Reply ID: bagv
12-10-14

Hello, Erica Jm. How are you doing today?

I just got your comments on my blog. First and foremost, I need to thank you for leaving comments. I really appreciate the things you said. I know you can't ever in life understand what it's like to have a life sentence. You would truly have to walk in my shoes for decades to understand the impact it has on people.

I'm so glad that my letter spoke to you. One thing I want to say to you is every lifer that you have spent countless hours writing to should appreciate you for taking time out of your life to write someone who doesn't have a life. If you decide to keep writing to me, you will see that I'm different from any other lifer. The only thing all of us lifers have in common is we live in cages, and the staff won't let us out of the damned gate.

Erica, when you get time, go to blogs/1347/ and check out his artwork, etc. His name is Scot Pinkerton. He was my cellmate for five years. He's family now, and he's also a lifer. Leave him a comment. He's a good duck. Very, very high on being respective and honest. Good conversation. If you look on my blog, he just left me a letter but Between the Bars only sent me the first 12 lines of the letter he wrote. Nothing else. I'm so pissed and can't even answer him.

If there is any way that you can log on to my blog and find this letter, print it out for me, and send it to me, can you do that? I don't know anything about computers. I don't even know how to use a cellphone. I have been in prison for over two decades, so I"m computer lame.

Erica, you're at the age I was when I caught my life sentence. I caught it in 1994. This house trip you went through when you were in a coma was insane. I'm glad you're okay now. My brother Jerry was in a coma. Had to learn to read, write, walk, talk—all that again.

I won't even give up hope. Maybe I'll get out someday. But people—citizens—are not aware of how us lifers are treated in here. If they even let me out, I will help out all lifers march in Sacramento. People don't know that there's men in here that were sentenced to 7 years to life in the '80s. Been down 30 to 40, and they won't let them parole. We might as well have life without parole because, trust me, if you're a lifer, you ain't going anywhere.

Thanks for loving me due to being a human. I have been single for 21 years. I need to change that again someday, and I will. I'm going to get this out to you. I'll write again.

Write when you can. Thank you, Erica.

Donnie