Jailhouse interview with convicted school shooter/murderer Erica Hainstock

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Welcome to Unforbidden Truth. I'm Andrew. Today I'll be speaking
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with convicted murderer and convicted school shooter Erica Hayinestock, formerly
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known as Eric Haynestock. The case of Eric Haynestock centers
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on a tragic school shooting that took place on September
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twenty ninth, two thousand and six, at Weston High School
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and Kensinovia, Wisconsin. At just fifteen years old, Hainestock brought
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a shotgun and a handgun to school after a morning
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argument with his principal, John Klaang over disciplinary issues. Haynestock
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had a history of behavioral problems, including alcohol abuse and
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prior disciplinary incidents, which contributed to ongoing intentions at school.
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Shortly after arriving, he entered the school off and shot
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Principal Claang, who later died from his injuries and the
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immediate aftermath, Haystock was confronted by a teacher, Dave Thompson,
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who managed to subdue him before further harm could occurred.
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Police arrived quickly and took Haynestock into custody. Investigations revealed
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that he had obtained that firearms from a friend's home
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and had consumed alcohol earlier that day. The incident shocked
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the small community, highlighting concerns about youth violence, access to firearms,
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and the warning signs that may have been overlooked. Hayinstock
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was charged as an adult with first degree intentional homicide
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in two thousand and eight. He pleaded no contest and
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was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
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Here's my interview with convicted school shooter and convicted murderer
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Erica Hayinstock.
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Okay, my name is Erica Roseall Hayinstock, previously known as
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Eric Jordan Haynstock. I am a from Stock County in
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the state of Wisconsin and to and six. I was
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arrested and confined for a first degree intentional homicide in
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which I had ended up shooting my principle and I
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wound up being convicted of that and I'm serving a
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life imprisonment with the eligibility for extended supervision after thirty
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years of initial confinement. Currently, I'm housed in the Oshkosh
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Correctional Facility in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. So can you describe your
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childhood environment and how you remember your early years? So
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before my dad got remarried. Him and I actually had
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a really good relationship. It was like I was the
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center of his world. We got along very well, and
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I ended up being when he had met Priscilla, we
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got her and I got along actually fairly well. It
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was after they got married that everything started to shift,
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and that's when everything fell apart. That's where I started
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getting child abuse, like to the extent that you know,
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even if I lied or if I cursed by you know, default,
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and they considered saying God is a curse. So like
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if I did that, I get smacked in the mouth
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and then they'd forced dried a jolo pano peppers in
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my mouth and I'd have to hold him there for
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a period of time, and then they would do other punishments,
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like you know, I get spanked with a braided leather
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belt or other objects that they would have in their vicinity,
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and it would wind up becoming where if I fought
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against it while it was happening, they would start over.
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It was a whole thing. You know. The school knew
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that I had issues learning, so they ended up convincing
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my parents to put me on At the time, what
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was the medication was riddling and when I was on that,
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I was actually doing really good and I was excelling.
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Parents didn't like me on Riddling, so they ended up
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removing me from Ridlin, which had more behavioral problems. Along
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with everything else that was going on in my life,
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I didn't really see my biological mother too much. When
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I was six, she ended up signing off her parental
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rights and that kind of makes me feel highly unwanted
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because you're wondering, what did you do to have somebody
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not want you? And she ended up doing that, and
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so Priscilla ended up taking full custody of me. Well
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at that point, Onlie I would see Lisa, which was
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my biological mother. I'd end up seeing her once every
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year and a half to two years, and sometimes I
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would even go to three years without even seeing her.
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And when I'd see her, she it was like I
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was the focal point in her world. But that was
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because it was in It was a convenience to her
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at that point, and that was that killed me because
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it strained a lot of the relationship I had with
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both of my siblings. You know, I didn't really get
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to grow up with them, so I only got to
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see them once in a while at one point the
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Wassaut County Child Protectives uh CPS ended up taking me
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from my parents' custody and placing me with my grandmother
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because my dad had kicked me on my side multiple
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times and then up bruising my side, and it came
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point where in his case, they're like, well, you know,
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if you're convicted, you're gonna have to, you know, give
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up all your firearms. Well, my dad's not going to
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give his firearms. So he was like, that ain't gonna happen.
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You know, he said, you can keep the kid, and so,
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you know, he and they ended up eventually putting me
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back in their custody, which just taught them how to
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get away with abuse in another way, you know. So
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my my screen wasn't It was not an easy thing
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with the family. You know, from the age of two
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to six, I was actually assaulted by one of my
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step brothers. His name was not Marty, it was Tony,
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and Marty was his father. But Tony ended up abusing
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me for four years. Well, you know, they found out
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about that and then they kept us separated and they
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didn't do the government didn't do nothing there. And then
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you know, later on I ended up going to Weston
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School District down the road, and you know, things transpired
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with me and John and it wasn't good. And I
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ended up reacting to that after two years, and that's
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when I did what I did. I never wanted to
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kill the man. I actually had a twenty two and everything.
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I thought, it's a small bullet, it's a small caliber bullet.
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This thing is gonna kill somebody, because when we go hunting,
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we're told that use a large caliber bullet to secure
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that you kill the large game. So I didn't think
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the twenty two was gonna result in his death. And
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I was extremely wrong in that regard, you know. And
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that's something that I ended up paying with every day,
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you know, because of my not my lack of knowledge,
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you know, in that. And we'll talk about the Internet
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in a little bit. But before we talked about that. No,
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it's okay, it's okay. Can we talk about your school
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experiences before that, Like what what was school like for
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you socially and academically before the incident? Fifth Place? Well,
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I we actually moved it was like seven times, and
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seven times in like six years or eight times in
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like six years period. So it came a point where
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I did. I didn't even unpack my stuff. So we
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bounced around schools a lot. And when I would go from.
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Schools other than properly placed attorney called maybe monitored and
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recorded you.
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When you go from school to school, school you got
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to reset up and reget then people on and friends. Well,
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you know, I was scrawny. I didn't really fit in
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because well I didn't get to get the new clothing
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that everybody else is getting. I didn't get the new
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games everybody got. It was what it was. And so
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the ones that I got along with were other poor
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kids like myself. And as crazy as it is, I
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look back and it's like, man, I I kind of
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sent being in hear you look back and it's like
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I wish I was there, you know, as bad as
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it sucked, you know, you wish you were there. And
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you know, I used to get bullied, I used to
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get picked on, and I've gotten stuffed in lockers, I've
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gotten squirrely as I've gotten straight up beat up, you know,
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and it compiling with what goes on at home. You
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don't feel like he ever had a safe space. And
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so school can become au it can become a horror.
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You know, I was a straight off student. The only
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classes I excelled in were choir and art. You know,
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I always aced my art class, you know, because I
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love doing art. So did you feel that teachers are
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staff understood that what you were going through at the
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time with the bullying and conflicts at school? No. I
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actually had one teacher once, this kid, his name was Blaza,
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and he was actually beating me up, and a teacher
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literally just walked right by, and she says, well, I'm
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off the clock, it's not my job no more. And
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when I got home, I actually called the cops, and
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the cops didn't do anything. You know. It's when when
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the police tend to drop the ball over and over
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and over, or you feel that you can't go to
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them for help when you know you're putting back into
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an abusive home. You know you can't go to them
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for help because nobody's listening. You know. It's I've had
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teachers that gunned on me, like you know, one of them.
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He just literally would always go out of his way
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just just to mess with me. And I know that
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a lot of people think that, well, kids always say that.
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Kids always say that but when you got other students
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that he blatantly allows to listen to music when they're
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doing their school working class, and I listen to music
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with the same set up, trying to do my work
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because it's a way I can focus, and you're getting
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on me saying I can't do that, but yet you
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allowed everybody else that had had a walkman to do that,
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you know, and then kicking me out of class. So
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when I'd get kicked out of class, I'd end up
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getting a detention, and detention resulted in more suspensive suspensions,
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and suspensions resulted in getting beaten at home. So it
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becomes a revolving door of just anger and aggravation and
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frustration with everything that's going on, and you resent that
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teacher because you know what's going on isn't fair, you know,
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and you're trying, like go with mathematics. I tried to
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explain to teachers I can't get in. I had this
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same teacher say, well, I just caught this to you
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last week. How do you not got it? And you're like,
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I don't know, you know, and they're not trying to
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find out why you're not getting it, you know. Come
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to find out after my I got locked up. They
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learned that all I could I could barely even multiply,
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let alone divide, you know, so I could add and
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subtract and that's about it. So no wonder why I
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wasn't getting anything that the teacher was telling me. So
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but yeah, I had backs with a lot of the teachers,
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and at times you do feel like everything's against you,
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you know. But I also know that goes into a
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lot of the paranoia that I had, where feeling like
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you couldn't trust anybody and feeling like you were just alone.
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There's times where I wish that I had reached out
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to some teachers. And you know, even today, I kind
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of I look back and it's like I wish I
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had reached out to certain teachers and told them what
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was going on in my life and expressed why I
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was so messed up. And I wish I had the
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capabilities to express that I didn't know how to do
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this or this or the other thing, you know, and
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that's why I couldn't get forward in my grades at all.
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So what were some of the coping mechanisms, whether they
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were healthy or unhealthy, that you were led on during
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difficult school years? So I used I used to love
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smoking weed, and so I would smoke weed when I
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got up in the morning because my parents, my parents
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would wake me up and leave and they go to
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go to work or whatnot. So I would just smoke
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some weed. I'd smoked weed before I went to bed,
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and I had smoked some weed at school. It was
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just a way for me to calm down, which led
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into other types of narcotic uses and abuses. You know.
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I ended up doing cocaine for a while, and that
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was not a help. You know. You think everything helps
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at the time, but it doesn't. And then I started
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self isolating into my basement more because I felt comfort
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comfort in the basement, which was weird because it was
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very It was a it was a dirty, grimy place
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to be. You know. I love to isolate into the
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wood because I just when I was there, I was
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there and nobody else was and if I had my
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dog with me. You know, That's why I absolutely love
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dogs beyond belief, because they're so loving, compassionate, and loyal.
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They're always there. They never judge you, and they don't
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care who you are, you know, as long as you
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give them the same love and respect. Back, you know.
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And so my dogs were a huge thing for me.
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That was a big coping thing because I would go
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on and just hug my dog, and there's times I
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would just sit there and cry. You know. I had
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three of them, I had I had Buddy, I had Pebbles,
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and I had Roxy, you know, two blue tick coon
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hounds and a rottweiler. You know. So you try to
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do everything you can, try to just go from day
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to day to day, you know, And there's times where
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I result resorted in, you know, self mutilation, because it
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gave you some form of control, no matter how minute
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it was in your life, it was a form of
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control that was allotted to you. And sometimes it makes
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00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:26.360
you even feel more alone sometimes and when that happens,
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you just don't know what to do with it. And
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when you can't cry because you're told every time you cry,
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I'll give you something more to cry about, and you're
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not supposed to cry. This is what you're supposed to be,
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00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:44.799
and you just can't live up to those standards, you know.
