The following is the second of a two-part story developed from an interview with a convicted sex offender currently serving in the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

Convicted offender
tells story of the
life he left behind

By Misti Strader
Tribune-Courier News Editor
mstrader@tribunecourier.com

EDDYVILLE – David said he had all but given up hope when help came from one of the most unsuspecting sources.

“I broadcasted my crimes to inmates in hopes that someone in prison would just kill me,” he said. “But the greatest turning point for me was meeting a young man who turned out to be a praise and worship leader at the facility.”

David went on to say it would not be possible for him to share his very personal story without mentioning that he has “come to know the Lord deeply” and that his belief has “taught him new principles that have changed his mind about having hope for a new life.”

David took a moment and looked down at his hands, lifting them slightly.

“When I think about what these hands have done – I don’t mean just the sexual things, either – I wonder what it was that allowed me to give myself permission to act in those ways.”

David has since sought the answer to that question.

What he said he found, was forgiveness in cleansing.

“When I came here, I began to understand the motivating influences that affected me since childhood and I knew they had to be addressed if I was to ever going to live a successful life.”

David said he sought out others in prison with whom he felt he could begin to safely share his story and “depths of personal depravity with.”

He said he began to cleanse himself of the things he had done and began a process of forgiveness. “I even wrote letters to friends and family telling them I was working on forgiving myself for what I had done – but they never wrote me back.

“People can’t understand how after doing what I have done I could possibly forgive myself, but no one can live their life looking in the rear-view mirror.”

David said as a result of his studies in ministry and time spent in the facility’s rehabilitation program, he has been able to look at what he has done and define it as wrong.

David now teaches bible school, with aspirations of entering full-time ministry when he completes his sentence in 2016. He currently works in the prison’s rehabilitation program in the capacity of teacher’s aid.

Of his life change, David said he feels he has been able to turn a lifetime of negatives into positives.

“For most of my life, I viewed people as cattle. If they did not have a direct benefit in my life, they had no value and that is what allowed me to be able to abuse them.

“With the Lord’s help, I have been able to change the definition of the value I see in people and know there is a capacity for greatness in everyone. I do not say things like, ‘God is my crutch,’ that is just an excuse.

“You hear people in here all the time say, ‘I don’t have to go to treatment because God delivered me. Those kinds of people are the ones who are likely to re-offend.

“When new offenders come into the system, they are still busy making excuses for what they have done and justifying their actions,” he said.

“Offenders cant tell me they ‘didn’t know they were going to do it’ or that ‘it just happened.’ I know better because I have been there.

“There is a process we, as offenders go through. Whether it is robbery, murder, or sexual offense, we have to give ourselves permission to do those things and the walls of denial have to be broken down.”

Of his new lease on life, David said, “at times in my life I laid down in my bed at night, and just want to cry because I have spent most of my life being so ugly and having such anger in me.

“Now, to be able to lay down at night and be clean is hard to describe. It’s like starting a new life. I can take a breath of air and I am no longer forced to smell the stagnant bile of my own thoughts.”