
(06:45):
Fridays is cleaning day. You clean the house. Everybody helps clean, dust, mop, vacuum.
But I guess there was no Really, it was probably
not good that there wasn't a lot of fighting and
arguing because then you don't really know how to solve
conflict when you get older. Yeah, and nobody really like
(07:05):
says I love you in my family, but it's just
sort of like an understood thing, Like it's just I
don't know how else to put it. Then that.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And on that note, not having, as you mentioned, your
father in your life as such, did that impact you
in any way? I mean, you mentioned you grew up
in the household of women.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Was I was a tomboy, so I spent a lot
of time boys doing gut boy things. So it was
kind of weird because I kind of wished my dad
was there to teach me to play things and play
sports and whatnot. So I kind of struggled learning how
to do things on my own. My mom would get
me things to learn like I would. She got me
(07:45):
like a throwback. So when I wanted to learn how
to throw a softball and learn how to throw it straight,
it was like a rebound thing. I called. She used
it for soccer, and that's how I learned how to
throw and catch. And because I had to catch it
or you were chasing balls all over the place all
the time. That's just annoying. So we can just learn
to get good. But yeah, it's sports.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yes, we're going to come back to sports because maybe
do you do sport here today?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Sometimes there's not as many people on in my zone
that play softball like we used to. We used to
have softball Saturday because that was my thing.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I'd like to play softball, right, Shonda? How old are
you today and how old were you when you entered
the criminal justice system?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I am forty five today. I just turned forty five
last week, Happy birthday, Thank you, and I came to
I was arrested when I was twenty three.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay, And after your arrest, you were sent to a
county jail for people that don't understand what a county
child is. Could you share what your experience and how
long you're in the county jail.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I was in the county jail for two years. In
about two months, I knew of a lot of the
people there, a lot of the officers because it was
my county. It was my area, but it's just it's
very confining. You don't really have a lot to do.
We were out, but we weren't like my Jalat jail
(09:25):
was a little better. The food was good, but I
don't know, you just feel restricted. You don't have as
many outlets for your energy.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So when you say that again, people are visualizing what
would this county jail look like? Did you share a
cell with someone or and how many women would have
been there at the same time.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Well, one pod, it was a pod where it was
an open pod where there was at least fourteen people
within the room. They put me on the restrict more
of restricted housing unit where we had sales where we
go and we only shared with one person, but there
were another twenty people on the party feeling too and
(10:05):
they had bunks in the day room as well. It
was overcrowded.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
And what do you take from what reflecting back? What
could you take from that experience that possibly helped you
moving forward? We'll talk about that the next step of being.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Here, learning to be okay with being self contained and
not oversharing.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
What does that mean though, when you're say.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Because there's a lot of people who try to capitalize
off of you to get themselves out of and out
of trouble, right, which is exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
And whilst you were there, did you need to receive
any psychological help or medication?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
They wouldn't let me, okay, so they didn't want to
want me to be on any kind of medication that
would cause me to act or not to act in
any certain type of way.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Okay, thank you. And again that just gives listeners that
don't understand what accounting jail your experience going through. So
after that, Shonda you came, could you just share the
next step within your sentencing where were you and could
you talk a bit about that experience please.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Like.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Mentally where were we or how well?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I'll touch on that a little bit. You were sentenced
and your sentence was that to death row? If you
wouldn't mind sharing what is that? What was your experience?
And please take your time.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yes, they sentenced me to what was like a week
after the trial, like they find you guilty at your
trial and then a week later they satence you that
usual and that's when they sentenced me to death row
plus seven years. I just don't understand that, but yeah,
(11:53):
it was. It was a little bit traumatizing. I mean
it was. It was kind of kind of expected a
little bit. They had tried I guess my attorney never
told me that they had tried to offer me different
deals and whatnot for like thirty to sixty, forty to eighty.
(12:14):
He never had mentioned any of those things to.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Me, And for the listeners, we were talking about years. Yes,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And then yeah I was sentenced. They gave me death.
It was kind of like, Okay, well, this is it,
and it's just something I kind of had been preparing
myself for to begin with, because if you don't know,
like in County, they give you a notice ahead of
(12:42):
time of aggravating circumstances of whether that they're intending to
pursue the death penalty to begin with. So I kind
of tried to wrap my mind around that before I
even went to trial, that this is something that could
possibly happen.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Seanda, can you explain if you can, how you wrapped
how did you work through that, like what was happening
within your mind understanding that it could be you know, well,
the death sentence. Can you just share how did you
wrap your mind around that? How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Trying to find justification? It's the only way I could
put it, Like, despite whatever my part was within the crime,
I had to try to find a reason why I
felt like I deserved it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yes? It does? Thank you. And then when the time
came and you entered the prison and death row, the
first twelve months, et cetera, how how was your adjustment? Then?
Just generally, how was your adjustment?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, they love me in POC for a week okay,
without a shower because I can't on a holiday weekend,
so nobody does anything. It was bad. I laid in
there because if you know POC, you don't ever want
to go to POC.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
What is POC?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
The people it's protective custody or if you're on like
a suicide watch, they like kind of strip you down
to the minimal things so you can't tear your clothes up,
so you're putting like a smock or something so that
you can't rip things up and potentially harm yourself. And
I wasn't going to but because I was on a
watch in my county, they assumed that I was suicidal
(14:30):
and I wasn't. They just had a watch where you
just log what the person's doing every so many hours
to make sure that they're not good to harm themselves.
