Taking Risks For a Dollar
This is just an example of what can happen, if you step beyond your limitations... I did that, one day last year... I regret this whole ordeal, but I have learned a very valuable lesson, in dealing with it... I have been very blessed, because my whole case was handled, very professionally, by a very good group of official, all the way from the first to the last... from begining to present... In Missouri, what I did, could have taken me into the same hell, my husband lives in every day... I thank God and all the Moberly Correctional Center guards, Moberly, Mo. police, Randolf County Courts and their prosecutor, Judges and PSI workers... My court appointed Attornys, and My probation Officer... for all their help, understanding and compassion, in all of this. I also need desperately to apologize to my family & friends, for not being all they expected me to be... I made a mistake... I'm sorry and maybe in doing these pages I can save just one, someone else, from making the same one I did. Love and Blessings ~KattN~
On December 15, 2002, Like a hundred Sundays before, I went to visit my husband G. at Moberly Correctional Center, in Moberly Missouri.
The only thing different this Sunday, than in the hundred before, was I knew that I was about to do something I never considered, even in my wildest dreams, before this.
I was about to attempt to carry drugs into my husband, so we could make some money for Christmas.
Times were tight, not enough money for the bills, let alone to buy gifts, or send G. any thing to get what he needed this month.
I had never attempted anything like this before and I was scared to death.
at age 52, I had absolutely no arrest record, very minor traffic violations, and even those were years ago.
I was a truck driver for gods sake, had a spotless CDL., just down on my luck right now, because I got arthritis in my knees, and found myself an insurance risk, to any trucking company.
I fought for over two years, to get my disability, trying to live on $80 a month, general relief, until I could get Social Security.
I had never been through such hard times, I was use to having money, making lots of money, and spending the same.
So when the paycheck stopped, it began to start a depression, like I had never known.
By the first of 2002, I had already been through all of my savings, and had already started borrowing, to even survive.
G. also was feeling the effects, of my being down. I couldn't send him money like I used to, and it made it extremely hard, for him to get the things he needed in there.
,G gets, from the state of Missouri, $7.50 state tip, that equils $93 a year and even if he serves his full 25 years, day for day, that's only $2325, which isn't a lot, to spend, not even in prison.
And it is not common public knowledge, but there is a lot that an inmate has to buy for himself, that isn't supplied by the state.
Everyone assumes, that everything the inmates need, is given to them, this just isn't so.
They are supplied with the bare the necessities and even that, is quite grudgingly supplied, by some.
G. had always kept me away from the, "risky" side of things in there, because he didn't want me involved, with things that could hurt me.
Just a couple of weekends before, I had seen one of these, so-called, transactions take place in the visiting room.
G. told me it happens all time and then explained that he had a chance to make some money, if we would do it just once. How simple can you get... "Just Once!"
Since hard times are the times temptation kicks us in the head hardest, this seemed to be a chance sent from heaven.
Good way to say that... it justifies stupidity a lot in human senses
As badly as I was hurting by now, I was willing to take any chances.
Not just for me, but to make the season better for him to.
It all looked so easy, and even though I knew it was wrong, I chose to go that route.
I never realized, exactly how much was its stake when I made this choice.
I also never ask, or discussed the fact, What will happen, if we get caught???
As they say, hindsight is 20/20... so let me hind site, be a guide to you, if your faced with this decision.
The one question you MUST ask yourself, before you decide to do something like this, no matter how much you love this other person, "What are You Risking?"
I neglected to do this... and I had no idea what the true risks were.
By the time I had been processed into the visiting room, I was feeling pretty good, everything seemed to be going well, and I began to relax.
When G. finally came down to the visiting room, I was again feeling a little scared.
He asked me if I had brought the stuff, and I said I had.
He told me, that he didn't like the way things felt, and didn't want to do it.
He said things didn't look right to him and didn't feel right to him, but by then I was afraid, to try to carry it back out.
I evidently couldn't see the same things that he was seeing or feeling, and probably never would, considering I don't live in that environment.
I should have heeded his fear, even if I ignored my own.
We drug our feet most of the afternoon, not wanting to do it, but at the same time, was to deep into it, for us not to do it.
When started getting close to time, for me to leave we finally decided to go ahead and get it done.
I'm not going into sordid details of how it was done... it doesn't matter... those of you who do it, know for your self and those of you who don't, have no reason to learn.
