after all? had they left her a single mother? was everything happy and pure now gone? it was morning in the kitchen. jayne stared out the back door of the ranch house in san miguel. and that s when she saw it, there was a skeleton out there, a walking dead man, it took a moment to register. it was eduardo, all but unrecognizable, suddenly old man, emaciated, skin and bones. she opened the door. i pulled him into me and put my arms around him, and he just felt so cold. it was literally as if he was already dead and i just started kissing him all over his cheeks. he could barely talk. he just whispered and told me, i love you so much. it was as if his freedom had come at the last possible moment before death. earlier jayne had put doctors and a psychologist on stand by for just such a moment as this. he refused them. and there by the door, as she held him in her arms, he begged her for her special banana pancakes.
killing at the age of 16, his sentence was changed to life without parole. i was outside. an officer called me to the red door that goes back into death row, told me to pack my stuff, that i was being moved to the segregation unit. i packed my stuff and left. you hear a lot of stuff about prison. and i was scared of leaving the environment that i had become known in, people knew me and i knew people, to a new environment that everybody says is worse. so, in that respect, i was scared. i was happy not to have the death sentence, but i was scared to go to the seg building. it is still a death sentence. i was scared to go there. i still feel like i m a walking dead man. i m not going to be executed. but i m going to die in prison. the difference in the sentence
you become a walking dead man in here. you understand what i m saying? you re a walking dead man. ain t nobody really see you. it s like the old saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. 33-year-old inmate herman johnson is doing 12 years for a felony drug conviction. he is currently housed in cellblock 5. in here you lose a lot of things on the outside. and you really find out a lot about people by coming to prison, you know. paul poplin has been to prison several times over the last ten years for drugs and fighting. this is a big cell actually because of the way it s situated with the toilet over here. there ain t much to them. you know. i guess it ain t that bad here, you know. it could be worse. been in worse. like being in a cage basically. that s why i try and stay out as much as possible.
inmates that assault staff, inmates that assault other inmates are going to come to stateville and they re going to lock up. don t holler at me. yes, sir. in stateville, it s like you re dead. but you re living. you know, like a walking dead man. that s how it is in here. you re living but you re dead. as he left office, governor george ryan made a dramatic decision. rocking the justice system in illinois. ryan granted clemency to all death row inmates, saying the system was broken. ryan commuted 167 death sentences, reducing nearly all to life without parole. until 1998 executions were carried out at stateville correctional center, outside chicago. today nearly half its prisoners are in for murder. stateville had a long reputation as a place where inmates challenged guards for control. how that all changed is the big story behind the walls of stateville.
an officer called me to the red door that goes back into death row, told me to pack my stuff, that i was being moved to the segregation unit. i packed my stuff and left. you hear a lot of stuff about prison. and i was scared of leaving the environment that i had become known in, people knew me and i knew people, to a new environment that everybody says is worse. so, in that respect, i was scared. i was happy not to have the death sentence, but i was scared to go to the seg building. it is still a death sentence. i was scared to go there. i still feel like i m a walking dead man. i m not going to be executed. but i m going to die in prison. the difference in the sentence isn t that great. now i wait 20, 30 years before i