But here they put you in POC and I laid
there and braided my hair, gave myself a little I
don't want to say dreads, micros, little microbraids all over
(14:52):
and you know, just try to take in waiting to
go to where I was had to because I know
some of the girls in the county had told me
you're gonna be fine up there. The girls on death Row,
they're not in their rooms all the time, You'll be fine.
They have stuff to do. They come out and I'm like,
can I have a TV? And they're like, yeah, you
have your own tea, But you guys also have an
(15:12):
activity whom we come And I said, can I have
colored pencils? And they're like yeah. And I'm like, okay,
I'll be fine, and they're like, but you get to
do all this other stuff. I said, I don't care.
As long as I can watch TV, have my color
pencils and I know they'll probably let me read. I'll
be fine. I just need little outlets, but yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Adapting to that. So the day is here, you have moved,
as you say to your cell. And again the reason
I'm interested is, as I said, listeners have no many
listeners have no idea of what you experienced and even
your environment. You know that picture.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yes, I would probably say that the women's death row
is much kinder than the men's death row. It wasn't terrible.
I would not say that it was like absolutely horrible.
I honestly sometimes find myself wishing I was still there
so I didn't have to deal with people down there.
Not gonna lie, I'd rather be in my own room
(16:12):
by myself, with my own stuff and not have to
be bothered with people sometimes. But we had trouble with
people officers here and there, but in some of the
girls who because we were housed with first with girls
that had some mental disorder, so a lot of times
(16:32):
they would scream a lot at night and that was
a lot to handle. But you know, we have headphones
and stuff, so I just plug my ears up and
go back to sleep. But we were able to come
out a lot and what that, So we would come
out of ourselves. But they gave us stuff to do.
They gave us details, like details are like a work,
(16:55):
like to clean the pod and whatnot, and our superintendents
over the years allowed us to come out to do details,
and as time progressed, they gave us other things to
do too, So we would clean the showers, clean the pod,
clean empty cells as people would go. And then they
added we would paint the cells that they needed the
(17:17):
cells painted. They had the paint one of the painters
come and show us how to paint the cells. They
let us ship the floors and as well as we
had activity times and we would fold the laundry prepare
it so that the officers would know what they needed
to give to them in the cells, like when they
do linen exchanges, and kept you busy.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
How long were you on death row?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Eleven years?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Eleven years? And at that time how many other women
were on death row that same time?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
When I first got there, there were six of us.
Precious they rest their souls. She has passed away. Was
head left like a few months after I got there,
and then a couple of the other girls were at court,
so there was just four of us there, and then
(18:09):
the girl came back from court. But subsequently, as the
years went on, they all just kept leaving until about
my fifth year there there was only three of.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Us, right, thank you. Something that people the ways asked
me understanding what what I do on the outside is
how when you talk about death row, how does a
woman cope with possibility that there may be and this
(18:40):
is a hypothetical to knock on the door one day
and the execution happened the next How does that the
technical how does that process happen?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, you get sent a letter of their intent to
execute you. You're set a letter telling you on the
date the time that they would execute you, and then
you go into a face is where you're not allowed
them to spend any time with anyone until as as
it progresses, it gets less time. You have to go
(19:08):
to wreck by yourself. When you get to like a
second phase, you can't come out at all. You have
to stay in your room. Yeah, that's how it goes
until you get receive a stay. You just they let
you know, and then if they don't, you almost receive stays.
I don't I don't know what the last day, what
(19:29):
the last stage would be to yes, of.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Course do you from your experience, was there the fear
of dying? I mean just the lucky last piece of
information there.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I mean, I guess there would be not necessarily. I
don't really have a fear of dying, Okay, I guess
I believe. I study Buddhism. I just believe that I'm
going to be reincarnating and go to my Okay, I
guess most people are more afraid of pain of death
(20:03):
rather than to pass away.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's interesting because I talked to the women in our
podcast episodes about death and dying or aging in the
prison system, and it's interesting how you mentioned about not
so much that you know dying as such.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, we're all going to die. It's just a fact
of life. It's something you should come to terms with
earlier in life, and it's not so painful as you
get older.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Thank you. So we're going to move beyond that experience. Then,
how did you feel or what was happening going on
with you when you realize that you're going to be
taken off death throw and here you are in general population.
Can you share with us that experience of that transition
and how you felt.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, my attorneys came to me a couple of days
after my birthday and it's been nine years now, and
told me that if they tried to get to me
on my birthday to tell me that they wanted to
give me a plea of life to leave death row songs.
I agreed to not pursue any further appeals, and I
(21:13):
guess I thought about my daughter and how like on
death row, we can't have contact visits. So I figured,
most likely, even if I do continue to pursue my appeals,
I'm probably gonna end up with life like everyone else.
