Life Sentence

DRUG USE CAN HAVE LIFE-ALTERING CONSEQUENCES

This next May I will have been in prison for 24 years. I am serving a
20-year-to-life sentence because I killed someone while on drugs. When I
was young, I was one of six children. I attended church on Sundays, and I
was a Boy Scout until I was 18. I was not what you would call a bad kid. I
started taking drugs when I was 9 years old back in the '60s. So many
people were taking drugs back then, and I thought it would help me make
friends. When I was young I liked to smoke pot, do quaaludes and cocaine.
As I got older, I experimented with about every drug around. Back in the
'60s drugs were a popular thing to do. I stayed high most all the time.
There were many nights that I didn't remember what I did or how I got home.
I would find out the next morning that I had driven home stoned out of my
mind. One day my friends found me up a tree naked, I had been there for two
days. The day I committed my crime I was doing PCP, quaaludes and alcohol;
I was totally out of control. I didn't even realize what I had done until
it was too late. One afternoon of getting high has ruined my life. I hate
to think of the pain I have brought to the victim's family and my own
family. You just don't realize how fast your life can be totally changed. I
have spent more than half of my life paying for this crime. It was a crime
that I never meant to commit, and one I will never be able to pay for no
matter how long I live. I have learned many things from this experience.
True friends will be your friends without taking drugs. You should never do
anything that makes you lose control. Get high on life and make something
of yourself. I would like to tell parents to be there for your kids, spend
time with them and talk with them. Don't ever make your children feel that
they can't come to you with a problem. Help them to respect and admire you,
not be scared of you. No matter how long I live I will never be able to
forget what I have done by taking another human's life. I never would have
committed this crime if I had been straight, but I made the wrong choice 24
years ago when I chose drugs, and I'm so sorry. People call drugs "dope,"
but the dope is the person who puts it in their system. After all I've been
through, I'm proud to say I've been drug- and alcohol-free for 24 years.
Please learn from my mistakes and don't get involved with drugs. Richardson
is serving time in Lieber Correctional Institution near Summerville. His
wife lives in Marion.