strongernow
06-30-2004, 08:34 AM
Paroled killer lives to serve
'God had mercy on me,' ex-inmate says
By CARLOS CAMPOS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/26/04
MACON — Charlie Young trembles as he names friends who were led away to die in Georgia's electric chair.
Alpha Otis O'Daniel Stephens. Jerome Bowden. William Tucker. Billy Mitchell. Timothy McCorquodale. John Young. Joseph Mulligan.
Young waited on death row for his turn to die. It never came. After 28 years in prison, he was released on parole in December.
"They didn't do any worse than I did," Young said recently of some of Georgia's most notorious killers. "But I'm only here by God's grace. I deserved the same thing they got. But God had mercy on me."
Now Young, 57, is adjusting to life on the outside. And he is using his remarkable story to warn others to avoid his grave mistakes.
Young was sentenced to death for the vicious 1975 murder of a banker in Union Point, his east Georgia hometown. Young was on death row for almost four years. Appeals courts overturned the verdict, ruling that his trial lawyers had been ineffective. Young then agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
Over the years, he molded himself into a model inmate. He was never written up for violating prison rules, he worked hard on job details, he completed educational programs and expressed remorse for his crime. He became a devout Christian.
The state parole board, in a controversial 3-2 vote, released Young on Dec. 3. So far, he has given the board reason to believe it made the right choice.
Scott Belk, Young's parole officer, says Young works hard and stays out of trouble.
"He'll come into my office, he'll lift my spirits up — he's got such a strong faith and such a positive attitude," says Belk, a parole officer for 17 years. "He's got a powerful statement. When you hear him say he's had three execution dates set . . . he is thankful to be alive and to be out and he doesn't take it for granted."
After six months in a Macon halfway house, Young recently moved into a home with his schoolteacher wife, Judith Ann — a pen pal who wrote him in 1978 while he was on death row and married him 14 years later in a prison ceremony. Young cleans offices at night for a modest paycheck, hoping to find a better job.
This month, he returned to the prison that last held him, Baldwin State in Middle Georgia, to speak to the men with whom he once did time. Young, a tall, slender man with jug ears, wore a blue pinstriped jacket, blue dress slacks and a tan shirt as he walked through the front offices he cleaned as an inmate.
Former inmates usually aren't allowed to return to the prisons where they served. But Young has received permission to tell his story.
During a worship service, he urged the inmates to take responsibility for what they have done and stop blaming the system for their problems. Bad choices landed him in prison, he said. Good choices got him out.
"If the problem is you, God can't help you until you admit you are wrong!" Young shouted into a microphone. "I can stand here after three dates with death and truly say there's nothing too hard for God."
The prisoners gave him a standing ovation. Afterward, they lined up to hug him and shake his hand.
"It gives me hope," said James Patrick, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a 15-year-old girl in 1977. "And I hope that the parole board and Georgia citizens, in particular, will understand that there are other Charlie Youngs in here."
'I went berserk'
As Young recounts what happened on Dec. 15, 1975, he seems painfully aware of how much he took away from Reuben Flynt and his family.
Then 28, Young had fallen behind on two loans at the bank where Flynt, 47, was vice president. The bank had transferred responsibility for the loans to Young's grandmother, who had co-signed.
Young went to the bank to talk with Flynt, whom he had known since childhood, and was told Flynt had gone home for lunch. Young then went to Flynt's home, and the friendly banker let him inside.
Young says that he was desperate to get the loans renewed in his name. He was ashamed that he had let the burden fall to his beloved grandmother, who had raised him. Young says he had been a poor father and husband, drinking heavily and womanizing.
When the banker refused his request, Young shot him four times and repeatedly bashed his head into a kitchen wall. He left Flynt lying face down in a pool of blood.
"I went berserk," Young says. "I never should've killed that man. And I know that. It's something that people may never forgive me for."
Young took Flynt's wallet and demanded $60,000 from the bank where Flynt worked. He was arrested as he walked out with a sackful of money.
At this point in the story, Young's voice lowers to a whisper and tears fill his eyes.
"If I could change what I did, I would," he says. "But I can't. And I realize I've caused them a lot of pain. I said it in the courtroom . . . I'm sorry for what I've done. I can't change things, but God has changed me. And now I want to help others."
Flynt's family opposed Young's parole. Flynt's daughter, Clarice Thompson, said the family worries that Young could relapse into the "monster" who took her father's life.