So why not just take it now and I can
spend my time with her and enjoy it instead of
being up here and just kind of.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You know, So, now that you are here in your
general I will say general population, could you talk about
the day to day experience and like you mentioned your
belief system, how you've grown or you know you've worked
through no doubt more personal issues. Have you done that?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well, there's a lot of groups.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I do a lot of self talk, a lot of
self journaling, try to figure out things in my own head,
study people and see if that's the same kind of
things that I like to do, if it's normal, if
I'm normal. I've come to find out I'm actually kind
of very normal. Well, then again, who's what's normal? Nobody's
(22:22):
really super. I guess there's no normal, but whatever. Yeah,
to take in the groups and just keep them busy.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
What groups when you say tank the groups.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We've taken a self esteem group, we've taken moving on
for women, We've taken violence prevention. What's the other one?
The impact of crime? Like what are crimes? How they
impact the environment and other people? And yeah, they're all
(22:55):
they were all good classes. Some of them common sense
like you would think that people would know that, but
it's surprising that some people don't know that or see
things like that.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
But yeah, which was one of those programs that you
felt impacted you the most? And why.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh, there was a lot of them. They were all good.
They were really all good.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Putting you on the spot there it was.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
They were all good. They all had good information. I
think the biggest thing that impacted me in my time
was finding a group of friends in an exercise circle
that occupied my time. Like if I hadn't come down
and found the group of friends that I found, I
probably would have been in trouble. Been in the RHU
(23:45):
for all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So and just for listeners, the ri HU is what it's.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
The whole, that's what they call the whole, and why
are you sent to the whole where you're being if
you've had a misconduct, you are placed in a segregation
type of environment where you're not with the general population.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Thank you. I'm going to backtrack a little bit about
your sentencing or the experience that you had with media
or not with media. Could you share how you've felt
or what you've learned, how you were portrayed by the media,
and any thoughts or or words on that. Well.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I tried to stay away from it for the most part,
so I didn't pay a lot of attention to it.
But from what people tell me is they just they
completely demonize you. They don't make you like you're human
at all. A lot of people said that I was
super black. I guess people watch my show. They said
(24:52):
they had a black girl playing you, And I'm like,
but I am black. They're like, no, they had a
black black girl playing you. That was dark, dark, very late.
And when you say, plain you was at it like
when they did a reenactment. Oh okay, because I didn't
even know they did that either.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Right, so on a television series or something like that. Okay,
So yeah, because I hear feedback from women talking exactly
like you're saying, how they were portrayed. Yeah, you know
what I mean. And I wondered if that impact impacted
you in any way.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
For I really hard not to watch the news or
watch shows like that. I don't watch anything that is
crime based or crime I just don't write.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I understand. Another little piece that makes you light up.
It's your family. Would you like to share a little
bit about your relationship with your family members?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
You know, I don't know what about that beautiful she
has not had she has not had children, Okay, although
I won't why. I saw a little baby book and
I saw the little Is it wrong for me to
want her to have a baby?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Now?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
So it stuff for a baby? And one of the
other kids is like, yes, she's still young. I'm like,
she's twenty five, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Could we talk a little bit about that because your face,
your face lights up when you say.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
A good kid. She's just discovering, trying to discover herself. Yes,
as I casually try to steer her towards a path.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
How is or how has that been a mother? How
is mothering inside from behind you know, the prison walls?
How has that been for you and your daughter.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Well, it was probably better for her because she has
no idea that I would probably be really strict. She
says that, she says she knows. She's like, don't get
me wrong, Mom, I always say that, you know, I
know you would probably be super super strict, but I
just wish you were home. I said, I would probably
embarrass you too, just so you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And is it the challenge is what, even from your
experience and from other women you possibly you know, have observed,
what are some of the challenges for women trying to
be a mother inside, particularly if they're serving a long sentence,
what would you say?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Probably access Because for a long time, there just wasn't
like half of her life. I just wasn't able to
do some of the stuff that I could have done,
Like I couldn't give her hugs. I couldn't you know,
hold her. I wasn't allowed to do the cool things
that they get to do now, like play for your
child and or read for your child. And there just
(27:32):
wasn't all these neat little things that they can do.
So I just kind of had to make my own
things up, send her little puzzles I'd make for drawings,
if she had a project and she needed like something
drawn for her, I'd send her drawings and pictures for
her projects and stuff. But yeah, you know, it's more
being there, Like you want to be there for their
(27:53):
big things. You to give them hugs and stuff like that.
But so you're there and try to be there, keep
in contact, writing and calling. Then she's done very well.
She's adapted very well.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Thank you. I'm going to go back. When you mentioned
that you're on death row, you mentioned pencils, coloring pencils. Okay,
that's where I'm now. We're going to fast forward thinking
about those coloring pencils. Can you explain why that was
important to you and why even today coloring pencils things
(28:25):
are important. Could you explain that please?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Because I draw maybe stating this, but I like to
draw art stuff and my thing was I used to
decorate and mix stationary and whatnot. So as long as
I had things to do, those things worth I would
be fine.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And again people thinking about this, well, what do you
do with the work that you do, I mean the
pencils and the paintings, the pictures, what do you do
with them? You're inside a prison and.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Send them to people that I write, my friends that
I write, Okay, I keep my pen power. That's very
short as well. Like some people that's what they do,
spend their whole time writing people. I just don't. Most
of the people that I write I've known for years,
many of them from the outside.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So thank you. And what about you know we've touched
on the aging and the diets and dying pace, but
what about health? How have you been and what about
your experience about the needs of growing older that's from
physical and emotional, spiritual.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
How have you felt other than having asthma. I've had
the good fortune to be fairly healthy. I've gained weight
over the years, but there wasn't a lot of movement
where I was on death row at first, so I
didn't I wasn't always on the run and on the go.
