So, at the age of 16 I was actually charged as an adult for shooting a man that had picked me up for sex in Nashville. And I was eventually convicted, and I was told that I would spend the rest of my life in prison. And you know, obviously God had other plans because here I am.
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So I was in a situation where I was being trafficked, but in 2004 the trafficking narrative was not the same as it is today. In 2004 they labelled me as a teen prostitute, and it was seen as something that I had done that was shameful and it just really aggravated everything that had happened. So it wasn't a source of you know sympathy or let me treat this individual with some compassion. It was, no, like this further condemns you because you were doing these things with these grown men, but on the night in question I did actually take things from the house because I had to. I couldn't come back empty handed to the hotel room or else I'd have to go out until I came back with something and because items were taken at the same time that someone was killed the felony murder rule came into effect. And in Tennessee, anytime a killing is committed and there's another felony that occurred, whether that means that you hit somebody in a car, in a stolen car, it's felony murder and you can be convicted of first-degree murder.
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You know when I was first told that I was convicted, I mean the worst that had possibly happened had happened, and so all that was left was for me to figure out where do I go from here? How do I pick up the pieces? And there was actually a college programme that was offered at the prison to Lipscomb University and whenever the opportunity became available I said, ‘you are going to sign up for this class.’ I don't care what they had to say about my life being over, I don't accept that, I'm going to live a life worth meeting, I'm going to do something with my life.
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I did I never believed it whenever they told me that I would do the rest of my life in prison. Something in me just never believed that that was true. I now know that was the Holy Spirit letting me know that God had me, he had other plans for me.
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So the first time that I realised there were conversations being had about my case was I want to say maybe 2011, 2012, somewhere around there, when a documentary had been made called ‘Me Facing Life’. And it was being screened around the country and overseas, the BBC had picked it up. And people were writing me letters saying you know what happened to you was wrong and I'm advocating for your release because 51 years is too much for any young person to have to serve in prison. But no nothing ever came of it. Tennessee isn’t a state that really gives much consideration to what people have to say in that aspect, unless it's you know, the right people, quote, I say that in quotes. Unless it's the people who are actually putting them in office and unless it’s the people who are going to have some kind of sway, but then politically they really don't care about public pressure. And I just saw that things were just kind of stagnant in the courts, because the courts, they don't care about what you have to say about whether or not you thought it was unfair. If it doesn't set this rigid standard of due process and of their own interpretations then they don't, they don't care. So I felt like I had hit a wall.
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Right and so this was the beginning of 2017, my very last appeal had been denied and all that was left was clemency, and there's less than a 1% chance of anyone to even have their clemency application reviewed by the parole board. And around that time I get a letter from a man in Texas and he writes me and there's something about this letter that just strikes me as different. Number one, it appeared different because he burnt the edges of the letter but number 2, it just felt different. Something about it. And I paid attention when he told me that you know the Lord says you're going to get out of prison, to prepare yourself. He said that God is bigger than any sentence, any judge, any jury in and people are going to start coming together across the country and praying for you, and that support is going to build. And I wrote this individual back, I'm not married to him. And he really helped me strengthen my faith. And it was when I started focusing on God I started to see how he was just completely changing people's hearts for me, and he was changing the way government officials were treating me and looking at my case. And the governor himself, just a few weeks ago, had said that he was moved to grant my petition because he could see God’s hands in the situation. He could see that God was pulling on his heart to do this and so I have to give all glory to God when it comes to me being released. My sitting here is nothing short of a miracle, you are literally looking at a miracle.
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Yes so, I was actually sitting in my cell on my bunk watching television when I saw a commercial come on, and this commercial had played a few times, it was part of an ad campaign for a local University in Slavery Tennessee. And it said, ‘what is 13?’ And they had a website and I saw the governor on there, I saw different people on there saying, ‘what is 13?’ and talking about this. And I was like well what is 13? And so whenever I had someone look it up for me when I called home, because obviously I can't look at things on the internet in prison, it told me it was about trafficking. And then someone had told me you know you were trafficked; I was like no that can't be right.
I was thinking about everything that society had told me, my people in my community had told me, that I was just fast, I was promiscuous. Things that the court system had said. I had chosen to do, what I was doing. It was my own volition. And so it really caused some conflict, and this is in my late 20s. But when I started researching it more, when I started to see how federal statute said no one under the age of 18 can ever consent to being exploited. No one can ever consent to being taken advantage of, that's when I realised you know this is true, I was taken advantage of and I was exploited. These things are not my fault, there are people in society that have tried to shame me, the court system tried to put that blame on me, but I'm not going to take that ownership. And I think we've come a long way in understanding there is no such thing as a teen prostitute but we have a lot, lot more work to do in educating the public about what it means to be a victim of sex trafficking.
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You know God allows things to happen for a reason and he gave me a testimony from all this, he showed me what he can do. And here I am telling you what he did for me that he can do it for everyone else. And so I definitely think that you know I was able to find redemption to the situation, I think I can turn anything into a positive and you know I'm blessed to be here today and be telling you what he's done. I can't think of a better redemption story than that.
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I would tell them that it's not your fault number one, you're not fast, and simply because you know you've been exploited or taken advantage of in some way that doesn't mean, it doesn't speak to who you are. That speaks to who that individual is and you don't take ownership of that and number 2, you have to know that you have options you have other options. Sometimes you can't see it you think this is the only way that you're stuck in a situation but it's not true, there's help for you. There are individuals who will help you get out of that situation, who can help you thrive on your own, be self-sustainable. There are options for you. And number 2, if you are young girl and you think you have an older boyfriend and you're doing things to contribute to the relationship, that's not what this is. That's not. I had that same mistake and you know I just pray that you'll seek out some healthy adults in your life and really understand what it means to be in a healthy relationship. But number one take care of yourself first because you've got to start there.
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Absolutely. You know there's something that we can learn from everything and like I said God he turns he turns any bad situation into a good situation. And being bitter, being angry about things that's not going to hurt anyone. No one else who was involved in the situation you know, directly or in passing is harbouring any feelings about whether or not, you know, I'm upset. So, I'm not going to spend that time tethering myself to that one moment in my life. I'm going to see what the Lord has for me to do and help other people as best I can.
Thank you
Narrative as told to WCLK’s The Local Take