"We're glad that he's speaking to people that can get in trouble or have gotten in trouble and hope that he makes a difference in their life," Thompson said. "As Christians, we believe that that is possible. But I don't know exactly what people want us to think or want us to say."
Amazed that someone cared
Young credits his wife with helping bring about his transformation.
In 1978, Judith Ann Bedard wrote to prison inmates from her home in Massachusetts through a pen-pal program. In her first letter to Young, she wrote about Jesus Christ. In a postcript, she wrote, "Charlie, I'll be here for you as a friend as long as you want me to."
Young was amazed that someone would show concern for a condemned killer. It took a few years, but he eventually embraced Christianity.
"She didn't love me for sex, she didn't love me for money, she didn't love me for things," Young says. "Because I didn't have none of those."
Judith Ann and Charlie corresponded for years and eventually began talking on the telephone. They finally met at a South Georgia prison in 1991.
A week of visits confirmed everything she had believed about him.
"I had counselors and guards and the secretaries there coming up to me . . . saying he is really something else and speaking up for him, and that's unusual," says Judith Ann Young, 50.
Today, Charlie Young moves with the confidence of a free man, but he retains a few habits from spending half a lifetime behind bars. When he speaks loudly during an interview in the dining room of a quiet home, a friend reminds him that it's no longer necessary to shout above the din of restless prisoners.
Simple things bring him pleasure, such as attending a basketball game with his grandson. A prison guard once told him that the little boy couldn't sit on his lap during prison visits, a demoralizing blow to a grandfather. There's the fried chicken, country-fried steak, collard greens and macaroni and cheese at Anderson's Diner in Macon. Even cooking popcorn in a microwave oven — a newfangled device as far as Young is concerned.
Dot Pinkerton, director of the Lighthouse Missions in Macon, has eased Young's transition. She runs two houses that provide former prisoners with a place to live while they get back on their feet. The mission helps them find a job, get a driver's license and purchase groceries and clothes.
Pinkerton, who has worked with inmates for 24 years, calls Young "the poster boy" for prisoners who turn their lives around.
As Young waited to address the inmates at the recent prison service, he sang along to a hymn sung by the pastor's son. The words carried special significance for a man who for so many years was drowning in his own horrible choices:
"And I never said a prayer that He couldn't answer. And I never shed a tear that He could not dry. Now when the waves of life are so high that you can't mount them, He will roll you over the tide."
'God had mercy on me,' ex-inmate says
By CARLOS CAMPOS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/26/04
MACON — Charlie Young trembles as he names friends who were led away to die in Georgia's electric chair.
Alpha Otis O'Daniel Stephens. Jerome Bowden. William Tucker. Billy Mitchell. Timothy McCorquodale. John Young. Joseph Mulligan.
Young waited on death row for his turn to die. It never came. After 28 years in prison, he was released on parole in December.
"They didn't do any worse than I did," Young said recently of some of Georgia's most notorious killers. "But I'm only here by God's grace. I deserved the same thing they got. But God had mercy on me."
Now Young, 57, is adjusting to life on the outside. And he is using his remarkable story to warn others to avoid his grave mistakes.
Young was sentenced to death for the vicious 1975 murder of a banker in Union Point, his east Georgia hometown. Young was on death row for almost four years. Appeals courts overturned the verdict, ruling that his trial lawyers had been ineffective. Young then agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
Over the years, he molded himself into a model inmate. He was never written up for violating prison rules, he worked hard on job details, he completed educational programs and expressed remorse for his crime. He became a devout Christian.
The state parole board, in a controversial 3-2 vote, released Young on Dec. 3. So far, he has given the board reason to believe it made the right choice.
Scott Belk, Young's parole officer, says Young works hard and stays out of trouble.
"He'll come into my office, he'll lift my spirits up — he's got such a strong faith and such a positive attitude," says Belk, a parole officer for 17 years. "He's got a powerful statement. When you hear him say he's had three execution dates set . . . he is thankful to be alive and to be out and he doesn't take it for granted."
After six months in a Macon halfway house, Young recently moved into a home with his schoolteacher wife, Judith Ann — a pen pal who wrote him in 1978 while he was on death row and married him 14 years later in a prison ceremony. Young cleans offices at night for a modest paycheck, hoping to find a better job.
This month, he returned to the prison that last held him, Baldwin State in Middle Georgia, to speak to the men with whom he once did time. Young, a tall, slender man with jug ears, wore a blue pinstriped jacket, blue dress slacks and a tan shirt as he walked through the front offices he cleaned as an inmate.
Former inmates usually aren't allowed to return to the prisons where they served. But Young has received permission to tell his story.