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But coping mechanisms is a really hard thing, you know.
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I love biking, so that was a huge thing. Fishing
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was the best thing I loved it because after school,
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00:16:58.200 --> 00:16:59.960
when no one was home, I would run off down
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00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:02.320
to the crick and I take my poll with me
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and I'd go fishing, even if it was just to
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catch some mintos or something. I was it was relaxing
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for me, you know, just to sit there and listen
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to the water. So how would you describe your emotional state?
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00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:18.200
In the months leading up to the entry of that
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school more strained my mother and I. We we were
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arguing a lot more. My drug addiction was a lot
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harder at that point, and it just it was weird
260
00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:43.279
because sometimes my my mental status and everything felt how
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00:17:43.319 --> 00:17:48.519
do I say it, uh, manic? You know, I could
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be happy and then I'd just be angry. And you know,
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00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:59.440
Priscilla and I we would actually come to wrestling matches
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because we couldn't, you know, we couldn't get along. And
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I at the time, I hated her so much, and
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I used to tell her all the time how much
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I disliked her. And then she was not my mother.
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She was never going to be. And that was even
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more as an anger with being abandoned by my own mother.
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So how dare you try to stand in this pallion?
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You know, I'm gonna call you back, okay, okay, all right,
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all right, so know that it is me. Just just
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accept the call. You know, you you get to a
274
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point where you don't think that there's any light and
275
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you don't like where you're gone because you've seen everybody.
276
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It's just there's like no escape. You know. My behavior
277
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became more manic to where I couldn't control what I
278
00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:55.920
was feeling and I didn't know how to express what
279
00:18:55.960 --> 00:18:59.880
I was feeling. And when things are going on in
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life that you can't expose to those around you because
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00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:04.400
you feel that they're not going to trust you, they're
282
00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:06.960
not going to believe you. Instead, they're going to think
283
00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:10.839
that you're lying about it. You don't have nobody to
284
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:13.880
turn to. And then some of the things are just
285
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:16.839
so appalling that you can't even express it to your grandmother,
286
00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:21.720
who is that literally that person that you could share
287
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:26.279
anything with because she wasn't going to judge you. But
288
00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:30.599
some of the things are just that bad that you
289
00:19:30.680 --> 00:19:32.920
couldn't even share it with her because of a fear
290
00:19:34.279 --> 00:19:41.319
that she wouldn't understand what was going on. I mean,
291
00:19:41.359 --> 00:19:43.759
there was I had a cousin and I used to
292
00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:48.559
get high with her and I would break down and
293
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:50.880
express to her what was going on, and she wanted
294
00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:52.799
to tell everybody what was going on in my life,
295
00:19:52.839 --> 00:19:57.839
but I begged her not to, you know, and it
296
00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:05.000
was crazy because you know, even back then, everybody in
297
00:20:05.039 --> 00:20:07.039
my hometown where they would be like, oh, you're a fag.
298
00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:09.559
You're a fucking fag, You're a home all, and they
299
00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:12.400
treat you different because of that, you know, even though
300
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:15.000
that there was no confirmation as to who I was,
301
00:20:16.079 --> 00:20:19.359
and which makes him be more afraid that you can't
302
00:20:19.359 --> 00:20:24.559
express to anybody who you are because every time family
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00:20:24.599 --> 00:20:31.559
member sees you in girls clothing with makeup, you'd get
304
00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:34.359
punished for it because in quote, I'm not going to
305
00:20:34.400 --> 00:20:38.440
have a fag living in my household. So you can't
306
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:42.559
even be yourself. So it kind of solidifies that you
307
00:20:42.599 --> 00:20:45.039
try to live for everybody else, but it just it's
308
00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:51.240
too much to take in. So you mentioned like being manic,
309
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.200
and it sounds like there was the mental health issues
310
00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:56.359
going on at the time. Were you diagnosed as a
311
00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:01.440
teenager with any mental health issues? So when I was
312
00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:07.960
growing up, they diagnosed me with severe ADHD. Only later
313
00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:14.079
on during my reverse waiver hearing, did they diagnose me
314
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:22.039
with severe depression and borderline personality disorder a lot in
315
00:21:22.119 --> 00:21:31.799
compilation with the severe ADHD. Okay, so they wanted to
316
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:34.319
try to say bipolar, but because I was because I
317
00:21:34.359 --> 00:21:39.000
was too young, they couldn't do that. So let's talk
318
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:42.160
about the incident that took place. What do you remember
319
00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:53.359
most clearly about the day of the shooting? Fear I had.
320
00:21:56.240 --> 00:22:00.319
It was a fear with the mixt of them motion
321
00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:08.480
that I have to protect myself. You know, I know
322
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.680
what was going to happen to me that day, and
323
00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:16.960
it was something that I needn't exposed to nobody. I
324
00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:19.200
didn't even tell my family until I was eighteen years
325
00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:23.599
old what was really going on with me and John Klaying,
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00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:33.200
you know, because you know, and you know because when
327
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:38.279
I was thirteen, I had started talking to him about
328
00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:39.920
what was going on in my life, how I was
329
00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:42.920
so frustrated because people were saying all this stuff about
330
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:48.240
me and the abuse, you know, And I even told
331
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:54.359
him that, you know, I felt this way, but I
332
00:22:54.400 --> 00:23:00.599
didn't know how to deal with it. And he ended
333
00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:04.240
up using that to his vans and turning it against me.
334
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:10.720
And you know, one day he was we went to
335
00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.000
the locker rooms, and he was like, hey, because I
336
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:14.440
was asking him. I said, well, we're going down here
337
00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:16.799
for because I was talking to him about being bigaten
338
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:20.599
up and bullied by a couple of the kids. And
339
00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:23.119
he's like, well, I just got to check the football
340
00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:27.119
equipment and make sure it's secured, because you know, caught
341
00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:30.480
word as people are taking equipment and stuff like that.
342
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:33.759
And I was like, oh, okay, I believed it because
343
00:23:34.359 --> 00:23:35.799
that's what I was going to be doing. I was
344
00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:37.240
going to take some of the equipment and I was
345
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:38.880
going to sell it to a couple other kids in
346
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:45.240
another school district. So and when we got in there,
347
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:46.839
he had asked me to pick up some of the
348
00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:50.079
helmets that were on the floor, and that's he ended
349
00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:54.880
up sexually assaulting me. And that went on and off
350
00:23:54.960 --> 00:24:02.480
for two years, and nobody nobody raised an I I
351
00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:04.599
brought to it or anything. You know. The fact was,
352
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:09.319
I'm still baffled to the day why nobody caught on.
353
00:24:09.599 --> 00:24:13.960
Because it was today they call it grooming. Back then,
354
00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:17.079
they thought it was just a good beat. You know,
355
00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:21.119
you got a teacher that all the principal that's going
356
00:24:21.160 --> 00:24:25.359
out of his way and giving clothes and shoes and
357
00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:31.359
hygiene and stuff like that to one student, and that
358
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:35.359
was me. And everybody's always so nice for doing that,
359
00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:37.559
but he's still the one that went out of his
360
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.400
way to have me shower at the school and told
361
00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:43.400
teachers that if I was late to class in the morning,
362
00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:48.680
is because I was taking a shower, you know. And
363
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:52.000
it just opened up another avenue for him to be
364
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:55.279
able to do what he wanted to do. But nobody,
365
00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:00.759
nobody pinged in on that. Well, dealing with that two years,
366
00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:04.119
and you know, because he had even told me like, well,
367
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:07.599
it's not worth telling nobody because who's gonna believe you?
368
00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:14.319
You know, it's a problems And he says, you're always
369
00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:17.240
acting up in school, You're always in trouble, You're a
370
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:22.279
failing student, and we know you get high, so who's
371
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:27.240
gonna believe you over me? And I believed it. I
372
00:25:27.319 --> 00:25:35.839
believed it for years and even up until I got incarcerated. Well,
373
00:25:35.880 --> 00:25:38.640
at camp point where that was a homecoming. It was
374
00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:41.640
the very end of the week and he hadn't did
375
00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:45.119
anything all week, so I assumed he would do something
376
00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:49.960
that day, and uh, that morning, I just I just
377
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:55.240
couldn't deal with it. I ended up grabbing a twenty
378
00:25:55.319 --> 00:26:01.400
gay shotgun, some shells and a twenty two pistol and
379
00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:06.720
a box of those shells, and then drove the pickup
380
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:09.480
truck to the high school. When I got to the
381
00:26:09.559 --> 00:26:18.319
high school, that's when I got out, opened, pulled out
382
00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:23.240
the shotgun, uh, pulled all the shells out of the box,
383
00:26:23.319 --> 00:26:27.119
put them in my pocket, and put the pistol in
384
00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:29.079
my pocket too. You know, I was wearing a hoodie,
385
00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:35.559
you know, and one of the janitors had seen me
386
00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:41.119
and he thought it was a prop. You know. I
387
00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:45.200
walked through the door and I had told everybody. I said, everybody,
388
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:48.519
get in the fucking office. This is for real, because
389
00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:55.200
I assumed John was in the office. And uh, you know,
390
00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:59.000
the janitor, he ended up pushing me against the wall,
391
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:03.240
and I just let go the shotgun and rolled away
392
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:07.279
from him. I ended up pulling out the pistol, and
393
00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:14.519
everybody just scattered. And when everybody scattered, the hall was empty.
394
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:19.039
And I was getting ready to walk toward the office
395
00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:24.039
and I saw a kid that I knew I had
396
00:27:24.119 --> 00:27:27.240
gotten in an argument with him, probably a couple of
397
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:32.400
weeks prior to this, and he was in the steven
398
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:37.920
Eva's Boys home thing for troubled youth or whatever. And
399
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:41.000
to this day I can't figure out who he is
400
00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:46.960
because if I cook, I could witness committed perjury on
401
00:27:47.079 --> 00:27:50.960
the stand. But he comes out into the hallway, he
402
00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:54.119
drinks from the bubbler. He turns around. I pointed the
403
00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:55.440
gun at him and said, what do you want to
404
00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:57.839
do now? And he ran off because I was just
405
00:27:57.920 --> 00:28:03.319
trying to scare the kid. But I heard John down
406
00:28:03.400 --> 00:28:07.480
the hall. He goes, where's everybody going? And so I
407
00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:09.359
walked down the hall and he saw me and he
408
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:12.759
asked me. He says, well, what is this? Is that real?
409
00:28:13.079 --> 00:28:14.559
And I had told him, I said, what the fuck
410
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:20.799
do you think? And he had ah been knows that
411
00:28:20.799 --> 00:28:22.599
at that time. He said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It
412
00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:30.720
won't ever happen again. It didn't didn't make me feel better.
413
00:28:31.480 --> 00:28:33.599
Him saying it angered me because it was like he
414
00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:38.200
just thought, saying I'm sorry, he was gonna fix it.