I try to work out and sell and keep myself
(29:53):
active because you know, there are health issues that run
in my family that I'm trying to avoid because I
don't want to get sick. I don't want to get
sick in here. I guess people probably said that as
much that it's just not an environment you want to
be ailing in.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Thank you the Shonda. That's sitting in front of me.
Could she reflect back to share with this? How would
you describe her when she was a little girl, How
would you describe her as a young adult and then
the woman sitting in front of me today, if you
wouldn't mind reflecting on that.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Well, I'm always generally pretty happy. Underlying I tend to
brood every now and again when things annoyed me. So
I am a brooder. I browed and kind of bottle
things up, but I always have an underlying level of
just natural happiness. I wake up songs in my head.
(30:55):
To this day, I wake up with music playing in
my head every single morning. I'm just I prefer to
be a happy, go lucky person. Childhood was like that,
teenage years a little you know, angsy, which is where
most teenagers are. And then I just kind of I
guess I found my sophomore here.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
What does that mean when you say you found yourself?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I'm more clear on what I like and what I
don't like, and where I used to go along with
things that other people would suggest they want to do.
Now I kind of make my own way. Stay keeps
me out of trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Jeanda, we're going to finish up now, But before I go,
I always love to ask the women, what is it
that you would like to share with the listeners about
women like yourself? Women serving these longest sentences? Is this
something you would like people to be aware of? You
know who you are? Who are these women? Would you
like to share that with the listeners? Please?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well, they're definitely we're not all bad. I know people
probably repeat that a lot. There's there's a lot of
goodness still behind the bars, that a lot of people
don't give us credit for m and maybe that they
should think about taking a second chance on.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Us and anything else before we finish.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
H It's good.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You've been very You've been very gracious. Well, Shonda, thank
you so much for being on a journey with us,
and appreciate the time that you've given today to be
with us.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I didn't expect such deep questions. I mean, I guess
I should have sort of it, but.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Well, we appreciative that you have been authentic and shared
that with us.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us on
another uppers of Self Identities Conversations with Convicted Women, a
(33:05):
Flying Possums production in association with Nutter Productions. We deeply
appreciate the support of our listeners and the contributions from
everyone who has made this podcast possible. Your engagement and
encouragement drive us to continue these important conversations until next time.
(33:25):
Take care,
We'd like to acknowledge for our listeners just upfront that
what you will hear from individual incarcerated women throughout the
episode you may find to be emotionally charged and even disturbing,
So we just want to acknowledge that and make you
aware of that. Furthermore, something that listeners probably don't realize
(00:22):
is that all of our individual conversations with each woman
was recorded inside a maximum security prison, the State Correctional
Institution SCI Munsey in Pennsylvania here in the United States.
So the noise, there's any chatter, anything in the background.
(00:44):
For our listeners just to understand that we actually recorded
inside a prison where the day goes on. The women,
the officers, the staff, they all have their jobs. Just
because we're there, it doesn't stop or everything becomes quiet.
So if you do, as listeners here any background noise,
please understand that is part of being inside a prison.
(01:17):
Hello everyone, and thank you for tuning into our podcast
Self Identities Conversations with Convicted Women. My name is doctor
Catherine Whiteley. I am a feminist criminologist and today I
am visiting SCI Munsey, a state correctional facility for women
(01:38):
in Pennsylvania in the United States and joining me today
is Shonder. Welcome, Shonder.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
It is great to finally meet you in person. Yeah,
because other than once we've met via zoom, we've not
had he had any shall we say, engagement prior to that.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I mean we kind of ran into each other couple
of times when you were touring the campus.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
There you go, there you go. That's great. To be corrected, everyone,
Thank you very much. This is what makes a podcast real.
That's right. We did very very briefly.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
You can't mean you were coming out of the chap
I was coming out of the chapel. You're h you
were getting a tour of the campus.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Oh, there you go. Thank you, well, correct me there,
that's great.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You needed to see the puppy. Puppy's called to you.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They do and I love them very much. We thank
you anyway. Okay, Seanda, So what I'd like to do,
if you don't mind, is if we could go back
to your childhood growing up and share a little bit
about what your childhood was like, the important people or
non important or the relevant things that happened as in
(02:45):
your childhood. Could you share that for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Okay, I grew up in a small town, Pennsylvania. It
was a nuclear family. My dad wasn't there. He they
got divorced some point in time. I don't remember when
my mom and him I were divorced, But I grew
up with my mom, my aunt, my Graham, and my sister.
We all lived in the same house, household of women.