During a worship service, he urged the inmates to take responsibility for what they have done and stop blaming the system for their problems. Bad choices landed him in prison, he said. Good choices got him out.
"If the problem is you, God can't help you until you admit you are wrong!" Young shouted into a microphone. "I can stand here after three dates with death and truly say there's nothing too hard for God."
The prisoners gave him a standing ovation. Afterward, they lined up to hug him and shake his hand.
"It gives me hope," said James Patrick, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a 15-year-old girl in 1977. "And I hope that the parole board and Georgia citizens, in particular, will understand that there are other Charlie Youngs in here."
'I went berserk'
As Young recounts what happened on Dec. 15, 1975, he seems painfully aware of how much he took away from Reuben Flynt and his family.
Then 28, Young had fallen behind on two loans at the bank where Flynt, 47, was vice president. The bank had transferred responsibility for the loans to Young's grandmother, who had co-signed.
Young went to the bank to talk with Flynt, whom he had known since childhood, and was told Flynt had gone home for lunch. Young then went to Flynt's home, and the friendly banker let him inside.
Young says that he was desperate to get the loans renewed in his name. He was ashamed that he had let the burden fall to his beloved grandmother, who had raised him. Young says he had been a poor father and husband, drinking heavily and womanizing.
When the banker refused his request, Young shot him four times and repeatedly bashed his head into a kitchen wall. He left Flynt lying face down in a pool of blood.
"I went berserk," Young says. "I never should've killed that man. And I know that. It's something that people may never forgive me for."
Young took Flynt's wallet and demanded $60,000 from the bank where Flynt worked. He was arrested as he walked out with a sackful of money.
At this point in the story, Young's voice lowers to a whisper and tears fill his eyes.
"If I could change what I did, I would," he says. "But I can't. And I realize I've caused them a lot of pain. I said it in the courtroom . . . I'm sorry for what I've done. I can't change things, but God has changed me. And now I want to help others."
Flynt's family opposed Young's parole. Flynt's daughter, Clarice Thompson, said the family worries that Young could relapse into the "monster" who took her father's life.
"We're glad that he's speaking to people that can get in trouble or have gotten in trouble and hope that he makes a difference in their life," Thompson said. "As Christians, we believe that that is possible. But I don't know exactly what people want us to think or want us to say."
Amazed that someone cared
Young credits his wife with helping bring about his transformation.
In 1978, Judith Ann Bedard wrote to prison inmates from her home in Massachusetts through a pen-pal program. In her first letter to Young, she wrote about Jesus Christ. In a postcript, she wrote, "Charlie, I'll be here for you as a friend as long as you want me to."
Young was amazed that someone would show concern for a condemned killer. It took a few years, but he eventually embraced Christianity.
"She didn't love me for sex, she didn't love me for money, she didn't love me for things," Young says. "Because I didn't have none of those."
Judith Ann and Charlie corresponded for years and eventually began talking on the telephone. They finally met at a South Georgia prison in 1991.
A week of visits confirmed everything she had believed about him.
"I had counselors and guards and the secretaries there coming up to me . . . saying he is really something else and speaking up for him, and that's unusual," says Judith Ann Young, 50.
Today, Charlie Young moves with the confidence of a free man, but he retains a few habits from spending half a lifetime behind bars. When he speaks loudly during an interview in the dining room of a quiet home, a friend reminds him that it's no longer necessary to shout above the din of restless prisoners.
Simple things bring him pleasure, such as attending a basketball game with his grandson. A prison guard once told him that the little boy couldn't sit on his lap during prison visits, a demoralizing blow to a grandfather. There's the fried chicken, country-fried steak, collard greens and macaroni and cheese at Anderson's Diner in Macon. Even cooking popcorn in a microwave oven — a newfangled device as far as Young is concerned.
Dot Pinkerton, director of the Lighthouse Missions in Macon, has eased Young's transition. She runs two houses that provide former prisoners with a place to live while they get back on their feet. The mission helps them find a job, get a driver's license and purchase groceries and clothes.
Pinkerton, who has worked with inmates for 24 years, calls Young "the poster boy" for prisoners who turn their lives around.
As Young waited to address the inmates at the recent prison service, he sang along to a hymn sung by the pastor's son. The words carried special significance for a man who for so many years was drowning in his own horrible choices:
"And I never said a prayer that He couldn't answer. And I never shed a tear that He could not dry. Now when the waves of life are so high that you can't mount them, He will roll you over the tide."