415
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:44.200
When he realized it wasn't going to change how I
416
00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:50.200
was feeling, he lunged toward me and I had the
417
00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:54.079
gunpointed law on his boppy because you know, I was
418
00:28:54.079 --> 00:28:59.119
gonna shoot him in his genitals for when he lunched
419
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:01.960
toward me. I pulled the trigger and it went through
420
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:06.880
his right leg, and I pulled the trigger again and
421
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:09.759
it went towards the left part of his lower abdomen.
422
00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:12.119
Mind you, I never shot a pistol in my life.
423
00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:18.279
And I turned away from him and we slammed into
424
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:22.079
the lockers. And when we did that, I was pulling
425
00:29:22.119 --> 00:29:26.440
the pistol a wave downward and it was tangled in
426
00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:30.559
the in my hoodie, which was very baggy. When I
427
00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:34.680
did that, it ended up going off again, you know,
428
00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:40.160
and that one all it hit the skin on the
429
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:46.400
side of the head and grazed him, you know, and
430
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:53.000
we can't. We rolled off the lockers and struggled and
431
00:29:53.119 --> 00:29:57.119
fell to the floor. The point he kept trying to
432
00:29:57.359 --> 00:30:02.920
grab the gun, and in my mind, in my mind
433
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:06.359
at that time, I thought he was not trying to
434
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:08.720
get it away. I thought he was going to utilize it.
435
00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:11.160
I had no idea at the time in my own
436
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:16.920
mind what was going on. So flung the gun behind us,
437
00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:23.000
and when't that happened, he rolled off of me. It
438
00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:26.799
was messed up, because I you know, it's time. I
439
00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:31.680
wish every day that I could take back. You know,
440
00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:36.480
you never forget it, and I'll never forget what he
441
00:30:36.559 --> 00:30:42.720
looked like, you know. And you know they had, uh
442
00:30:43.079 --> 00:30:46.640
they took me to a police station because well, I
443
00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:49.880
didn't even I would. I didn't. The plan wasn't to
444
00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:54.119
be laying the school in the first place. I planned
445
00:30:54.200 --> 00:30:59.400
on shooting him in his genitals and then forcing the
446
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:02.680
police to kill me, you know, that was my plan.
447
00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:10.079
And when they took me a police station, they left
448
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:14.839
me cuffed up for a few hours and gave me
449
00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:17.519
food to eat. And then there was blood on my
450
00:31:17.559 --> 00:31:19.240
hands and I was covered in blood. I was still
451
00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:24.440
in the bullying, and I had ended up asking the
452
00:31:24.519 --> 00:31:27.200
police if I could change, if I could wash my hands,
453
00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:31.359
and he was like, no, you can't wash your hands.
454
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:34.559
We might need to swab you for gun residue or whatnot.
455
00:31:36.599 --> 00:31:40.599
So here I am. I'm hungry because I haven't really
456
00:31:40.680 --> 00:31:46.480
eaten anything in a minute, and I'm just emotionally and
457
00:31:46.559 --> 00:31:51.880
mentally remaining and everything's going crazy, and so I eat
458
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:55.519
the food, you know, and of course that doesn't look
459
00:31:55.559 --> 00:32:01.000
good on camera, but I'm gonna have to call you back, okay,
460
00:32:01.160 --> 00:32:03.839
all right, so good, all right. I eat this food,
461
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:05.960
you know, and of course that doesn't look good in
462
00:32:06.039 --> 00:32:08.240
court because they're like, look at how heartless they are.
463
00:32:08.319 --> 00:32:10.599
They're eating food with butter in their hands. Well, I
464
00:32:10.839 --> 00:32:13.680
wasn't given an option to be able to wash my hands.
465
00:32:13.720 --> 00:32:19.039
They told me I couldn't, and I know that I
466
00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:24.359
could have not eaten, you know, but juvenile, dumb, not thinking,
467
00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:29.880
going through shock of what's going on. Then it comes
468
00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:35.119
to the interview, you know, so Detective Laura and Elizabeth Fiegels,
469
00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:39.880
who works for the Department of Justice, comes in and
470
00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:43.079
they want to read me my miranda right, and then
471
00:32:43.359 --> 00:32:46.160
in the state of Wisconsin, they read them to you
472
00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:49.599
and then you have to sign them. You initially each
473
00:32:49.640 --> 00:32:52.880
write and then you sign it. So no matter how
474
00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:55.359
you cut it, it's it's an agreement and it's a
475
00:32:55.400 --> 00:33:00.279
legal binding form. It is a contract. And they had
476
00:33:00.359 --> 00:33:02.480
me do that, and I say, well, I don't have
477
00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:04.359
money for a lawyer when they read me that, right,
478
00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:06.880
and they're like, well, just reread that, So they reread
479
00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:07.160
it to.
480
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:08.960
Me, and.
481
00:33:10.799 --> 00:33:12.359
I still don't have money for a lawyer, you know.
482
00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:15.079
And I'm kind of in my own messed up way,
483
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:17.680
I'm kind of indicating I don't have a lawyer. I
484
00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:19.519
don't have money for a lawyer. I'm indicating I want
485
00:33:19.559 --> 00:33:22.359
a lawyer, but I'm not telling them I need a lawyer.
486
00:33:24.200 --> 00:33:29.119
So they end up telling you, well, then you sign here,
487
00:33:29.240 --> 00:33:31.839
So I sign it, and they say, well, now that
488
00:33:31.960 --> 00:33:34.039
you signed, you've agreed to talk to us, so now
489
00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:37.759
we're going to talk. There's no do you want to
490
00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:40.720
talk to us? There's no do you want your attorney
491
00:33:41.279 --> 00:33:43.519
now that you signed your rights? There's nothing like that.
492
00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:45.519
It is do you've agreed to talk to us, now
493
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:51.279
we're going to talk. Well, under the tort law juveniles,
494
00:33:51.920 --> 00:33:55.680
anybody under eighteen cannot sign a contract, agreement, or legal
495
00:33:55.720 --> 00:34:00.839
binding form without a parent guarding or guarding tolightem present
496
00:34:01.039 --> 00:34:05.599
to protect the best interest of the delinquent or juvenile.
497
00:34:07.359 --> 00:34:11.679
And so the signing of my rights really is a
498
00:34:11.800 --> 00:34:17.360
violation in itself. So what made it worse is my
499
00:34:17.639 --> 00:34:20.599
parents didn't even know that was locked up. They had
500
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:23.800
to find out through police popping up at the house
501
00:34:24.320 --> 00:34:29.159
and through my aunt, and so they ended up my
502
00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:34.400
aunt my father come to the jail and they demand
503
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:39.480
to see me, and the jail goes, well, we're not
504
00:34:39.519 --> 00:34:43.800
going to do that, you know. They said, ah, we're
505
00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:49.440
interrogating them. Well, so my dad goes, well, you need
506
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:54.119
to tell them not to speak without an attorney, right, Well,
507
00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:57.199
we're not going to do that. We're interrogating them. So
508
00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:00.440
they would they knew had a parent or had already
509
00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:03.119
even been there, they would not have had that interrogation,
510
00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:07.239
you know. And nowhere in the interrogation that I say
511
00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:12.440
intended to kill John Klaang, just that I intended to
512
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:20.960
shoot him, you know, and it's fucked up. I accept
513
00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:24.559
a responsibility for what I've done, you know that that's
514
00:35:24.599 --> 00:35:28.119
my I did the actions, and I respect my responsibility
515
00:35:28.199 --> 00:35:34.559
for that. You know. I sat and booking for three days,
516
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:38.480
and then after three days they placed me in an
517
00:35:38.519 --> 00:35:45.159
intake pod for about two months, and it finally released
518
00:35:45.159 --> 00:35:53.559
me into general population, you know, in the jail. So
519
00:35:53.719 --> 00:35:57.239
were you Were you in jail as a juvenile offender
520
00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:00.000
or charged as an adult with other adults at the chair.
521
00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:03.880
They had charged me as an adult. You know, I'm
522
00:36:03.880 --> 00:36:07.920
a first time offender. I have no juvenile delinquency record.
523
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:11.800
And in the state of Wisconsin, if they're charging with
524
00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:15.119
first degree intentional homicide, even at the age of ten,
525
00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:18.679
it's a mandatory waiver to the adult correctional facility setting,
526
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:23.840
so they charged me as an adult. I had to
527
00:36:23.880 --> 00:36:27.159
try to fight to get back to juvenile court. So
528
00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:29.519
I was trying to fight to go back, but my
529
00:36:29.639 --> 00:36:33.320
lawyers didn't even argue all three proms that they were
530
00:36:33.360 --> 00:36:37.079
supposed to. They failed to. They didn't even argue one
531
00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:40.480
one of the proms. They argue two and left the
532
00:36:40.559 --> 00:36:47.280
third one in hiatus, you know ah. And then they
533
00:36:47.320 --> 00:36:50.599
didn't even appeal the decision that the court made. So,
534
00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:53.679
you know, I was left in the adult criminal system.
535
00:36:57.840 --> 00:37:00.880
So so were you? So you're al with have their
536
00:37:00.880 --> 00:37:05.320
adult offenders as a fifteen year old at the time? Correct, Yeah, yeah,
537
00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:09.639
I was. I was in had won sixty at the
538
00:37:09.719 --> 00:37:14.000
South County jail. It was crazy because I knew a
539
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:17.960
few of the people that were there, you know ah,
540
00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:21.400
and it was kind of interesting to be there with them.
541
00:37:22.159 --> 00:37:24.599
And then a lot of the people on the five
542
00:37:24.639 --> 00:37:28.360
they a lot and didn't mess with me because they
543
00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:33.400
knew that I knew people. They knew that of people
544
00:37:33.519 --> 00:37:36.159
I knew, it was just they knew it was a
545
00:37:36.199 --> 00:37:39.000
messed up situation. So a lot of people didn't mess
546
00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:42.639
with me. At the time, our county was contracted with
547
00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:45.400
Rock County inmates. So they were bringing Rock County and
548
00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:50.039
mates up there. I caught flack from them, you know.
549
00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:53.960
Eventually they brought Dane County inmates in and you know,
550
00:37:54.079 --> 00:37:56.400
they tried beef and left me a few times. And
551
00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:01.719
I had a guy on my unit. His name was
552
00:38:01.840 --> 00:38:06.440
his last name was Nodolf, and man, he would always
553
00:38:06.519 --> 00:38:08.719
go out of his way to snitch me out for
554
00:38:08.840 --> 00:38:13.320
anything I had did. I had gotten two tattoos done.
