A Word on Words; 4223; Stephen Owens

fb and now from nashville public television's stood in the way of celebrating all things literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a word on workers' jobs don johnson of all welcome once again to a world words my guest today is steven don't stevens a gradual university of memphis has a master's degree from middle tennessee state university he enjoys a successful teaching career and he's here today to talk about seth freed and soon was twelve years old he discovered his fault then they beat near death in their home in memphis evidence

proved that stephen small scale and how did it land to carry out a murder and she was since death row steven gail did not see each other for twenty five years but to an amazing series of transformations in revelations got a wooden oval both of them think i'm glad it in a day to talk about set free thanks as thirty years and let me begin with it let me begin with the utmost of men trying moment for you totaled so well in the book you know so your father you know i guess a year later you find yourself in court young boy testifying against your mother in her murder trial she is on trial and it's a life and death sentence and it turns out that big of students they take him back in a month scientists

sitting there in the courtroom she's across the room and when she heard and the cure for that the earth is there an accord can you can you help the audience understand and intelligence so well in the book how it was to be a young boy testifying under those circumstances the german as a young boy i was so scared to death year so was it you know you said you only think that of court rooms on tv when you told your kid an end so there was a lot of media was covering it in that that scared me i remember walking from the witness room to to get go into the courtroom that day and i could hardly get to the courtroom doors because the cameras in the news people and they wanted a common in your had people around me trying to keep that from happening but you know at that time it was it was a big story in memphis

because we lived in the suburbs of memphis and things like that supposedly just didn't happen so it was very very it was terrifying allied it was gone and then again i was walking in knowing that i was fixed to see my mother if i looked at her in the courtroom i was missing my mother for the first time in over year and you thought about they had to think about i guess looking at her i'd i contact what did you want to do this i had no desire to do that you know i was by this time it had been a year almost to the day and i was just i was angry i didn't really have any intentions of look at her winnie a real her at her yes you have your father write that you know more than that she had robbed me of both parents because you know she's been arrested and she's due in jail at that time waiting for the court and so within a matter of hours to be

honest with you i had lost both parents and enlist in alabama something hard overcome we feel like one person has caused you both of the two most important people in a twelve year old us in their life and so i'm adding more gather and so when i walked in i just intended not to look that way however during do mead witnessing on the witness stand there year she moved her and i called the peripheral vision and i looked at her but it was really quick and and and i mean look at her out of compassion later at that point it was more out of anger it was just that she caught you know my peripheral vision and did you see that or the man who beat your father was basically in close proximity of each other and they both get that yes which you know i was is you know it's funny when i look back on that i wasn't is is concerned with hill not my focus and my head was on my mother what she had done and what she had robbed me

of you know he existed but you know because i never really saw him you know until that day it was really not the one i was focusing on at that point now we know from you know so well and she has said to me she i absolutely would not talk about a motive you read the file of her appeals say the record the valley i know that there was abuse in the relationship women involved in this those marital marital trouble i take it that you and your younger brother brian i'm really never had a sense of that no we deny you know i think talk about talk about government that goes

intentionally or unintentionally years they screamed you from what i've received must've been a time so our relationship and then word from her perspective was an unfaithful relationship right you know what i don't know you think about any of that going on in the opposite twelve year old kid to and i don't know to be honest coming to have your kids would pick up on internet are not pick up on it i think you know a lot of it was we just never saw it it was kept from our view or you know what it was a loving family from nato absolutely i mean you know we went to church we we i would go play golf with dad we would have fire and drove the car mother not do things together to but i had no idea you know the night i walked in they're in and found he owned it it

was probably won't be honest with him one of the most wrenching feelings i've ever had and there was this beautiful moment human nature set something on a new orleans house you don't bother the mullah drives your home you're the first in the house the killer has by this time be near follow the time and he's guest me is very low bret has got to be a very tough scene for young what to love and you know your normal you know well it was because you see here is where you know he was a hero to me i mean you know we get a lot of things have a lot of fun as i said and and being a young man at that age you know he was the idol to me love my mother but it says something about you know that

interaction between a dad and a son ennis in specially in our home and two when i was when i we drove in the driveway that night and you hear the door was open car i knew something was wrong and it is the idea i have the worst feeling i just before i ever got the house and that i was before ever walked in and found any when i walk in the house and realize that you know there were some cheers turned over in the kitchen area and turned him down and land in the floor you know my instinct was to go to him and so i went you know went over to him and rolled him over him and he was in he was grasping for the last press that date that he would ever have on earth when you and your mother who is in that sentence and then from there there is a scene in the courtroom

