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

replaced an article of clothing it was with something black. I never again wore any color until after I was arrested. My appearance had been changing gradually, too. I had allowed my hair to grow long and tangled until it looked like Johnny Depp’s hair in the movie
Edward Scissorhands
.
    I noticed Brian talking to an older man, who I later discovered was the “youth pastor.” When Brian came back and sat next to me, he said the youth pastor didn’t like the way I was dressed, that it appeared “satanic.” Brian suggested that I at least take off the black duster, so I did as he requested. His eyes grew large as he urgently said, “Put it back on!” Evidently my shirt, which was emblazoned with the Iron Maiden slogan “No prayer for the dying,” was a church “don’t.” I hadn’t even thought about it before that moment, but it drew a great deal of attention from everyone else. That moment became one of the nails hammered into the coffin that sealed my fate and sent me here.
    As I sat in the Monroe County jail some years later, waiting to go to trial for murder, I saw that youth minister on the television screen. He was practically rabid as he ranted about “pacts with the devil.” He seemed psychotic. Simply the fact that I wore such a shirt to a church function was enough to convince a great many people that I had to be guilty.
    My influence on Brian’s life crept in gradually. His manner of dressing changed, his hair grew long and shaggy, and he no longer listened to Christian rock bands. He soon fell into the “freak” category. He wore silverware for jewelry and chain-smoked clove cigarettes. He was no longer above sneaking into his mom’s cabinet for a drink or two every now and then. He took up skating and became better than I had ever been.
    He was better because he was fearless. It was as if the possibility that he could fall and damage himself never even crossed his mind. Some part of me was always scared that I was going to fall when trying something new, so there would be a slight hesitation or a sense of holding back. Brian never had that; he hadn’t yet learned that pain waits for you around every corner—and it was apparent just by watching him.
    Soon I was staying at his place on weekends, or he at mine. On spring days, we’d go to the convenience store down the street from his house to get chocolate milk, Popsicles, and cigarettes, then sit on the curb and watch people going in and out. It doesn’t sound like much fun, but it was relaxing to me.
    For some reason I can no longer remember, I began keeping an odd sort of journal during this time period. It was a plain black notebook with no special characteristics, but in the years since it has become one of the most embarrassing and humiliating aspects of my existence. Everyone else is free to forget their period of teenage angst. I am not. That damnable notebook is always there to remind me. To be honest, I’m always amazed that I still get letters from people telling me how much they’ve enjoyed reading the parts that are known to the public and asking for more. There is no accounting for taste. I’m appalled that I ever wrote such trash. One day while watching my favorite sitcom a character on the show remarked, “Ever since they decided poems don’t have to rhyme, everyone thinks they’re poets.” How true. He may as well have been pointing at me.
    I wrote about typical teenage bullshit: depression, loneliness, heartache, angst, free-floating anxiety, thoughts of suicide. Even after I tired of it I was enticed into writing more by the only factor that has motivated boys since the beginning of time—a girl. Ultimately she kept the notebook, and I forgot all about it. I never even saw it again until I found myself on trial a couple of years later. Not only would I find myself on trial for something I was innocent of, but the prosecutors would rub salt into my wounds by reading my most private thoughts and feelings before a packed courtroom, television cameras, and newspaper reporters. Somehow this was considered “evidence.” A bad hairdo, a black wardrobe, teenage angst-ridden “poetry,” and a taste for hair bands is enough to send you to prison. Death Row, no less.
    The notebook became filled with all sorts of things I hardly remember—quotes, bits of information, lines from my favorite stories, and “poems” I had written. I can bring myself to call them that only with tongue in cheek. When I hear or read