555
00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:16.559
It stuck me in the hole for those because you know,
556
00:38:16.760 --> 00:38:21.719
he ended up telling on me. And there's a few
557
00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:23.440
other times I ended up going to a hole because
558
00:38:23.480 --> 00:38:30.480
of him, you know. But she would never like sexually
559
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:33.079
abuse or assaulted or anything like that as a juvenile
560
00:38:33.199 --> 00:38:36.880
by other adult defenders. No, not when I was in
561
00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:43.519
the county jail. So you went to trial, correct, You
562
00:38:43.519 --> 00:38:48.000
didn't take a flea deal. Yeah, So the DA tried
563
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:51.280
to offer me life in prison. They wanted me to
564
00:38:51.320 --> 00:38:55.079
plead guilty to first degree intentional homicide, which is life
565
00:38:55.119 --> 00:38:58.960
in prison, and she offered me the eligibility of release
566
00:38:59.039 --> 00:39:04.440
after twenty years of initial confinement. It's not a guaranteed
567
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:06.400
to go home. It just means that you're able to
568
00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:10.519
apply to go home. At that time, I turned it
569
00:39:10.559 --> 00:39:12.320
down because I'm not going to plead. I wasn't going
570
00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:14.480
to plead guilty to something I was not guilty of.
571
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:19.880
I told my attorneys, I said, hey, I will plead
572
00:39:19.960 --> 00:39:24.800
guilty to first or second degree reckless endangerment for twenty
573
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:30.360
years incarceration, twenty years on extended supervision. You know, I'm
574
00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:33.159
guilty of a reckless homicide. I never wanted to kill John,
575
00:39:34.679 --> 00:39:39.559
and I even stand by that to this day. I
576
00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:44.199
understand what I've done to that family. There's nothing I
577
00:39:44.239 --> 00:39:45.679
can do to fix it. And it's a debt that
578
00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:51.679
I could never pay. It's a non replaceable debt. You
579
00:39:51.800 --> 00:39:57.880
could never weigh that back because you can't give them
580
00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:04.000
back their family member, you know. So I ended up
581
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.639
going to trial because I had my lawyers. They're like, well,
582
00:40:06.679 --> 00:40:08.360
we're not even going to offer that to the DA
583
00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:11.199
because they're not going to take it, you know. So
584
00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:14.039
my lawyers didn't even try to get me the plead deal,
585
00:40:16.079 --> 00:40:18.760
and uh little I know, I could have contacted the
586
00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:20.800
DA myself, but I didn't even know that at the
587
00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:22.960
time because I was kids, so why would I know
588
00:40:23.039 --> 00:40:29.800
anything of the legal system? And uh so I go
589
00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:35.079
to trial. I ended up having a guy on my
590
00:40:35.239 --> 00:40:41.719
jury that worked with my victim's brother, a teached substitute
591
00:40:41.760 --> 00:40:44.599
teacher from another school district that was also on my jury,
592
00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:47.840
a guy who was a victim of a stabbing when
593
00:40:47.840 --> 00:40:52.440
he was down South on my jury, and some woman
594
00:40:52.559 --> 00:40:54.679
trying to claim that she was a babysitter of mine
595
00:40:54.719 --> 00:41:00.000
at one point on the jury. It doesn't sound like
596
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:05.800
a fair jury to me, you know. And so they
597
00:41:05.880 --> 00:41:13.719
ended up finding me guilty first degree intentional homicide the
598
00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:16.880
next day. I was put up for sentencing. The following
599
00:41:16.960 --> 00:41:22.039
day they gave me. At this point, the DA was
600
00:41:22.239 --> 00:41:26.039
pushing for fifty years before I was eligible to file
601
00:41:26.119 --> 00:41:30.800
for a release, which is thirty years over what they
602
00:41:31.039 --> 00:41:34.800
were offering initially, which is still a life sentence, by
603
00:41:34.840 --> 00:41:39.639
the way, And then my lawyers pushed for the initial
604
00:41:39.719 --> 00:41:43.679
twenty years that was offered. The judge ended up saying, well,
605
00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:47.920
we're going to give you thirty years before you're eligible
606
00:41:47.960 --> 00:41:54.199
for release. That means that I'm pretty much eligible for
607
00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:57.119
release at the roughly around the age that John was
608
00:41:57.159 --> 00:42:01.000
when he when he passed away. So how did you
609
00:42:01.079 --> 00:42:03.320
feel after they told you that and you were handed
610
00:42:03.400 --> 00:42:11.840
down that sentence. As crazy as it sounds, the being
611
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:19.320
found guilty hurt the most. Destroyed me more that way,
612
00:42:20.599 --> 00:42:24.920
because I knew I was not guilty of intentional homicide.
613
00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:31.480
It's one of those things where, unlike most people, I'm
614
00:42:31.519 --> 00:42:33.320
not sitting there going, oh, let me off, let me off,
615
00:42:33.440 --> 00:42:35.480
Let me off. I didn't do nothing. I didn't do nothing.
616
00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:38.679
I admitted I did something wrong. I knew I did
617
00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:41.079
something wrong, and then I should be doing time for it.
618
00:42:42.760 --> 00:42:48.719
And so that's something that I had no problem taking
619
00:42:48.840 --> 00:42:52.679
my lickings for. But I did not intend to kill
620
00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:57.599
this man, and I was found guilty of it. Now
621
00:42:57.719 --> 00:42:59.800
once am I at case? Did I ever say intended
622
00:42:59.800 --> 00:43:06.280
to killing? And so it was a whole thing where
623
00:43:09.159 --> 00:43:12.360
when they say that you're guilty of that, it strips
624
00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:16.119
away everything you have in your mind and heart because
625
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:20.719
you know that's not what you've done. At that point,
626
00:43:20.760 --> 00:43:22.880
you know you're already serving a life sentence. So when
627
00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:28.800
they say thirty years, it's not a guarantee of anything.
628
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:32.920
I'm still here till I die if they choose to.
629
00:43:36.039 --> 00:43:38.800
So that the sentence thing wasn't as harsh to me
630
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:42.920
as the verdict. So a little bit ago it I
631
00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:45.800
asked you if you ever been assaulted as a juvenile,
632
00:43:45.840 --> 00:43:48.320
and you said no, have you ever been assaulted as
633
00:43:48.360 --> 00:43:51.000
a after getting to prison, whether you were still a
634
00:43:51.079 --> 00:43:54.239
juvenile then or as an adult. I was.
635
00:43:54.679 --> 00:43:55.639
Actually it was my first.
636
00:43:55.800 --> 00:43:59.679
Uh. It was actually not the first sell me. It
637
00:43:59.719 --> 00:44:04.400
was my second to sell me. It placed me in
638
00:44:04.440 --> 00:44:08.079
the room with a guy named Brandon Prisk. He had
639
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:12.079
actually taught security into putting him in the room with me,
640
00:44:13.519 --> 00:44:15.840
stating that I'll look out for them, I'll make sure
641
00:44:15.880 --> 00:44:21.440
nobody takes advantage of them in any formal old fashion,
642
00:44:21.599 --> 00:44:23.280
make sure that they know the ropes. This in my
643
00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:28.119
first rodeo, so they believed him. We were in the
644
00:44:28.199 --> 00:44:32.000
room for a while and then, you know, I noticed
645
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:37.039
that he was community friendly, you know, to the LGBT community,
646
00:44:37.159 --> 00:44:41.280
like he's community friendly. And at the time I had
647
00:44:41.320 --> 00:44:45.400
told him, I was like, you know, because I felt
648
00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:47.000
that I could confide in him. So I told him,
649
00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:49.920
I say, you know, there's time, you know, I feel
650
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:52.719
like I'm in the wrong body. This is I feel
651
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:57.400
like a woman, but I'm trapped, and he goes, oh,
652
00:44:57.559 --> 00:45:01.400
so you're transgender. I didn't know what the hell it was.
653
00:45:01.599 --> 00:45:04.760
I had never heard that term before that point, you know,
654
00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:09.400
because where I grew up, it was anything that's not
655
00:45:09.679 --> 00:45:12.480
straight is a fag, you know. That's what they say.
656
00:45:12.599 --> 00:45:16.519
That's just that's what they put you at. And uh,
657
00:45:16.760 --> 00:45:18.599
it's like, oh, so that's what that's called. So I
658
00:45:18.639 --> 00:45:24.719
had to day, I'll call you back. I gotta go
659
00:45:24.840 --> 00:45:27.519
get my meds real quick, and I'll call you right back. Okay,
660
00:45:27.639 --> 00:45:31.639
all right, sounds good. Yeah. So like he talks to
661
00:45:31.719 --> 00:45:34.400
these guys and the talk security into getting into my
662
00:45:34.519 --> 00:45:38.360
room and they agree, yeah, go ahead. So anyways, so
663
00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:40.519
I tell him about this and it was shortly after
664
00:45:40.599 --> 00:45:46.199
that he he actually grabbed me and he had me
665
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:51.039
ben oral and then he ended up you know, raping me,
666
00:45:51.960 --> 00:45:55.559
and this ended up going on for about eight months.
667
00:45:55.599 --> 00:45:59.639
At that point, my family saw that something was going on,
668
00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:07.920
and the security thought something was going on, so they
669
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:13.840
ended up pulling me out and security was like, what's
670
00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:16.920
going on? Is this transpiring? And of course I'm not
671
00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.280
going to tell him anything because you're it's a horrible
672
00:46:21.320 --> 00:46:26.800
situation if you do, you know, And uh it's like no, no, no,
673
00:46:27.360 --> 00:46:30.280
Well you've been acting real funny and you're distanced from
674
00:46:30.360 --> 00:46:38.840
everybody and nothing's adding up. And we noticed that there's
675
00:46:38.960 --> 00:46:41.800
been a lot of movement in a lot of things
676
00:46:41.840 --> 00:46:47.440
for him. So they're like, well, we're going to remove
677
00:46:47.559 --> 00:46:49.760
him from your room and place him in the north
678
00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:56.000
cell hall. And uh so they ended up taking and
679
00:46:56.079 --> 00:46:59.679
moving him out. And then you know, the lady I
680
00:46:59.800 --> 00:47:01.079
was work and the one that was talking to me,
681
00:47:01.119 --> 00:47:04.480
she says, you seem very relieved right now, says I'm
682
00:47:04.519 --> 00:47:07.760
not relieved. Okay, you're moving him. It is what it is,
683
00:47:08.679 --> 00:47:12.519
you know. But I was. I was ecstatic inside because
684
00:47:12.519 --> 00:47:13.920
it's like, oh, thank God, he's not going to be
685
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:17.199
in the room with me no more, you know. And uh,
686
00:47:18.079 --> 00:47:21.599
you know, you can't tell nobody because you know, at
687
00:47:21.639 --> 00:47:24.760
that point you'd be knowing as a snitch and in
688
00:47:24.920 --> 00:47:29.440
everybody else's view a fag and then and then in
689
00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:33.719
their own view even more, somebody who could not protect themselves,
690
00:47:34.119 --> 00:47:37.519
and that puts a target on your back more than
691
00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:43.480
what would already be there. So I just trudged on
692
00:47:43.639 --> 00:47:47.159
and kept my mouth shut, you know, to the best
693
00:47:47.199 --> 00:47:53.119
that I could. And And what did anything happen to him?