and then after that you're going to live with her sister your aunt carolyn on you in your roller are raised by her man she goes through a divorce so what she decides to raise the to and the three of you and i'm assuming this was largely arid heard direction but certainly given how you felt about it and i'm a brother must've thought about it certainly you decide among yourselves with with her leadership the laws allow question the jury's convicted in your friend or trying so she's gonna die and we can live with that she rallied the law and there is no sympathy no loaf no connection emotionally with

her for the next twenty twenty five years no you know i said talk about to do it you know it was like one of when i found out she was involved it was almost like a steel curtain fell between mother and on our relationship and so there was no feeling sorry for her there was no all i knew was i was hurting i had been hurt deeply i was angry to the point where i don't want anything do or do more here her name and because of that it was not a hard decision to come to the family that we were not going to get involved at that again like you said courts and roll evidence had been presented court had ruled she got the difficulty and that's what the law all thought was adequate and we will live without whenever that they came we would live with it whether it was sooner or later we didn't matter we we didnt care about that at that point we we were only focused on that the court had rolled in we thought that's what needs to

happen here during her approving chorus ration more than two decades for lawyers from the outset one of trials a life on and periodically only the phone ringer be a knock on the door and lawyers who have come to ask her sister anna two sons dale petition to save her life helper calls very much talk about that i mean i'm a lawyer i come to have a look and trying to save your mother's life could you help me you help me help so you wouldn't know at all a matter fact im sure the pond or just maybe anger is a bit worse but that's what i asked saul when a lawyer showed up on my doorstep was not the lawyer i sent a direct i saw a direct

message for mo her own trying to get out and not pay the price of the court signaled that's what i saw i didn't see a lawyer i mean it was a lawyer and see the ice all mama's so dumb shes trying to get out of the situation she put herself and nobody else but herself in a situation and because of that she's trying to get me to help her get out and i was not the least bit interested in every time that would show up and they would show up directly on almost on tom every couple out a couple days and hours i just maybe just angered me it just made that resentment worse and made the anger works and and so it did not help when they would show up the china milk or guilt feelings will absolutely and you know we were seventy when one meeting with some with a group and and they they wanted to say it was going to be this win win situation for us because you know they would say do you not love your mom what you know even in those moments elite day she is my mother so they're in there is i don't know that you don't ever love

your parents you know there's all this and that their but the resentment anger was so bad with me is a true zeta do oh absolutely i'm in an office and us there was a time to be honest with you john where i it would've not been very positive and i had seen her i got to the point where i was so angry at one point that you know i made that statement she i don't know that she would live with her and i encountered each other because i was so hurt and devastated and and how could you leave let your kids mac anything like that but b endure the pain that we were going into her now for years for those who just joining us on top was the unknowns about his book set free there's the cover of set free our audiences looking out at

the most of pictures of you as eleven alone you and your mother embracing on the day the pro era when he just stunned me just take you fast forward on the role of deeply embedded in a church or on the of a christian upbringing i christian education go to college graduate you want to be a teacher you are a teacher of science and it will be a coach hi you are a coach you had the athlete and her life goes on you move from memphis to nashville new for a brief time ironically due to compose an ounce and then new teaching have a wonderful question to ask you and you are teaching bright young

kids becomes a day with all of this behind you i mean you have grown up my guess is kids were talkin bout on their hands about you and a roll and then once that happened to and they're the ones that money did that to that date you're so a targeted conversation all the way through and now you're teaching and one day there's a suggestion that you go into a classroom of the faculty members to help kids address the issue of their own adversity and it occurs to you and your wife lisa by this time that is is really play a role in that help kids overcome adversity rather if cussing challenge your own so you assign time has come for me to

make a disclosure put yourself in that classroom with those kids that day and tell me about how was i mean i didn't mean i get a sense of it ken abraham and collaborate with young onset for your handset free is a wonderful story and you ought to read it but talk about that day in that question i have a feeling that among several defining moments this was a defining moment oh absolutely and any handset free to talk about an encounter with a colleague and hopefully we can get to that too but you know when i won i went in to speak to the students and it was emotional for me because i i had bad that time really had a hunger that i if i could do anything to keep other kids in at this case with kids my

age at the time when everything happened from hurting as bears are or to feel like they were stuck in some type of a situation where they could not get out of i want them to know you could end and so because of that it was it was it was i was nervous but it was more emotional for me because at the end of day when i when i looked out there spoke first to send a us army synonym were innocent i saw my brother sitting there were innocent and and so because of that it was moribund it was a lot more than just getting a talking about to students they know at that time my testimony was that you get knocked down you know we were not it got to the point of a reconciliation with mother at that point forgiveness and so that time it was more about you're going to get knocked down but you know what god can help you get up you have a choice i am urging you

