She Now Wears Prison Whites!

You know at my age rarely should anything shock me anymore. Do most of us think that when we get older? Maybe it is because in our lives we have seen so much or even experienced it first hand.

Then out of the blue something will happen and you are blown away by it and realize you have not heard or seen it all there is will always be someone or something to shock you.

In this case it was a co-worker of mine at the prison I worked named Sherry.  My first position at the prison was an entry level one to get my foot in the door. Never did I dream that once that foot was in that door it would be there for years.  Sherry came into my life a few months after I was already working in the Mail Room.

I have to tell you the Mail Room position was the funniest job I have ever had in my life. We read both incoming and outgoing mail written to and by the inmates. It was hilarious to read their mail.

Each clerk was given a section of the alphabet to read. I am thinking mine was like S thru Z. The reason for a clerk to read one section day in and day out was to get to know the inmate and the people writing him. We were looking for anything that might set an alarm off that things were not right such as escapes, drugs, thoughts of suicide and of course gang related.

It was a full day because you not only read incoming and outgoing but you had other clerical duties in the mail room. Sherry and I sat next to each other in a very small working area.

This was in the late 80’s so smoking was the permitted everywhere. There were eight of us clerks in the small room with a nutty supervisor. None of us smoked thank goodness until the day Sherry came into our lives. She was a smoker and a chain smoker to boot.

Since the room was not the size of some people’s big walk in closets we were in trouble.

Each of us asked Sherry not to smoke in the room but to go out in the lobby which was right there by our office. When I look back now and know what I do about her I can see that she was the kind of person that could care less about anyone else. Obviously now I know she was one of those people that was living only for her self.

She ignored our pleas for not smoking in the office. We each suffered because of her selfish character.

I honestly believe she was one of the reason’s I had breast cancer. 

So you get the picture for the next nine months that I worked in the Mail Room I got to know all the ladies pretty well and have fond memories of most.  The very first week working with Sherry we found out she had two girls by a previous marriage and her first husband was raising her children. Having gone through a divorce years before this and raised my three children by myself until I remarried I could not even imagine not raising my kids. I worked three jobs to keep them with me. This thing about Sherry bothered me mainly because I could tell it was no big deal to her. She seemed to me not to be upset that she was not part of her daughter’s lives.

After the mailroom I went into Security where I started a whole new life of being a Correctional Officer. Several years later Sherry divorced her husband and became an Officer too.  Our paths crossed little during this time. We worked different shifts but would see each other at functions given by the Unit.

You are probably by this point get on with this story Maggie….geez enough. Haha

 

Well a few years ago through my friends still at the prison I found out Sherry had been divorced again and remarried a retired Sargeant. She also had left TDCJ-ID and was living on a small farm with her husband and his father.

Turns out one morning Sherry murdered both of them while they were in bed a sleep. She had taken one of their rifles and heartlessly walked into their rooms and shot them. Cold blooded killer was now what she had turned into. 

Also charged but not for murder was the ex-husband of Sherry's that raised her daughters. It seems he had moved to this area and he and Sherry were together a lot and she confided in him about killing her husband.

Thank goodness Sherry was careless and ended up being caught for the murders. You can read her story here at http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.ASP?OPINIONID=20578. She now sits in a female prison here in Texas a little over a hundred miles from where the prison we both worked. Sherry is serving a Life for Capital Murder. 

Was I shocked finding out she had killed her husband and father-in-law for insurance money. Yes of course I was even though I knew she was selfish I never dreamed she could kill someone.

It bothers me that I think of her sometimes when I doing the smallest things around the North Forty. I guess as long as I live I will never wrap my mind totally around what she was capable of doing.

Now she has traded one honorable uniform for another. She is the one being guarded now and yes even her mail is as I write this being read by a mail room clerk.

I must go now and catch up around the North Forty. We are having unseasonable warm weather this week with every other day rain. Today we have a 75 percent chance so I may not get to mow.

Love to all

Maggie