694
00:47:53.159 --> 00:47:55.760
Like did you end up telling what happened or did
695
00:47:55.840 --> 00:47:59.320
you just keep it a secret? To this day, I
696
00:47:59.480 --> 00:48:02.000
had to the secret for a long time. But I
697
00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:05.480
ended up telling a friend of mine who had talked
698
00:48:05.480 --> 00:48:10.079
to him, and she's like, yeah, she goes. I always
699
00:48:10.079 --> 00:48:15.039
thought it was kind of weird that he gravitated towards
700
00:48:15.079 --> 00:48:20.519
certain types of groups, you know, and and they and
701
00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:22.280
they are like and they always tried to get the
702
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:30.280
excuse that security just didn't help them all. And security
703
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:34.159
had a legitimate reason for removing him from my house,
704
00:48:34.800 --> 00:48:44.960
you know. But he ended up passing away from narcotic use.
705
00:48:46.480 --> 00:48:50.400
Uh back when I was in basketball, you know. I
706
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:52.800
found that out through my friend because they're like, yeah,
707
00:48:52.880 --> 00:48:54.920
they ended up going to hospital and they had an
708
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:58.360
infection around their heart and they got over that, but
709
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:00.199
then it was some type of fungle in fact in
710
00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:06.519
their lungs that ended up killing them, you know. But
711
00:49:06.639 --> 00:49:08.920
I never went out of my way to make make
712
00:49:08.960 --> 00:49:10.880
it a thing where he got a case or anything,
713
00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:18.639
because in my view, that wasn't it wouldn't have done
714
00:49:18.679 --> 00:49:25.440
nothing for me, you know, nothing positive, you know, and
715
00:49:26.079 --> 00:49:29.639
it would have actually made my maximum security time a
716
00:49:29.760 --> 00:49:34.559
hell of a lot harder than it already was. So
717
00:49:34.719 --> 00:49:38.639
how have your views on both violence and conflict changed?
718
00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:45.880
While incarstrated h could you elaborate on that a little more? Yeah, So,
719
00:49:46.039 --> 00:49:48.119
like how have your how have your view like how
720
00:49:48.320 --> 00:49:51.880
how do your views on like violence in general, like
721
00:49:52.280 --> 00:49:54.679
I guess like inside of prison and outside of prison,
722
00:49:55.360 --> 00:49:59.880
and conflict when it comes to like you know, like
723
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:02.760
you know, when some people like the conflict, don't they'll
724
00:50:02.760 --> 00:50:04.360
take out again or take out a knife. Like how
725
00:50:04.559 --> 00:50:07.679
how I have your views changed? Like what like do
726
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:11.039
you feel like you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
727
00:50:11.079 --> 00:50:15.320
I get it. Ah. So I was in Green Bay
728
00:50:15.360 --> 00:50:18.000
Corrections at the age of sixteen. That's the worst maximum
729
00:50:18.039 --> 00:50:21.639
security in the state of Wisconsin. I got there when
730
00:50:21.679 --> 00:50:26.400
I was sixteen and I did eight years there. And
731
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:31.480
you know neutrons, You got neutrons that walk around. Those
732
00:50:31.519 --> 00:50:36.480
are people that aren't grouped up with anybody. And then
733
00:50:36.519 --> 00:50:39.400
you got people that group up.
734
00:50:40.119 --> 00:50:40.280
You know.
735
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:46.199
I ended up taking and uh I was putting and
736
00:50:46.360 --> 00:50:51.440
work for you know, the Skinheads, which was it's another
737
00:50:51.519 --> 00:50:57.440
white it's a white supremacist organization. And I ended up
738
00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:03.199
being prospected back after period time, and then eventually I
739
00:51:03.360 --> 00:51:05.119
was recruited into the ranks and I worked up the
740
00:51:05.199 --> 00:51:08.280
ranks to where I was holding the house, you know,
741
00:51:08.400 --> 00:51:13.760
which is pretty much holding the yard I would. I
742
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:20.840
was very the organization gave me, I guess, a reason
743
00:51:20.920 --> 00:51:26.920
to embrace violence, so under the premise, under the guise
744
00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:31.679
of honor, you know, because it was one of those
745
00:51:31.719 --> 00:51:35.719
things that was, well, it's dishonorable to allow somebody to
746
00:51:37.079 --> 00:51:40.400
disrespect you, so therefore to gain your honor, you had
747
00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:46.800
to react to that. So if somebody was disrespecting one
748
00:51:46.880 --> 00:51:51.679
of my brothers or disrespecting me, I reacted in violence.
749
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:56.039
If you owed me some money or owed one of
750
00:51:56.039 --> 00:51:58.519
the brother's money, I reacted in violence. It was it
751
00:51:58.639 --> 00:52:03.239
went hand in hand with what it was. If one
752
00:52:03.320 --> 00:52:07.800
brother went, a lot of brothers went, and the inmates
753
00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:11.760
weren't the only ones that were off limit it, you know,
754
00:52:12.440 --> 00:52:16.079
everybody was up for grabs. It didn't matter if you
755
00:52:16.119 --> 00:52:22.400
were inmate or other, you know. And it was a
756
00:52:22.480 --> 00:52:25.039
scary thought of how far I had gone down the
757
00:52:25.119 --> 00:52:27.199
rabbit hole, because I had got to a point where
758
00:52:28.519 --> 00:52:31.639
were weird, had been worn out with a group of
759
00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:35.800
vice lords, and I had to take a bunch of
760
00:52:35.880 --> 00:52:38.599
straight stunting magazines that I had gotten from my neighbor
761
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:41.440
to a wood shop with me, and I drilled holes
762
00:52:41.440 --> 00:52:45.280
in them, and I made a body vest and I
763
00:52:45.400 --> 00:52:48.719
ended up having to make myself a weapon that could
764
00:52:48.760 --> 00:52:54.679
protect me in case somebody did attack me. It was
765
00:52:54.760 --> 00:52:59.199
around that time, I was in twenty fourteen that I
766
00:52:59.320 --> 00:53:04.559
started to really look at a lot of my actions
767
00:53:04.639 --> 00:53:10.719
and contemplate if they were even right or not, and
768
00:53:10.960 --> 00:53:13.639
really self reflect on who I was as a person
769
00:53:14.400 --> 00:53:16.960
and self reflect on my actions and how they actually
770
00:53:17.159 --> 00:53:20.760
hurt others. I didn't like causing pain to people. I
771
00:53:20.800 --> 00:53:25.159
didn't like hurting people, and it was like fighting your
772
00:53:25.239 --> 00:53:28.960
own will all the time, just battling it out with myself,
773
00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:33.800
and so I ended up getting transferred out of Green
774
00:53:33.880 --> 00:53:41.360
Bay Corrections to CCI in twenty fifty. Oh I got
775
00:53:42.079 --> 00:53:43.800
in twenty fifteen. They didn't know if they wanted to
776
00:53:43.840 --> 00:53:45.119
give me a cellar or not, so they kept me
777
00:53:45.159 --> 00:53:47.760
in a single sell for a small period of time
778
00:53:47.800 --> 00:53:49.440
before they gave me a roommate that they knew I
779
00:53:49.440 --> 00:53:53.679
could be in the room with. I told him. I
780
00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:55.599
told them right out, I said, you give me a
781
00:53:55.719 --> 00:53:58.119
roommate that's aggressive. I said, that's what you're going to get.
782
00:53:59.119 --> 00:54:02.360
You give me somebody who's calm, collective and chill. I'm
783
00:54:02.440 --> 00:54:07.320
calm collective, and chill. So at the time I was
784
00:54:07.360 --> 00:54:11.280
still gangbanging. Because I had gotten there, I was still
785
00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:15.000
on count and I had to check in with the
786
00:54:15.119 --> 00:54:19.559
householder there. I gave all my PRC papers, my legal
787
00:54:19.639 --> 00:54:21.239
work and everything. He said, oh, we don't need that,
788
00:54:21.360 --> 00:54:22.920
we already know who you are. And I was like,
789
00:54:23.039 --> 00:54:25.440
it doesn't matter. That's that's that's the law, that's what
790
00:54:25.519 --> 00:54:29.159
she's supposed to do, you know. But after a period time,
791
00:54:29.199 --> 00:54:31.639
I was in the room with this guy and he
792
00:54:31.719 --> 00:54:34.159
said to me one day, he says, you're an adult.
793
00:54:34.519 --> 00:54:38.079
And I was like, yeah, I'm an adult. He says,
794
00:54:39.719 --> 00:54:46.119
why are you allowing somebody else's rules that they call
795
00:54:46.320 --> 00:54:51.000
laws to control your life?
796
00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:52.960
You know?
797
00:54:54.039 --> 00:55:00.239
And so I was like all right. And he's like, well,
798
00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:07.880
so why you allow that to happen? All right? And
799
00:55:08.039 --> 00:55:12.280
so he says, why are you allowing that to happen?
800
00:55:12.920 --> 00:55:16.440
As you're an adult, you should follow your own moral code.
801
00:55:18.679 --> 00:55:20.400
And he says, I'm not trying to attack you in
802
00:55:20.440 --> 00:55:24.119
any way, he said, but just think about that. And
803
00:55:24.360 --> 00:55:26.599
so I thought about it, and I was like, you know,
804
00:55:26.719 --> 00:55:31.280
this man is correct. You know, why am I allowing
805
00:55:31.400 --> 00:55:34.480
this other set of laws and codes to dictate how
806
00:55:34.519 --> 00:55:36.679
I lived my life, and it's not actually promoting me
807
00:55:36.800 --> 00:55:42.039
anywhere in life. It actually upgraded my security level. And
808
00:55:42.400 --> 00:55:44.800
I was always in the hole and I was angry
809
00:55:44.960 --> 00:55:48.360
all the time, and I really hated myself because I
810
00:55:48.360 --> 00:55:50.920
couldn't be myself. I still knew who I was at
811
00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:52.800
the time, I was just hiding it for so long.
812
00:55:55.280 --> 00:55:58.199
And so I ended up talking to the head and
813
00:55:58.280 --> 00:56:01.119
I told him, I said, listen, I'm a juvenile lifer,
814
00:56:02.880 --> 00:56:05.320
you know. I said, I might have a chance to
815
00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:07.199
go home. And I said, but if I continued this life,
816
00:56:07.239 --> 00:56:10.599
I'm never going to go home. And he's like, I understand.
817
00:56:10.920 --> 00:56:14.559
I said, my views just don't line up with what
818
00:56:14.800 --> 00:56:19.480
it did, you know. So he gave me a respectful
819
00:56:19.559 --> 00:56:23.400
drop of my flag, and he ended up putting a
820
00:56:23.519 --> 00:56:27.559
note touch on me, you know, so that no, none
821
00:56:27.599 --> 00:56:30.199
of the brothers could jump me for what they viewed
822
00:56:30.199 --> 00:56:34.159
as a betrayal, you know. And he did it under
823
00:56:34.199 --> 00:56:36.400
to compromise that I would have to cover up my
824
00:56:36.519 --> 00:56:40.119
ink within two months, and I covered up all my
825
00:56:40.239 --> 00:56:47.199
ink that I had, you know. But to me today,
826
00:56:47.679 --> 00:56:52.519
the only time I could even justify an act of
827
00:56:52.639 --> 00:56:58.800
violence is through through the act of self defense and
828
00:56:58.920 --> 00:57:03.880
that's if somebody is harming you, and even then only
829
00:57:03.960 --> 00:57:09.079
to the point where the individual is no longer harming you,
830
00:57:09.440 --> 00:57:13.000
and then you must seize. If I was on the streets,
831
00:57:13.039 --> 00:57:15.119
I'd have no problem going to the police if somebody
832
00:57:15.320 --> 00:57:18.920
was harming me or someone did harm me or to me.