A lot of bathroom time, little bathroom time. Everybody was
(03:13):
in the bathroom. But it was, it was. It was
a good childhood. I was a happy kid. Just go
about my business.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And when and when you say go about your business,
what is that you know?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
When school, school, playing outside, playing with the neighbors, Yes,
run around the neighborhood, yes, yeah, playing cap guns usually
because I lived around a lot of boys. There wasn't
really a lot of girls, so I hung out with
boys mostly.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And did you enjoy going to school your education.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
For the most part, Yeah, I like to learn things.
I think I had a touch of adhd. I had
to pay a little more attention than other kids had
to pay.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Did you And what was something that you liked about
your education?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The teachers good, They were interested in wanting kids to learn.
Had we had a good school district, Like I know,
a lot of kids. Girls talk about their schools and
there they didn't have the education. Nobody seemed to care.
But we had a very broad rounded school district, so
we learned a lot of everything.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And what grade did you complete? Want you to do?
Complete in school?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I graduated from high school and I started a year
of college.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And what was that that you started?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, I thought I was going to do graphic design.
Then there was a math class they required me to
take that I really just didn't want to do. It
was I'm really not good at probability and statistics. For
some reason, I'm really bad at it. Give me algebra.
I can do calculus, even though I don't really like it.
I just I'm really bad with probability statistics. I don't
(04:51):
know why. So I changed my major to architectural design,
and then I had a baby and dropped out.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Okay, thank you on that note, So how old were
you when you had my daughter? Your daughter?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Nineteen?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Okay, nineteen, So we're going to look at that time frame.
Can you share a little bit about what was your
life like then?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well? I was being a normal I guess teenager, hanging
out with your friends. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke.
I tried weed for my first time at eighteen, but
I didn't do really anything else. I was just hanging
out with friends and then I got right now.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, and throughout that period of time, is this some
one or people of persons that you looked up to
or that helped you throughout that period?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
My mom, my mom, my family, my teachers. I stay
in touch. I still stay in touch with some of
my teachers.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Do you speaking of teaching or education? I hear you
a bit of an artist. I do more than a
bit of an artist. I hear you very very good.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm crafty.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I've seen some of your work, but I do hear
about that. So we talk a little bit about that
later on. So let's just keep moving through. What about
relationships with your family? And you mentioned your had a daughter.
Would you share your relationship with your family and friends.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I don't know that it's different than most people's. It's
mother daughter. We didn't really fight, you know, you have
your normal annoyances when people don't. Actually, I was the
clean one, so I was constantly cleaning up after everyone everyone.
It was kind of annoying, but that was something that
we were made to do. In my family too, Like
(06:45):
Fridays is cleaning day. You clean the house. Everybody helps clean, dust, mop, vacuum.
But I guess there was no Really, it was probably
not good that there wasn't a lot of fighting and
arguing because then you don't really know how to solve
conflict when you get older. Yeah, and nobody really like
(07:05):
says I love you in my family, but it's just
sort of like an understood thing, Like it's just I
don't know how else to put it. Then that.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And on that note, not having, as you mentioned, your
father in your life as such, did that impact you
in any way? I mean, you mentioned you grew up
in the household of women.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Was I was a tomboy, so I spent a lot
of time boys doing gut boy things. So it was
kind of weird because I kind of wished my dad
was there to teach me to play things and play
sports and whatnot. So I kind of struggled learning how
to do things on my own. My mom would get
me things to learn like I would. She got me
(07:45):
like a throwback. So when I wanted to learn how
to throw a softball and learn how to throw it straight,
it was like a rebound thing. I called. She used
it for soccer, and that's how I learned how to
throw and catch. And because I had to catch it
or you were chasing balls all over the place all
the time. That's just annoying. So we can just learn
to get good. But yeah, it's sports.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yes, we're going to come back to sports because maybe
do you do sport here today?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Sometimes there's not as many people on in my zone
that play softball like we used to. We used to
have softball Saturday because that was my thing.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I'd like to play softball, right, Shonda? How old are
you today and how old were you when you entered
the criminal justice system?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I am forty five today. I just turned forty five
last week, Happy birthday, Thank you, and I came to
I was arrested when I was twenty three.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay, And after your arrest, you were sent to a
county jail for people that don't understand what a county
child is. Could you share what your experience and how
long you're in the county jail.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I was in the county jail for two years. In
about two months, I knew of a lot of the
people there, a lot of the officers because it was
my county. It was my area, but it's just it's
very confining. You don't really have a lot to do.
We were out, but we weren't like my Jalat jail
(09:25):
was a little better. The food was good, but I
don't know, you just feel restricted. You don't have as
many outlets for your energy.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So when you say that again, people are visualizing what
would this county jail look like? Did you share a
cell with someone or and how many women would have
been there at the same time.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Well, one pod, it was a pod where it was
an open pod where there was at least fourteen people
within the room. They put me on the restrict more
of restricted housing unit where we had sales where we
go and we only shared with one person, but there
were another twenty people on the party feeling too and
(10:05):
they had bunks in the day room as well. It
was overcrowded.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
And what do you take from what reflecting back? What
could you take from that experience that possibly helped you
moving forward? We'll talk about that the next step of being.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Here, learning to be okay with being self contained and
not oversharing.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
What does that mean though, when you're say.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Because there's a lot of people who try to capitalize
off of you to get themselves out of and out
of trouble, right, which is exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
And whilst you were there, did you need to receive
any psychological help or medication?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
They wouldn't let me, okay, so they didn't want to
want me to be on any kind of medication that
would cause me to act or not to act in
any certain type of way.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Okay, thank you. And again that just gives listeners that
don't understand what accounting jail your experience going through. So
after that, Shonda you came, could you just share the
next step within your sentencing where were you and could
you talk a bit about that experience please.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Like.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Mentally where were we or how well?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I'll touch on that a little bit. You were sentenced
and your sentence was that to death row? If you
wouldn't mind sharing what is that? What was your experience?