(I refuse to give lessons in "Delivery methods")
when I dropped it to him, within a matter of seconds, there was guards all around us.
We weren't allowed to touch each other, or say anything to each other.
All we could do, was to glance at each other, and that might have been the thing, that I would have rather not done, at that moment.
The look on my husband's face was one I'll never forget, yet will spend the rest of my life praying that I can.
There was no anger in it, only fear and worry, and heartbreak!
Two guards had him, one by each arm, and a sergeant in front of him, they were pulling him away, as quickly as they could.
Only one female guard, was with me, and asked me to follow her, so I did as I was asked.
She was one of the regular guards, and had seen me almost every weekend, since G. had come to this facility.
She was always respectful to me, and even in this, she remained respectful.
I think if it had been my job, I would have lost some of the respect, for the person involved, but she assured me that she went through this several times a month.
.
I was worried what would happen to G., she was honest with me, and gave me answers to most of my questions.
She assured me, that G would find no sympathy, for his part in any of this and shouldn't expect any, because he used me.
I promise you, mutual consent, doesn't hold a lot of water in a situation like this.
Of course she had to search me completely, but even in that, she did not take my dignity, yet still took the time, to explain what she was doing.
I was taken out of the visiting room area, and upstairs into the offices, to wait on the police.
I was about to be arrested, for delivery of a controlled substance.
The controlled substance, being Oxy cotton, which at the time I didn't know.
The police officers from Moberly Missouri, got there about 20 minutes later.
They talk to the guards, and then the officers inspected the evidence, and came in talk to me.
They explained to me that I was under arrest.
It was required that they put me in handcuffs...
I had never been in cuffs before and never want to go through that again!
You see all these movies and crap, that show the police manhandling the perp, and yanking them around and I have no doubt that this does happen...
they weren't at all nice to G when they removed him from the visiting room and I'm sure handcuffs were the least of his problems after that...
but these officers, that were dispatched to do their duty, had no intention of hurting me or scaring me, more than I was already.
In fact, they took a lot of time and effort, to try to make me as comfortable as they could...
Thanks Guys... you know who you are... I'm a very big lady and quite fluffy, ( for those of you that tare already on the defense of the system... thats FAT and it doesn't hurt my feelings to be told I am!) so the cuffs were going to be uncomfortable, no matter what they did, other than give me a warning and send me on home... but I had ask for this one and knew that couldn't be a factor here and now.
The cuffs cut deeply into my wrists, and the officer in charge, adjusted them several times, because he felt they were too tight. ( I did too but was too busy being in a state of shock, to even say anything)
They walked one on each side of me to the police car and ask where my car was parked... I showed them... they pulled up to it and ask if I had anything I needed to get from the car. I did ask for my cigarettes and purse, from the trunk.
The officer ask if he could search the car and explained that it would be towed away from the prison and I'd have to get a release from the police station to get it out of tow... I gave him permission to search... after all I knew they had everything already, why worry now.
The second officer than came and ask if there was anything in the car they should know about... I told them no and he proceded to tell me he was about to read me my Meranda Rights...
Again a million movies I had watched in my lifetime flashed before me and it all seemed so unreal, until I heard that infamous beginning dialog... "You Have The Right To Remain Silent..." I knew the rest of it, but I really can't say I heard the rest... I just seemed to die right there...
that old thing about at the moment of death your whole life flashes before your eyes... well it was happening to me and my body was still breathing...
And I think, a very valuable part of me did die... right then and there... the innocence and pride of never being involved in a crime, was The first thing I lost.
The only other time I can remember ever felling such a great loss in my life, was in my last divorce, when I had no explanation of what or why, just that it was... Just a black Guff, with nothing to fill it's expansive emptiness. G was the one that gave that emptiness a center, and begin filling in the emptiness.
But, my mind lost it's center, right then too...
G had all of a sudden become a very distant concern, where, up to that point, he was my main concern...
The officers finished their search, of my car, my purse, my make up bag, my briefcase and anything else, that had an inside of it.
I had told them to search anything they needed to... there was nothing there... They didn't tear up anything and were very careful to put things back as closely to the way I had it as they could...
This was not something I expected from them either... so for what I lost, I also found something very important...
Not all arrests are violent and destructive...
I had been sent a really good group of law enforcement to bring me from innocence and ignorance... into my new light as an accused felon.
All My Love