833
00:57:19.039 --> 00:57:21.280
It would be one of the says that it's a
834
00:57:21.440 --> 00:57:27.360
normal thing because it's what a law abiding citizen which
835
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:33.079
should do. And so yeah, I ended up getting out
836
00:57:33.079 --> 00:57:34.920
of that and I and I and I stepped away
837
00:57:34.960 --> 00:57:37.599
from as much of the violent shit as I could
838
00:57:37.639 --> 00:57:40.719
in my life. And it has gotten a lot better
839
00:57:40.760 --> 00:57:45.239
ever since. That's good. That's a good. That's a good. Uh,
840
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:50.599
you know, progress from where you were what nineteen thirteen
841
00:57:50.719 --> 00:57:54.880
years ago? Yeah, I was all the way up until
842
00:57:56.280 --> 00:57:59.039
ten years ago is when I officially left the organization.
843
00:58:01.400 --> 00:58:06.639
So nowadays in prison, what programs or therapies have helped
844
00:58:06.679 --> 00:58:10.800
you reflect and grow as a person. So it's kind
845
00:58:10.800 --> 00:58:12.639
of interesting because a lot of people think that the
846
00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:16.239
corrections doesn't help you when they actually do have a
847
00:58:16.280 --> 00:58:20.360
lot of programming. They're set up for you, but they're
848
00:58:20.400 --> 00:58:23.679
not just going to hand it to you. They expect
849
00:58:23.760 --> 00:58:29.920
you to take your responsibility as in an adult, to
850
00:58:30.119 --> 00:58:36.719
seek out these programs to better yourself. And so that's
851
00:58:36.760 --> 00:58:40.760
exactly what I did. I don't want to come back,
852
00:58:40.880 --> 00:58:43.280
I don't plan on coming back, and I'm never coming
853
00:58:43.360 --> 00:58:45.719
back because in my mind, there's always a way to
854
00:58:45.880 --> 00:58:51.719
make money legally. When I'll get help, there's reason to
855
00:58:51.920 --> 00:58:55.320
come back for more illegal activities. It doesn't matter if
856
00:58:55.360 --> 00:58:57.320
I have to eat a freakin' ra minudle soup for
857
00:58:57.440 --> 00:59:00.880
dinner when I get out. That's I need thirty cents
858
00:59:00.920 --> 00:59:05.159
out there, So you can't tell me I can't hustle
859
00:59:05.280 --> 00:59:07.360
up twenty to thirty cents that day to eat food.
860
00:59:09.519 --> 00:59:14.400
You know, a lot of people lose sight, and because
861
00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:18.639
they're losing sight, they're coming back and they feel that
862
00:59:18.719 --> 00:59:21.079
they don't have hope. But everything here is set up
863
00:59:21.119 --> 00:59:23.400
for you to seceed as long as you allow it
864
00:59:23.519 --> 00:59:25.960
to do so, and you have the responsibility to do it.
865
00:59:26.480 --> 00:59:30.159
I got my AHSD, I almost completed my trades program,
866
00:59:30.280 --> 00:59:33.559
but I got transferred to joint before I could. You know,
867
00:59:34.840 --> 00:59:40.639
I had taking College Math and College of Communications written
868
00:59:40.639 --> 00:59:45.239
in oral. I passed those. I've done CGIP, I did
869
00:59:45.880 --> 00:59:50.599
restorative justice, drawing a greener community, and I also did
870
00:59:51.360 --> 00:59:53.840
my anger management. The one that they gave you was crap,
871
00:59:53.920 --> 00:59:55.519
but I still went out my way and took the
872
00:59:55.559 --> 00:59:59.199
one on the tablet, you know, and the one on
873
00:59:59.280 --> 01:00:03.199
the tablet was are more supior than that. And I
874
01:00:03.639 --> 01:00:06.199
also realized I had to deal with my past traumas,
875
01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:11.280
so I read a lot of Brenet Brown, which was
876
01:00:11.320 --> 01:00:13.039
a lot of her self help books and stuff. I
877
01:00:13.119 --> 01:00:16.360
read a lot of that stuff, and her books truly
878
01:00:17.199 --> 01:00:21.880
help me get through a lot of the traumas from
879
01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:24.360
my past and realize it's not my shame, it's somebody
880
01:00:24.440 --> 01:00:27.800
else's shame for the things that transpired against me. But
881
01:00:27.880 --> 01:00:33.159
at the same time, take responsibility for my actions and
882
01:00:33.400 --> 01:00:36.599
understand that my actions are not an indication and do
883
01:00:36.760 --> 01:00:39.599
not dictate who I am as a person. Just shows
884
01:00:39.639 --> 01:00:44.239
that I've done I've made bad decisions. That all my
885
01:00:44.360 --> 01:00:47.239
future and present decisions are mine to make and they
886
01:00:47.280 --> 01:00:48.760
can be for the better or they can be for
887
01:00:48.840 --> 01:00:51.280
the worst. And I want to make sure that all
888
01:00:51.360 --> 01:00:54.360
my future decisions are for the worst, are for the better, sorry,
889
01:00:56.880 --> 01:00:59.000
but are for the better. And that's what I've been doing,
890
01:01:01.639 --> 01:01:04.360
you know, And that's why I'm.
891
01:01:04.199 --> 01:01:07.000
All calls other than properly placed, a term he called
892
01:01:07.159 --> 01:01:08.840
maybe monitored and recorded.
893
01:01:09.559 --> 01:01:13.039
That's why I've been down here for close to five
894
01:01:13.119 --> 01:01:16.119
years in a medium security facility is because I've been
895
01:01:16.239 --> 01:01:25.000
making the right decision. Well that's good. So what message
896
01:01:25.519 --> 01:01:27.400
would you want young people this year so they have
897
01:01:27.480 --> 01:01:33.679
what is similar path that you went down. Things can
898
01:01:34.079 --> 01:01:38.719
seem extremely bleak, like nobody is there to understand, and
899
01:01:38.800 --> 01:01:43.800
nobody can understand what you're going through. But there's others
900
01:01:43.880 --> 01:01:47.639
out there that are going through the same thing, and
901
01:01:47.760 --> 01:01:49.920
you can reach out to anybody, even if you think
902
01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:53.000
that that person's not going to listen, or you think
903
01:01:53.119 --> 01:01:56.760
some random person is not going to listen. You can
904
01:01:56.800 --> 01:01:58.559
go up to a random person or go up to
905
01:01:59.400 --> 01:02:01.119
if you have to go to a police officer and
906
01:02:01.199 --> 01:02:03.239
say I have to seriously talk to you about something
907
01:02:03.320 --> 01:02:07.000
that's going on in my life, they will literally sit
908
01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:12.199
down and listen. There's nothing wrong with admitting if you
909
01:02:12.280 --> 01:02:14.199
don't know how to do something. There's nothing wrong with
910
01:02:14.320 --> 01:02:20.280
admitting that you're struggling. Everybody struggles to think that nobody
911
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:24.760
does and that everything is perfect. That is not what
912
01:02:24.960 --> 01:02:31.559
life is, and life does actually get better, And there's
913
01:02:31.599 --> 01:02:37.400
no reason to nuclefi your whole life because you feel
914
01:02:37.440 --> 01:02:43.159
that nobody understands when there is so many other avenues
915
01:02:43.199 --> 01:02:49.239
to take to better. So in recent years, you've been
916
01:02:49.320 --> 01:02:52.440
transitioning in prison. Can you tell me what that journey
917
01:02:52.440 --> 01:02:57.760
has been like for you. Yeah. So, up till the
918
01:02:57.840 --> 01:03:01.920
time I actually came out as a transgender woman, I
919
01:03:02.000 --> 01:03:08.119
actually suffered from severe depression in suicide ideology every single
920
01:03:08.239 --> 01:03:14.719
day in twenty twelve, I actually succeeded. I overdosed intentionally
921
01:03:15.719 --> 01:03:17.199
because I looked in the mirror and I just kept
922
01:03:17.239 --> 01:03:19.679
seeing the woman that I was, and I just if
923
01:03:19.719 --> 01:03:23.920
I saw it, everybody else saw it, and and it
924
01:03:24.079 --> 01:03:27.719
freaked me out. So I ended up reacting and I
925
01:03:27.880 --> 01:03:31.199
overdosed it. I got to the hospital, I flatline for
926
01:03:31.280 --> 01:03:34.800
two minutes, I was brought back, and I sat there
927
01:03:34.800 --> 01:03:38.679
in the hospital for three days. I was in the
928
01:03:38.760 --> 01:03:48.480
processes around Christmas of twenty twenty one minute remaining. I
929
01:03:48.639 --> 01:03:52.840
ended up overdosing or not overdose. I was trying to, yeah,
930
01:03:52.880 --> 01:03:54.559
I can call you back at five o'clock and then
931
01:03:54.719 --> 01:03:59.079
we can wrap that up. So it was in around
932
01:03:59.159 --> 01:04:04.519
Christmas of twenty my depression hit really hard, and so
933
01:04:04.679 --> 01:04:08.480
I'm sitting there, I'm getting ready to actually hang myself
934
01:04:09.760 --> 01:04:12.440
and had the news tied up and everything I was
935
01:04:12.480 --> 01:04:15.840
gonna do. A lot of people know about when you
936
01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:19.199
squat down, you hyperventilate and huff up and down really fast,
937
01:04:19.239 --> 01:04:22.039
and you stand up and you'll black out right. So
938
01:04:23.760 --> 01:04:26.960
I get I squatt in the squatting position. I started hyperventilating,
939
01:04:27.039 --> 01:04:32.880
huffing really fast, and as I'm doing this, I have
940
01:04:33.039 --> 01:04:38.920
this weird moment of clarity where you know, I can
941
01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:42.880
be myself one time I got one shots just to
942
01:04:42.960 --> 01:04:48.119
be me, that that what I was doing at that
943
01:04:48.239 --> 01:04:50.800
moment would always be an option, but it was a
944
01:04:50.960 --> 01:04:55.440
final option. And if I did it at that time,
945
01:04:56.199 --> 01:04:59.519
nobody was going to know who I was. They were
946
01:04:59.559 --> 01:05:02.440
going to know this facade of a person who tried
947
01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:04.760
to live for everybody else in the way that they
948
01:05:04.840 --> 01:05:07.559
thought I should live my life instead of me just
949
01:05:07.679 --> 01:05:13.840
living my truth. And so I stood up, sat on
950
01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:19.679
the bunk and cried. I wrote to a friend of
951
01:05:19.760 --> 01:05:24.000
mine and I asked her because she was transitioning, and
952
01:05:24.039 --> 01:05:26.280
I asked her, I said, how do I start transitioning?