And please take your time.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yes, they sentenced me to what was like a week
after the trial, like they find you guilty at your
trial and then a week later they satence you that
usual and that's when they sentenced me to death row
plus seven years. I just don't understand that, but yeah,
(11:53):
it was. It was a little bit traumatizing. I mean
it was. It was kind of kind of expected a
little bit. They had tried I guess my attorney never
told me that they had tried to offer me different
deals and whatnot for like thirty to sixty, forty to eighty.
(12:14):
He never had mentioned any of those things to.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Me, And for the listeners, we were talking about years. Yes,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And then yeah I was sentenced. They gave me death.
It was kind of like, Okay, well, this is it,
and it's just something I kind of had been preparing
myself for to begin with, because if you don't know,
like in County, they give you a notice ahead of
(12:42):
time of aggravating circumstances of whether that they're intending to
pursue the death penalty to begin with. So I kind
of tried to wrap my mind around that before I
even went to trial, that this is something that could
possibly happen.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Seanda, can you explain if you can, how you wrapped
how did you work through that, like what was happening
within your mind understanding that it could be you know, well,
the death sentence. Can you just share how did you
wrap your mind around that? How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Trying to find justification? It's the only way I could
put it, Like, despite whatever my part was within the crime,
I had to try to find a reason why I
felt like I deserved it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yes? It does? Thank you. And then when the time
came and you entered the prison and death row, the
first twelve months, et cetera, how how was your adjustment? Then?
Just generally, how was your adjustment?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, they love me in POC for a week okay,
without a shower because I can't on a holiday weekend,
so nobody does anything. It was bad. I laid in
there because if you know POC, you don't ever want
to go to POC.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
What is POC?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
The people it's protective custody or if you're on like
a suicide watch, they like kind of strip you down
to the minimal things so you can't tear your clothes up,
so you're putting like a smock or something so that
you can't rip things up and potentially harm yourself. And
I wasn't going to but because I was on a
watch in my county, they assumed that I was suicidal
(14:30):
and I wasn't. They just had a watch where you
just log what the person's doing every so many hours
to make sure that they're not good to harm themselves.
But here they put you in POC and I laid
there and braided my hair, gave myself a little I
don't want to say dreads, micros, little microbraids all over
(14:52):
and you know, just try to take in waiting to
go to where I was had to because I know
some of the girls in the county had told me
you're gonna be fine up there. The girls on death Row,
they're not in their rooms all the time, You'll be fine.
They have stuff to do. They come out and I'm like,
can I have a TV? And they're like, yeah, you
have your own tea, But you guys also have an
(15:12):
activity whom we come And I said, can I have
colored pencils? And they're like yeah. And I'm like, okay,
I'll be fine, and they're like, but you get to
do all this other stuff. I said, I don't care.
As long as I can watch TV, have my color
pencils and I know they'll probably let me read. I'll
be fine. I just need little outlets, but yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Adapting to that. So the day is here, you have moved,
as you say to your cell. And again the reason
I'm interested is, as I said, listeners have no many
listeners have no idea of what you experienced and even
your environment. You know that picture.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yes, I would probably say that the women's death row
is much kinder than the men's death row. It wasn't terrible.
I would not say that it was like absolutely horrible.
I honestly sometimes find myself wishing I was still there
so I didn't have to deal with people down there.
Not gonna lie, I'd rather be in my own room
(16:12):
by myself, with my own stuff and not have to
be bothered with people sometimes. But we had trouble with
people officers here and there, but in some of the
girls who because we were housed with first with girls
that had some mental disorder, so a lot of times
(16:32):
they would scream a lot at night and that was
a lot to handle. But you know, we have headphones
and stuff, so I just plug my ears up and
go back to sleep. But we were able to come
out a lot and what that, So we would come
out of ourselves. But they gave us stuff to do.
They gave us details, like details are like a work,
(16:55):
like to clean the pod and whatnot, and our superintendents
over the years allowed us to come out to do details,
and as time progressed, they gave us other things to
do too, So we would clean the showers, clean the pod,
clean empty cells as people would go. And then they
added we would paint the cells that they needed the
(17:17):
cells painted. They had the paint one of the painters
come and show us how to paint the cells. They
let us ship the floors and as well as we
had activity times and we would fold the laundry prepare
it so that the officers would know what they needed
to give to them in the cells, like when they
do linen exchanges, and kept you busy.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
How long were you on death row?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Eleven years?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Eleven years? And at that time how many other women
were on death row that same time?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
When I first got there, there were six of us.
