Women in Prison
Four years have passed since I wrote my first letter to a female inmate who has spent many years on death row. About the same amount for a second one who’s death sentence was overturned. What put these two behind bars waiting for their own life to end?
I’ll update this story daily so check back to keep up with it.
4 years ago I watched this program on TV that highlighted a website called writeaprisoner.com. I thought this would be pretty neat and decided to check out the site myself. Once I got to the site I started checking out the ads from the inmates all across the country. I stayed with the female ads because, yep, I’m a male and I allready know how we think. Now I’ve been married for almost 26 years so even three years ago meant I’ve had a long history with my wife. I didn’t think she would get too excited over this new fixation I had, but just in case she did, I decided to keep it to myself.
This site has hundreds and hundreds of female inmates and for some reason I was more interested in the ones that had committed the most severest of crimes. I don’t know what it was that captivated me towards that type of person other than I don’t personally have a side of me like that and I wanted to know how a mind like that clicked.
I guess it’s interesting on how there are two sides to life. A bright side and a dark side both running parallel with each other. The bright side is most easiest to understand. It’s made up of the general population following certain moral and ethical values in search of a comfortable lifestyle while here on earth. That’s us, we get up each day realizing that if we don’t go to work we will go no where. We understand the need to earn and save for things we want. We respect other people other than the occassional bird we may flip someone for doing something we thought was stupid at the time. We control our urges and fantasies. We try to set good examples for our children and understand the philosophy of a family. We have compassion and we have learned to express our emotions. this is us, the side that is fenced out.
Comment by kirkalbertson — January 29, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
The more I sorted through the ads the more captivating they became. I was looking for the ones that had like real long sentences because those most likely had committed murder. After spending a few hours on the site I found three women I wanted to write.
The way I decided on who I wanted to write was to google their name and then look up the crime. One was imprisoned in Texas, one in California and one was in Pennsylvania. The woman in Texas took part in the murder of her stepfather, the one in Pennsylvania was convicted of aiding in the murder of a shop owner and distributing his bodyparts in trash bags throughout Philadelphia and the woman in California was a ghost. I didn’t find anything on her, but I found her ad interesting.
Comment by kirkalbertson — January 30, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Aurora Moreno, Kelly O’donnell and Traylee Poirier were their names. Aurora is Texas, Kelly is Pennsylvania and Tray is California.
I sent out an email to each one. Now they don’t have computers so the emails I imagine go to the website then forwarded to the proper addresses. Each one of them wrote me back. The first contact was more of an introduction note than to really expose anything about me or find out anything about them.
Everyone of them wrote back. I immediately became very interested in Kelly from Penn.
Here is her story based on court documents and internet sights.
Kelly had a very tough upbringing and at a young age hooked up with drugs and alcohol. She worked at a nightclub as a dancer and had either a boyfriend or husband who was also into drugs and alcohol. They were constantly finding ways to make enough money to maintain their habit. Kelly befriended a pizza shop owner and would bring him items that he would pay cash for. On the night of the murder Kelly showed up at the shop with a leather coat to get some money. After chatting briefly with the owner they agreed to meet later and have a few drinks. After the shop was closed he met Kelly at a lounge and drank untill after midnight. The guy went home with Kelly and according to Kelly began to make drunken unwanted advances. While this was happening Kelly’s boyfriend shows up after a long night of drinking and surprised the both of them. He went into a rage and beat the guy up with a hammer. Later that morning his body was moved to the basement where it was dismembered put into plastic bags and taken to dumpsters around the city to get rid of. They took his car and set it on fire to destroy the final bit of evidence. With in the next couple of days they were arrested for capital murder, tried, convicted and given the death penalty.
Comment by kirkalbertson — February 1, 2008 @ 11:27 am
To read more about Kelly Odonnell follow the link.
http://www.bighouseart.com/Misc/Gina_Bonanno.pdf
Comment by kirkalbertson — February 2, 2008 @ 11:37 am