953
01:05:28.400 --> 01:05:32.480
You know? And while I was waiting for her to
954
01:05:32.880 --> 01:05:37.239
write me back, I had sent a Christmas email out
955
01:05:37.559 --> 01:05:43.079
mass email to friends and family, and I told them,
956
01:05:44.440 --> 01:05:46.000
you know, that there was a lot of changes in
957
01:05:46.079 --> 01:05:49.320
my life, and then I was tired of looking the
958
01:05:49.480 --> 01:05:55.159
thigh and that I was going to transition, and then
959
01:05:55.199 --> 01:05:57.840
I was going by Erica because it was one extra
960
01:05:57.960 --> 01:06:01.039
letter and it was easy for everybody that transition to that.
961
01:06:03.039 --> 01:06:04.960
So my friend writes me back and she tells me
962
01:06:06.079 --> 01:06:08.199
how to start doing that. So I wrote PSU and
963
01:06:08.320 --> 01:06:11.119
let them know it's something that I've been hiding for
964
01:06:11.199 --> 01:06:16.599
a long time and I'm tired of hiding. And everybody
965
01:06:16.639 --> 01:06:18.599
else that was my corner was like, yeah, we pretty
966
01:06:18.679 --> 01:06:21.880
much already knew. So I got to huge a kick
967
01:06:21.920 --> 01:06:23.679
out of it because they're like, they already knew about it,
968
01:06:24.760 --> 01:06:26.400
and I was like, well, how the hell did you know?
969
01:06:26.480 --> 01:06:28.639
And they're like, there's just certain things about you that
970
01:06:30.320 --> 01:06:35.519
just wasn't right, That you had more of a female
971
01:06:35.639 --> 01:06:38.880
quality about you than something we just recognized. But it
972
01:06:39.000 --> 01:06:40.920
wasn't our place to say nothing, because we didn't want
973
01:06:40.960 --> 01:06:42.000
to offend you or hurt you.
974
01:06:44.320 --> 01:06:44.639
And so.
975
01:06:47.039 --> 01:06:50.599
I ended up getting my Undergroundmars and everything right out
976
01:06:50.679 --> 01:06:53.320
the gate, and when I put them on for the
977
01:06:53.360 --> 01:06:56.000
first time, I just balked because I no longer felt naked,
978
01:06:58.719 --> 01:07:03.119
and they told me they wanted me to live registered
979
01:07:03.320 --> 01:07:05.480
like that for six months before they would make a
980
01:07:05.519 --> 01:07:09.840
recommendation to the d Department of Corrections headquarters here in
981
01:07:09.880 --> 01:07:15.320
Wisconsin before they would let me put for hormone treatment.
982
01:07:17.360 --> 01:07:20.599
So I did that for six months, and then they
983
01:07:20.719 --> 01:07:24.920
requested that I see a specialist, and it took me
984
01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:28.760
another six to eight months to see the specialist, and
985
01:07:29.679 --> 01:07:32.159
it was right before my birthday. They've proved me for
986
01:07:33.679 --> 01:07:38.920
hormone therapy and they diagnosed me with gender dysphoria and
987
01:07:40.599 --> 01:07:42.400
I had started my hormones. I've been a hormones for
988
01:07:42.480 --> 01:07:48.039
over three years now and it was a year after
989
01:07:48.119 --> 01:07:54.079
hormones I got approved for gender reassignment surgery, which I'm
990
01:07:54.119 --> 01:07:59.119
currently waiting for. I started my transition when I was
991
01:07:59.199 --> 01:08:04.880
in h Wisconsin Secured Program Facility, which is was the
992
01:08:05.199 --> 01:08:07.880
old Supermax, but it still ran as if it were
993
01:08:07.920 --> 01:08:10.800
a triple Max because you only come out with twenty
994
01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:16.760
people at a time. I started my transition there and
995
01:08:17.720 --> 01:08:20.439
I ended up getting transferred down to Medium, and so
996
01:08:20.520 --> 01:08:24.279
I've been transitioning down here ever since. And when I
997
01:08:24.359 --> 01:08:28.439
did start my transition, all my suicidal thoughts went out
998
01:08:28.479 --> 01:08:34.199
the word and longer, so I had that constant I
999
01:08:34.279 --> 01:08:36.520
felt voice in the back of my head just telling
1000
01:08:36.600 --> 01:08:40.199
me to end it. And the further I've gotten in
1001
01:08:40.279 --> 01:08:44.439
my transition, the happier I've become in my life, and
1002
01:08:45.319 --> 01:08:49.479
everything's coming back around. I got in contact with two
1003
01:08:49.560 --> 01:08:53.520
of my siblings that I ain't seen since I was
1004
01:08:53.640 --> 01:08:55.840
fourteen years old, let alone talk to him on the
1005
01:08:55.920 --> 01:09:00.600
phone since ever, you know. So we're starting to get
1006
01:09:00.640 --> 01:09:04.640
back into each other's lives, and my other cousins on
1007
01:09:04.720 --> 01:09:06.920
my mom's side are finally coming back into my life.
1008
01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:08.800
And it's not for a lack of trying for my
1009
01:09:08.920 --> 01:09:12.560
half or their half, you know. It's just they kept
1010
01:09:12.600 --> 01:09:16.000
getting the wrong information from individuals from my dad's side
1011
01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:22.359
of the family. And it was really hard because when
1012
01:09:22.399 --> 01:09:24.640
I found out about that, I found out that my
1013
01:09:24.720 --> 01:09:31.840
little sister, who no longer is actually why Nona, he's Gabriel.
1014
01:09:31.920 --> 01:09:37.000
He's transgender. So two of my one of my siblings,
1015
01:09:37.680 --> 01:09:39.800
out of the three of us, two of us are transgender.
1016
01:09:40.399 --> 01:09:42.760
So I was kind of entertaining to find that out.
1017
01:09:43.600 --> 01:09:48.680
And my brother Chris, he's he's just he's bisexual. But
1018
01:09:48.800 --> 01:09:50.840
I found out more about that side of the family
1019
01:09:51.000 --> 01:09:55.279
is most of that side is actually part of the community,
1020
01:09:57.079 --> 01:09:59.119
and it kind of made me wonder if that was
1021
01:09:59.279 --> 01:10:03.520
why my other side of the family tried to keep
1022
01:10:03.600 --> 01:10:08.039
me from that side, because that side has strong support
1023
01:10:08.399 --> 01:10:11.720
for them and strong support for people that are like me.
1024
01:10:12.760 --> 01:10:18.279
You know, I've run across very ignorant people, and surprisingly
1025
01:10:19.279 --> 01:10:23.000
a lot of white individuals that are very ignorant. I've
1026
01:10:23.039 --> 01:10:25.720
come across a lot of black guys that are very
1027
01:10:25.920 --> 01:10:31.960
very ignorant about this situation. I had a couple old guys.
1028
01:10:32.000 --> 01:10:33.319
They are like, well, you're always a man, You're going
1029
01:10:33.399 --> 01:10:34.800
to be a man, this and then, and you're just sick,
1030
01:10:35.039 --> 01:10:36.960
sick pervert, You're a fact whatever you know, and the
1031
01:10:37.000 --> 01:10:40.680
Bible says this and then. So my response is always this.
1032
01:10:40.840 --> 01:10:45.079
I said, for an individual who comes from a group
1033
01:10:46.439 --> 01:10:53.079
that doesn't like to be discriminated against, disliked because they
1034
01:10:53.119 --> 01:10:55.119
are who they are and it is who they are
1035
01:10:55.279 --> 01:10:59.800
and doesn't agree with prejudice, I said, you are very
1036
01:11:00.039 --> 01:11:04.159
quick to discriminate and prejudice against me for me being
1037
01:11:04.199 --> 01:11:12.239
who I am. And a few days exactly correct, he goes,
1038
01:11:12.319 --> 01:11:18.159
I apologize, and I just I don't really have a
1039
01:11:18.199 --> 01:11:22.359
place in my heart right now pretty much anymore for
1040
01:11:22.680 --> 01:11:25.680
for hate. I don't have a place in my heart
1041
01:11:25.800 --> 01:11:30.560
for discrimination of any kind because we're all human beings
1042
01:11:30.640 --> 01:11:32.199
in the end, and that's and we all want the
1043
01:11:32.239 --> 01:11:32.600
same thing.
1044
01:11:32.960 --> 01:11:35.920
Calls other than properly placed, the term be called maybe
1045
01:11:36.079 --> 01:11:37.840
monitored and recorded.
1046
01:11:38.279 --> 01:11:43.359
Which is love, acceptance, and peace to east they own.
1047
01:11:43.439 --> 01:11:45.399
It's always been supposed to be the fact. You know,
1048
01:11:45.520 --> 01:11:48.199
this is the United States of America, the home mi
1049
01:11:48.319 --> 01:11:52.680
land of freedom, and the fact of freedom is to
1050
01:11:52.720 --> 01:11:54.560
be able to live your life as you would want
1051
01:11:54.640 --> 01:11:57.079
to live your life, as long as it doesn't harm
1052
01:11:57.159 --> 01:12:01.119
another person. And I think a lot of people today
1053
01:12:01.239 --> 01:12:06.840
forget that when they're preaching hate rhetoric against trans people,
1054
01:12:06.880 --> 01:12:11.720
are gay people, or other individuals for things that they
1055
01:12:11.760 --> 01:12:17.159
can't change. You're stepping in on their rights and their
1056
01:12:17.239 --> 01:12:20.560
freedom because you don't understand. But it's not for them
1057
01:12:20.600 --> 01:12:25.640
to understand. It's that person's right to be themselves and
1058
01:12:25.760 --> 01:12:28.359
nobody should be able to tell them otherwise, as long
1059
01:12:28.399 --> 01:12:32.960
as they're not hurting somebody, you know. But my transition
1060
01:12:33.039 --> 01:12:36.720
has been very well since I've been incarcerated. I was
1061
01:12:37.319 --> 01:12:46.920
shut down for transfer to TCI. I had pushed for
1062
01:12:47.119 --> 01:12:51.079
transfer to a female facility in compliance with the DAI policy.
1063
01:12:52.680 --> 01:12:54.960
The Department of Corruption has denied me my transfer, even
1064
01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:57.000
though they have the policy staying I can over a
1065
01:12:57.119 --> 01:13:01.439
minor conduct report. Mind you, one ticket four years and
1066
01:13:01.520 --> 01:13:04.560
they used that against me. But I already know it's
1067
01:13:04.600 --> 01:13:07.399
really based off the because the fact that I haven't
1068
01:13:07.439 --> 01:13:11.479
had my operation and they're just discriminating on that, which
1069
01:13:11.520 --> 01:13:13.800
I had to file a complaint, which subsequently I'll ended
1070
01:13:13.880 --> 01:13:20.119
up filing a lawsuit. But my biggest battle so far,
1071
01:13:20.279 --> 01:13:22.640
other than getting a proof of the surgeries and everything,
1072
01:13:22.800 --> 01:13:27.399
was Marathon. It was actually on it was on Friday,
1073
01:13:28.119 --> 01:13:32.239
so it was on Friday. I had a court proceeding
1074
01:13:33.880 --> 01:13:37.880
for a legal name change. Usually the Department of Corrections
1075
01:13:37.960 --> 01:13:43.720
fights against name changes, and they actually gave me approval.
