"I Gave What I Received"

Yesterday, on my own daughter's 39th birthday, I attended a parole hearing for the man who murdered my friend's nine year old son twenty seven years ago. This was the third hearing I have attended with her and it was by far, the most challenging. The first hearing was at Chuckawalla, a prison in the desert, the second was a video hearing in downtown San Diego and this one was at Vaccaville Medical Facility Prison in Vaccaville, near Sacramento.

I left on a 6:30 a.m. flight for what was supposed to be a 10:30 a.m. hearing. We were met at the prison by the victim advocates ladies, after we went through the metal detectors and waited in the sally port for the gates to open. We were met in the parking lot and I had many questions for the shuttle driver: "Who are the people in this facility?" "How ill are they?""Is it for mental and physical illness?" "How long have you been working here?" The answer to the last question was two years. When we exited the van and headed inside the prison, my friend asked her daughter and me if we noticed that he had PRISONER written on the leg of his pants. Welcome to a new world. We were told later that prisoners do indeed drive the and do other tasks,but they are the ones who are there for petty thefts and those with very short sentences. For a scary person like me, it was eye opening.

We were in the waiting area from 9:15 (after a drive from the Sacramento airport to Vaccaville) until 2:07 p.m. when the hearing began. We were told that they were running thirty minutes behind. At a certain point, we knew that we would not make a 4:05 flight back to San Diego. We were taken to another room to phone the airline (we only had our identification with us and of course cell phones are not allowed in the prison). I Love SOUTHWEST AIRLINES! I called them, told them the circumstances and we were allowed to change our tickets for only $15.00 (and of course we had purchased the lowest fare "no changes ticket"0.

The hearing itself lasted over two hours--it was over around 4:40. The part that I found most irritating was that the inmate spoke for almost 1 1/2 hours of that time.He talked about his life--"No one loved me," "Broken home," "I am a changed person," "I have been married for 20 years," "I know that what I did was wrong," "I have lost two children so now I know how it feels," "I betrayed someone's trust," "He knew me."

The Parole Commissioner asked very good questions: "Why did you do it?" "Why did you put him in the attic," "Why did you search the house and steal a wallet after you put him in the attic?" "What would be your plans if you are granted parole?" All of his answers to almost every questions sounded, to me, like carefully coached responses and were extremely redundant. He did express "remorse" for the first time. Admitted that he is an alcoholic and drug user but participated in self-help groups in prison. Also admitted that he tried to commit suicide in prison (maybe that was why he was transferred to the medical facility, although no one told us why) and has to live with what he did.

My friend made an impact statement in which she spoke about her son and the hole that was left in the entire family. I read the statement from her older daughter and her younger daughter read her statement. Because of the time, we had to leave before the decision was made. Those present in the room were two parole commissioners, two correction officers for security, the inmate, his lawyer, the district attorney from San Diego, my friend, her daughter, the victim's advocate lady and me.

The district attorney called my friend around 9:45 p.m.--we arrived home around 9 p.m. to tell her that parole was denied and his next hearing would be in five years.

Although it was emotionally draining, I know how important it is to put a face on what happened.

The statement I remember most, of all of the rambling of the murderer, was "I Gave What I Received." He felt that since his life was a mess, that he had no regard for anyone's life. He had not been loved, was always an outcast and only cared about himself. THAT IS NO EXCUSE! When we have received less, we should be more willing to turn our lives around and Give MORE than what we received!