Today, I shook the hands of a killer.

During his trial, while he was in remand waiting for court to finish up, his defense attorney sent him a box full of documents to review regarding his proceedings. At the bottom of the box, were the diaries written by the women he had killed. Those diaries weren't suppose to be there, but somehow it made its way to him. He began learning about the woman, he had killed, she liked to write poetry, loved her family dearly, had a passion for her friends. Her life, up until this point was foreign to him since they were just acquaintances. Initially, he felt that she was responsible for the rut that he was in, but after gaining insight into her life, he began to understand what he really did, his life took on a new course. He went to his defense lawyers and told them he wanted to plead guilty, drawing a delirious laugh from his lawyer, "Why would you want to do that?"

"I want to be accountable for what I did"

As he began his 15 to life sentence in a maximum security center, he adapted to prison sub-culture mixed with many other prolific violent offenders. He developed friends with other inmates as they found their identity amongst each other. A sequence of events began to lead his life from the label of killer- in which society had placed on him back to just another person- belonging to the community. As a brutal riot broke out in jail one night, he found himself caught in the middle of an altercation. His body laid on the ground with blood seeping through his head, an inmate raised a shank above his body. It was at the moment, he had a glimpse of how his victim truly felt.

He was left with a choice to continue to be another inmate and hate the system for the punishment inflicted on him, or to turn his life around. As he continued to speak about the friendship that he finally began to develop back with his ex-wife and the father-daughter relationship he now has with his teenage daughter, it was evident that he was no longer a "killer" Often, when convicted criminals enter the system they come out worse off and are more likely to re-offend. He however, chose to use the time he spent in jail to turn his life around. He has dreams of coming back into the community to father his daughter, work at an auto shop and maybe even someday be a teacher. A convicted killer was only a label society had put on him. I began to see him beyond his mistake. Today, I shook the hands of a killer.

don't stop