Precious they rest their souls. She has passed away. Was
head left like a few months after I got there,
and then a couple of the other girls were at court,
so there was just four of us there, and then
(18:09):
the girl came back from court. But subsequently, as the
years went on, they all just kept leaving until about
my fifth year there there was only three of.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Us, right, thank you. Something that people the ways asked
me understanding what what I do on the outside is
how when you talk about death row, how does a
woman cope with possibility that there may be and this
(18:40):
is a hypothetical to knock on the door one day
and the execution happened the next How does that the
technical how does that process happen?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, you get sent a letter of their intent to
execute you. You're set a letter telling you on the
date the time that they would execute you, and then
you go into a face is where you're not allowed
them to spend any time with anyone until as as
it progresses, it gets less time. You have to go
(19:08):
to wreck by yourself. When you get to like a
second phase, you can't come out at all. You have
to stay in your room. Yeah, that's how it goes
until you get receive a stay. You just they let
you know, and then if they don't, you almost receive stays.
I don't I don't know what the last day, what
(19:29):
the last stage would be to yes, of.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Course do you from your experience, was there the fear
of dying? I mean just the lucky last piece of
information there.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I mean, I guess there would be not necessarily. I
don't really have a fear of dying, Okay, I guess
I believe. I study Buddhism. I just believe that I'm
going to be reincarnating and go to my Okay, I
guess most people are more afraid of pain of death
(20:03):
rather than to pass away.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's interesting because I talked to the women in our
podcast episodes about death and dying or aging in the
prison system, and it's interesting how you mentioned about not
so much that you know dying as such.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, we're all going to die. It's just a fact
of life. It's something you should come to terms with
earlier in life, and it's not so painful as you
get older.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Thank you. So we're going to move beyond that experience. Then,
how did you feel or what was happening going on
with you when you realize that you're going to be
taken off death throw and here you are in general population.
Can you share with us that experience of that transition
and how you felt.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, my attorneys came to me a couple of days
after my birthday and it's been nine years now, and
told me that if they tried to get to me
on my birthday to tell me that they wanted to
give me a plea of life to leave death row songs.
I agreed to not pursue any further appeals, and I
(21:13):
guess I thought about my daughter and how like on
death row, we can't have contact visits. So I figured,
most likely, even if I do continue to pursue my appeals,
I'm probably gonna end up with life like everyone else.
So why not just take it now and I can
spend my time with her and enjoy it instead of
being up here and just kind of.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You know, So, now that you are here in your
general I will say general population, could you talk about
the day to day experience and like you mentioned your
belief system, how you've grown or you know you've worked
through no doubt more personal issues. Have you done that?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well, there's a lot of groups.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I do a lot of self talk, a lot of
self journaling, try to figure out things in my own head,
study people and see if that's the same kind of
things that I like to do, if it's normal, if
I'm normal. I've come to find out I'm actually kind
of very normal. Well, then again, who's what's normal? Nobody's
(22:22):
really super. I guess there's no normal, but whatever. Yeah,
to take in the groups and just keep them busy.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
What groups when you say tank the groups.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We've taken a self esteem group, we've taken moving on
for women, We've taken violence prevention. What's the other one?
The impact of crime? Like what are crimes? How they
impact the environment and other people? And yeah, they're all
(22:55):
they were all good classes. Some of them common sense
like you would think that people would know that, but
it's surprising that some people don't know that or see
things like that.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
But yeah, which was one of those programs that you
felt impacted you the most? And why.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh, there was a lot of them. They were all good.
They were really all good.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Putting you on the spot there it was.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
They were all good. They all had good information. I
think the biggest thing that impacted me in my time
was finding a group of friends in an exercise circle
that occupied my time. Like if I hadn't come down
and found the group of friends that I found, I
probably would have been in trouble. Been in the RHU
(23:45):
for all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So and just for listeners, the ri HU is what it's.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
The whole, that's what they call the whole, and why
are you sent to the whole where you're being if
you've had a misconduct, you are placed in a segregation
type of environment where you're not with the general population.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Thank you. I'm going to backtrack a little bit about
your sentencing or the experience that you had with media
or not with media. Could you share how you've felt
or what you've learned, how you were portrayed by the media,
and any thoughts or or words on that. Well.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I tried to stay away from it for the most part,
so I didn't pay a lot of attention to it.
But from what people tell me is they just they
completely demonize you. They don't make you like you're human
at all. A lot of people said that I was
super black. I guess people watch my show. They said
(24:52):
they had a black girl playing you, And I'm like,
but I am black. They're like, no, they had a
black black girl playing you. That was dark, dark, very late.
And when you say, plain you was at it like
when they did a reenactment. Oh okay, because I didn't
even know they did that either.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Right, so on a television series or something like that. Okay,
So yeah, because I hear feedback from women talking exactly
like you're saying, how they were portrayed. Yeah, you know
what I mean. And I wondered if that impact impacted
you in any way.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
For I really hard not to watch the news or
watch shows like that. I don't watch anything that is
crime based or crime I just don't write.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I understand. Another little piece that makes you light up.
