Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

a word about Lakeshore itself. It was a pretty big place, as far as trailer parks go. It consisted of two hundred trailers, give or take a few. They were nearly all run-down and beat-up, having put their best days long behind them. Nearly every one of them had a small yard surrounded by a chain-link fence. The majority of those fences held dogs, which were the only form of “home security” we knew. Without a dog and a fence, it was just a matter of time before everything in your yard would be stolen and the gas sucked right out of the tank of your car. The latter was accomplished with nothing more than a piece of hose and a bucket. The residents and locals rarely had regular jobs, although some worked at a box factory nearby. People were more often self-employed thieves or scroungers—for scrap metal, copper, anything you could sell. Addiction of all forms—drinking and meth were the most popular—were daily recreational activities.
    People who have seen it in the many years since I left have told me it’s changed quite a bit, that it’s no longer the same place. Now it’s clean, the residents plant flowers in their yards, and they wash their cars. People are neighborly and friendly, and even cops live there. Old people live there after they’ve retired. I suppose it would now be considered lower middle class. That’s a big difference from the days when I knew it. To hear of these changes saddens me, because I feel that the last vestiges of what I knew as home are now gone. The world has moved on while I’ve been behind these walls. I no longer feel as if I have any roots. It seems that there’s a whole new world out there, and I’ve become an old man in body and mind if not in years.
    The heart of Lakeshore was indeed a lake. A lake so green and scummy that most fish no longer inhabited it, and you were strongly advised against swimming in it, because it would not be wise to swallow the water. The bottom of the lake was an old boneyard of newspaper machines, wheelbarrows, box springs and mattresses, rusted bicycles, tangled fishing line, busted tackle boxes, broken fishing poles, and anything else your mind could conceive of. Before we went on trial, the cops claimed they found a knife there that had been used in the murders. I don’t doubt that at all, and I would not be surprised if they found a dozen more. My attorneys thought it was most likely planted there to make me look bad, which could very well be true. I also believe it’s just as likely to have been thrown in there by one of the many people who used the lake as their own personal dumpster.
    That lake was a monster. I miss it terribly. I now think of it as being beautiful in its own green, scummy way, although I can understand why those who lack my nostalgia would not. In my mind, that lake has become like the Ganges, capable of washing away the pain, fear, suffering, and misery caused by years of incarceration for something I didn’t even do. That lake has become a magickal thing to me now and has come to represent “home” more than the Mississippi itself.
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    W hen writing about your life, it’s impossible to include every detail, or even the most uneventful life would require several volumes to record. You have to look back over your life and ask yourself, “What really mattered? What were the big moments that shaped me and made me who I am?” For me, one of those big events was becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
    As far back as I can recall, I’ve always been extremely interested in religion, spirituality, and spiritualism. For me those words cover a wide range of topics, including clairvoyance, ESP, apparitions and hauntings, druids, reincarnation and rebirth, prophecy, and even attending Mass or praying, among others. Around the fourth grade I started to read books on Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, astral projection, and the healing properties of crystals and stones. If it was connected to spirituality in any way at all, then I was interested. I believe this may have somehow been in response to all the sermons about hate, fear, and the wrath of God that I’d been hearing. I suppose I needed something that would balance that.
    One day, while looking through the stacks in the library, I encountered a shiny new book on Catholicism written for teens. It was intended to teach young Catholics the meaning behind each thing they’re supposed to do during Mass. I was about fourteen or fifteen when I found it, and I