to make the choice to make something of yourself and not feel like people always something just because you've had this one little blip and you're in your life and experience in their minds why live an artist here some even ask about that you've come out of that classroom a fellow faculty member of those who has been ministering to your mother is a lay minister ten years fifteen fifteen fifteen years and he's there and he says you got a grocery or rye oh yeah i'll go through the papers that you don't go now and you don't go and you know won't go now i gather at some point maybe you're praying or that this is a spiritual journey

talk about it spiritual impact on your life at this point what was very strong you know when when everything happened i only could fall back on what i knew in a minute as young as i was here's the thing and i got was the center of our home as far as i was concerned or considered in a home and so because of that in those moments of very dark moment and there was a lot of oil out there was on one place and they do go in that world was was to heal and to pray to ask for help to to ask him to guide what i was you know what this feeling means hamas was to handle this and i continued even to the whole process in our hour for a lot of that in the book about how i would go i do and the legal process with mom when i begin embodying in every decision we made as a family when i say that my wife and i met is a family about what we would do not do every time there was a lot of prayer and i would never answer any

decisions or give any answers to a decision that i need to make until now first saw what i thought god wanted me to do it as long as i felt like that i was doing what he had planned for me to do and carry out his plan more than roll in on the end and i would i would do it other than that i wasn't going to an unlikely soon as a major major latino wife grew up with me in the same church and she's looked younger than i am the wind we will send their union in the whole story and so she has a way i would never be a what i would be inundated one for the part of what this christian faith as implicated but it really hasn't come to mean in india is something called christian forgiveness yes and with it must come reconciliation news and that's where i'd take it for an ant is spelled out quite clearly and set free that's where the

protection shall i do what an hour sign papers but discarded shall i do what god mavis tell me there shall i go to steer and beyond that shall i figure and sell reconcile you got two young children for who know little or nothing about the realm of my own you have to let them know then ultimately it's your decision when you go out there when you go out there i know that a group of other people i was part of that group trying to help save a life are people who don't believe in that and they were trying to say life on but it's a different story for you show you go out there and see or forgive are reconciled with her and you finally decide to do the yen yi yi bring mit kid smiled a stick was

i think one of the you know one a couple points in the story and said freeze that i become the realization of times mr holm i'm teaching the christian principles of forgiveness to my kids but realizing that now has some could ask me if i'd forgiven the mother never had to say no you know they're rattled everything in me because how can you teach things in your home but you not practiced gnome in your own life and it's for forgiveness is a hard thing to maneuver it is we all need to receive forgiveness and we all need to offer that forgiveness and it's not a hoarder i'm not an easy us or an easy thing to do and so you know i had there that was really that one moment one of the many moments in the book that i realized i can't be teaching lesson forgiveness of that haven't done

himself and so i think that was a very big steps for me push me to the point i'm going to sit here and only going in there for the reason to tell her face the face that i had forgiven or there was no other reason other than that at that time you know at that time she was still on death row and so they're the race was out the light that god had said this you now know what you need to do you need to go seer here's pearce was brought you to this place in and that's the reason a win in that day and you do you reconcile a new voice and he knew forever and she finds out that more than she also should know or out of grandchildren cry and but you didn't plan at that point to join in addition to the governor but there is a press conference you don't answer questions plus years you make the statement governor please help my mother i have forgiven or i reconcile can the state do this

and lo and behold the state doesn't write the law is the wonderful lawyer who's represented or general level lawyers but the less three or four really staunch advocate and she is and sheila thomas commuted your life is saved the death date had been set and the end by this time you go the bongo and rise not just forgiveness is forgiveness i want you all to know i want my students to know my my people go to church with the organ the word without times such a wonderful story set free but let me just ask you well the environment and have mom what was the force that really moved you from absolute negative point of view isn't

related to her to one of forgiveness and ultimately led to her freedom yeah maybe it was my my christian believes that you'd you can i not think society doesn't shoot you can forgive certain things you don't forgive others it depends on how severe you think it is what that's not what god says our guide says that everything is forgettable and you ever buy need forgiveness nearby ms grace even though we all don't deserve it sometimes and so what i did was we tried to carry out what i feel like god has called me as a christian to do and that was to offer forgiveness and offer grace to some by that most people in society with they didn't deserve it but you know the thing about that is john you and i don't deserve a dealer before gone based on what we deserve what we don't so on but he was deathly even as from an early age and it was what i was raised in it was what i knew and at the end of the day it is what saved me and peeing into

set free is a story in which your mother ultimately is set free but i have a sense you also were set free oh absolutely thanks so much for coming to thank you for the heavier thanks to all of you for watching and dancing and gone forward own words it really needs it fb fb