It's your family. Would you like to share a little
bit about your relationship with your family members?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
You know, I don't know what about that beautiful she
has not had she has not had children, Okay, although
I won't why. I saw a little baby book and
I saw the little Is it wrong for me to
want her to have a baby?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Now?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
So it stuff for a baby? And one of the
other kids is like, yes, she's still young. I'm like,
she's twenty five, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Could we talk a little bit about that because your face,
your face lights up when you say.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
A good kid. She's just discovering, trying to discover herself. Yes,
as I casually try to steer her towards a path.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
How is or how has that been a mother? How
is mothering inside from behind you know, the prison walls?
How has that been for you and your daughter.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Well, it was probably better for her because she has
no idea that I would probably be really strict. She
says that, she says she knows. She's like, don't get
me wrong, Mom, I always say that, you know, I
know you would probably be super super strict, but I
just wish you were home. I said, I would probably
embarrass you too, just so you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And is it the challenge is what, even from your
experience and from other women you possibly you know, have observed,
what are some of the challenges for women trying to
be a mother inside, particularly if they're serving a long sentence,
what would you say?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Probably access Because for a long time, there just wasn't
like half of her life. I just wasn't able to
do some of the stuff that I could have done,
Like I couldn't give her hugs. I couldn't you know,
hold her. I wasn't allowed to do the cool things
that they get to do now, like play for your
child and or read for your child. And there just
(27:32):
wasn't all these neat little things that they can do.
So I just kind of had to make my own
things up, send her little puzzles I'd make for drawings,
if she had a project and she needed like something
drawn for her, I'd send her drawings and pictures for
her projects and stuff. But yeah, you know, it's more
being there, Like you want to be there for their
(27:53):
big things. You to give them hugs and stuff like that.
But so you're there and try to be there, keep
in contact, writing and calling. Then she's done very well.
She's adapted very well.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Thank you. I'm going to go back. When you mentioned
that you're on death row, you mentioned pencils, coloring pencils. Okay,
that's where I'm now. We're going to fast forward thinking
about those coloring pencils. Can you explain why that was
important to you and why even today coloring pencils things
(28:25):
are important. Could you explain that please?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Because I draw maybe stating this, but I like to
draw art stuff and my thing was I used to
decorate and mix stationary and whatnot. So as long as
I had things to do, those things worth I would
be fine.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And again people thinking about this, well, what do you
do with the work that you do, I mean the
pencils and the paintings, the pictures, what do you do
with them? You're inside a prison and.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Send them to people that I write, my friends that
I write, Okay, I keep my pen power. That's very
short as well. Like some people that's what they do,
spend their whole time writing people. I just don't. Most
of the people that I write I've known for years,
many of them from the outside.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So thank you. And what about you know we've touched
on the aging and the diets and dying pace, but
what about health? How have you been and what about
your experience about the needs of growing older that's from
physical and emotional, spiritual.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
How have you felt other than having asthma. I've had
the good fortune to be fairly healthy. I've gained weight
over the years, but there wasn't a lot of movement
where I was on death row at first, so I
didn't I wasn't always on the run and on the go.
I try to work out and sell and keep myself
(29:53):
active because you know, there are health issues that run
in my family that I'm trying to avoid because I
don't want to get sick. I don't want to get
sick in here. I guess people probably said that as
much that it's just not an environment you want to
be ailing in.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Thank you the Shonda. That's sitting in front of me.
Could she reflect back to share with this? How would
you describe her when she was a little girl, How
would you describe her as a young adult and then
the woman sitting in front of me today, if you
wouldn't mind reflecting on that.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Well, I'm always generally pretty happy. Underlying I tend to
brood every now and again when things annoyed me. So
I am a brooder. I browed and kind of bottle
things up, but I always have an underlying level of
just natural happiness. I wake up songs in my head.
(30:55):
To this day, I wake up with music playing in
my head every single morning. I'm just I prefer to
be a happy, go lucky person. Childhood was like that,
teenage years a little you know, angsy, which is where
most teenagers are. And then I just kind of I
guess I found my sophomore here.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
What does that mean when you say you found yourself?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I'm more clear on what I like and what I
don't like, and where I used to go along with
things that other people would suggest they want to do.
Now I kind of make my own way. Stay keeps
me out of trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Jeanda, we're going to finish up now, But before I go,
I always love to ask the women, what is it
that you would like to share with the listeners about
women like yourself? Women serving these longest sentences? Is this
something you would like people to be aware of? You
know who you are? Who are these women? Would you
like to share that with the listeners? Please?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well, they're definitely we're not all bad. I know people
probably repeat that a lot. There's there's a lot of
goodness still behind the bars, that a lot of people
don't give us credit for m and maybe that they
should think about taking a second chance on.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Us and anything else before we finish.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
H It's good.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You've been very You've been very gracious. Well, Shonda, thank
you so much for being on a journey with us,
and appreciate the time that you've given today to be
with us.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I didn't expect such deep questions. I mean, I guess
I should have sort of it, but.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Well, we appreciative that you have been authentic and shared
that with us.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us on
another uppers of Self Identities Conversations with Convicted Women, a
(33:05):
Flying Possums production in association with Nutter Productions. We deeply
appreciate the support of our listeners and the contributions from
everyone who has made this podcast possible. Your engagement and
encouragement drive us to continue these important conversations until next time.
(33:25):
Take care,
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