1076
01:13:44.920 --> 01:13:47.920
The court approved to me for my name change, including
1077
01:13:48.359 --> 01:13:53.399
to me on my birth Okay, so I am legally
1078
01:13:53.479 --> 01:13:56.880
and officially known as Erica Jordan, or not Erica Jordan.
1079
01:13:56.960 --> 01:14:02.000
It's Erica Rizzo Haynestock. You know, I always went with
1080
01:14:02.039 --> 01:14:05.359
the name Rizzo because it reminds me of Rizzo from Greece.
1081
01:14:05.520 --> 01:14:10.479
She is somebody who always played tough and strong, but
1082
01:14:12.479 --> 01:14:14.279
she held a lot of her emotions in and she
1083
01:14:14.399 --> 01:14:17.079
hurt very deep, you know, when it mattered, and a
1084
01:14:17.159 --> 01:14:19.920
lot of people misunderstood her. So that's why I went
1085
01:14:19.960 --> 01:14:25.439
with Rizzo. It's my middle name. But I was so
1086
01:14:25.560 --> 01:14:29.520
happy when that happened. I damn near bald. It's just
1087
01:14:29.680 --> 01:14:31.520
nice to be able to have my name, know that
1088
01:14:31.640 --> 01:14:37.039
it's mine, you know, and not an alias as it were.
1089
01:14:37.760 --> 01:14:40.439
It's it's a slong hard vattle, a slow hard vattle,
1090
01:14:40.520 --> 01:14:45.520
because people don't understand. But and then it's like I said,
1091
01:14:46.359 --> 01:14:49.479
who can understand? You know? I try to break it
1092
01:14:49.560 --> 01:14:51.439
down the best way that can with people. I said,
1093
01:14:52.319 --> 01:14:56.039
take somebody who is a natural born woman or a
1094
01:14:56.159 --> 01:15:00.880
natural born man. You've lived twenty thirty years, forty or
1095
01:15:00.960 --> 01:15:05.119
fifty years in the same exact body. But say you
1096
01:15:05.159 --> 01:15:10.359
wake up tomorrow and everything you've known is the opposite.
1097
01:15:13.039 --> 01:15:16.600
You're going to freak out. And that's a life that
1098
01:15:16.920 --> 01:15:20.479
we live every single day. It's living in a halloween
1099
01:15:20.560 --> 01:15:26.600
costume that we know is not ours. But it's too
1100
01:15:26.680 --> 01:15:30.359
much for other people to understand. So to close this
1101
01:15:30.479 --> 01:15:33.880
out today, let's talk about a book you've written. It's
1102
01:15:33.920 --> 01:15:39.680
actually a prison cookbook. Tell me what all that is about? Yeah,
1103
01:15:39.840 --> 01:15:42.359
so a long time ago. I was actually when I
1104
01:15:42.399 --> 01:15:43.800
was in Green Bay, I had a lot of people
1105
01:15:43.880 --> 01:15:47.000
that would ask me to cook food form because I
1106
01:15:47.640 --> 01:15:51.439
very unique in my taste and the way I cooked
1107
01:15:51.560 --> 01:15:56.640
didn't violate any of the DAI policies. So I wrote
1108
01:15:56.680 --> 01:15:59.439
my first cookbook and it was called the Wisconsin Prison
1109
01:15:59.520 --> 01:16:03.760
Cookbook thirty three Ways to step by step Ways to
1110
01:16:03.840 --> 01:16:06.760
Free your taste Buds. I've always firmly believed that just
1111
01:16:06.800 --> 01:16:10.960
because you're incarcerated doesn't mean that your tastebuds, our flavor
1112
01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:15.640
should be incarcerated. So taking the very limited supply of
1113
01:16:15.680 --> 01:16:18.680
what we're offered on a commissary and making it into
1114
01:16:19.880 --> 01:16:22.439
something that you can feast on that tastes like home cooking,
1115
01:16:22.720 --> 01:16:25.399
you know, stuff summer sauce just cooked in a bee stew.
1116
01:16:25.520 --> 01:16:28.920
You know those types of things, barbagie chicken and cheese
1117
01:16:28.920 --> 01:16:32.000
filled dumplings. You know. I do all these different things,
1118
01:16:32.039 --> 01:16:35.560
including my cheesecakes, and those are things that were in
1119
01:16:35.640 --> 01:16:39.880
my first cookbook. I am actually currently which is all
1120
01:16:40.359 --> 01:16:44.880
which is also on Amazon and everything. But I'm actually
1121
01:16:45.079 --> 01:16:49.079
currently writing my second cookbook, which is The Wisconsin Prison Cookbook,
1122
01:16:49.119 --> 01:16:54.000
Volume two. No Noodles Required. In this cookbook. You don't
1123
01:16:54.079 --> 01:16:57.359
need ramen noodles at all to make any of the food.
1124
01:16:57.399 --> 01:17:00.640
It's all beans, rices meats, and cheese stuff in there,
1125
01:17:01.359 --> 01:17:05.039
like case ideas and prison canolis and all kinds of
1126
01:17:05.159 --> 01:17:10.159
other really good options including drinks and homemade barbecue sauces
1127
01:17:10.239 --> 01:17:13.399
and stuff. Now when I'm hoping to have done and
1128
01:17:13.600 --> 01:17:18.520
completed and published by June of next year, you know,
1129
01:17:20.079 --> 01:17:26.640
but everything comes in good time, right Well, about exciting
1130
01:17:29.720 --> 01:17:32.239
I had there was something that compiled for a long time,
1131
01:17:32.319 --> 01:17:34.840
and I actually got it published in twenty nineteen.
1132
01:17:35.680 --> 01:17:35.840
You know.
1133
01:17:38.199 --> 01:17:40.640
I know of at least one prisoner in Wisconsin custody
1134
01:17:40.720 --> 01:17:43.720
that has seemed the cookbook in the facility, So that's
1135
01:17:43.760 --> 01:17:49.119
pretty interesting. I hate you those a little commission across
1136
01:17:49.159 --> 01:17:51.840
people that have it. I've had a lot of people
1137
01:17:51.920 --> 01:17:53.520
come up that have had it and they're like, oh
1138
01:17:53.600 --> 01:17:56.920
my god, it's you could you you know, sign it?
1139
01:17:56.920 --> 01:17:59.039
And I try to tell people that I don't want
1140
01:17:59.079 --> 01:18:01.439
to sign anything because I don't want somebody to construe
1141
01:18:01.920 --> 01:18:06.479
what it is. You know, my cooking message and the
1142
01:18:06.479 --> 01:18:08.279
stuff that I put in there was so that people
1143
01:18:08.439 --> 01:18:11.680
don't have to violate any of the rules, you know,
1144
01:18:11.920 --> 01:18:14.000
The last thing I want is for somebody to make
1145
01:18:14.079 --> 01:18:17.399
something that's in these meals and break the rules and
1146
01:18:17.479 --> 01:18:19.640
get in trouble. That's the last thing that any of
1147
01:18:19.720 --> 01:18:22.520
us need is to get in trouble for just trying
1148
01:18:22.560 --> 01:18:27.279
to fill our stomach, you know. And so when I
1149
01:18:27.319 --> 01:18:29.039
get people that get them and they're just like, man,
1150
01:18:29.119 --> 01:18:31.680
it tastes like home, or tastes like Grandma's food, or
1151
01:18:32.399 --> 01:18:36.439
you know, it doesn't taste like it came from the commissary,
1152
01:18:37.800 --> 01:18:39.680
it puts a huge smile on my face because I
1153
01:18:39.760 --> 01:18:46.000
know that they're truly enjoying it. Yeah, that's amazing, that's awesome.
1154
01:18:49.079 --> 01:18:51.920
So is there anything you would like the public to
1155
01:18:52.000 --> 01:18:56.680
know about yourself or your case before we conclude today. Well,
1156
01:18:56.840 --> 01:19:00.439
I'm currently working on a sentenced modification and hoping that
1157
01:19:00.520 --> 01:19:04.239
I can get my thirty years before eligibility push to
1158
01:19:04.319 --> 01:19:09.479
a twenty years before eligibility. We all change. We're not
1159
01:19:09.640 --> 01:19:13.279
the same people we were back when your kids. You know,
1160
01:19:13.760 --> 01:19:15.840
I was a very dumb fifteen year old and I
1161
01:19:15.960 --> 01:19:19.279
was gullible to a lot of things. And now here
1162
01:19:19.319 --> 01:19:24.239
I am a full fledged woman and I'm changing into
1163
01:19:24.279 --> 01:19:27.119
a better person. A lot of us do want to
1164
01:19:27.159 --> 01:19:28.600
do good things when we get out there, and that's
1165
01:19:28.640 --> 01:19:32.319
my goal, you know. And I know there's a lot
1166
01:19:32.359 --> 01:19:33.840
of people that want to do good when they get
1167
01:19:33.880 --> 01:19:35.680
out there, and then there's people that will come back,
1168
01:19:36.560 --> 01:19:38.960
and it's just sad that that is the case, but
1169
01:19:39.119 --> 01:19:43.760
it is the reality of the matter, you know. And
1170
01:19:44.000 --> 01:19:47.520
I'm a very loving, caring person. I'm a Jane of
1171
01:19:47.560 --> 01:19:50.399
all trades. You know, I could pretty much do anything
1172
01:19:50.439 --> 01:19:53.199
if I put my mind to it. You know, I
1173
01:19:53.359 --> 01:19:57.920
love to talk, and I'm very deeply intellectual when it
1174
01:19:57.960 --> 01:20:02.600
comes to think about things fully and thoroughly. And I
1175
01:20:02.720 --> 01:20:05.039
also try to see things from everybody else's view too.
1176
01:20:06.119 --> 01:20:09.640
You know, you can't truly have a conversation with somebody
1177
01:20:09.680 --> 01:20:12.800
if you don't, you know, try to see where they're
1178
01:20:12.800 --> 01:20:16.279
coming from. You might not, they might not change your opinion,
1179
01:20:16.479 --> 01:20:18.239
but that's not the point. It is to try to
1180
01:20:18.319 --> 01:20:22.159
see what they see and if you can, cool if
1181
01:20:22.199 --> 01:20:26.960
you can't, that's all right too. In most all right,
1182
01:20:29.239 --> 01:20:30.840
that's something that I learned through all the years.
1183
01:20:36.479 --> 01:20:40.399
That was my interview with convicted murderer Erica Haynestock. Thank
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you for listening. See you on the next one.