Speaker 1: And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
Speaker 1: story of redemption out of Kansas City, Missouri. Let's get
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 2: So my name is Bill Crumb. I was the enemy
Speaker 2: of God for thirty nine years. I just celebrated my
Speaker 2: fortieth year as a Christian. But my life I started it.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you about the eight times I should
Speaker 2: have died. One specific time, My sister died seven years ago,
Speaker 2: and I never knew until she was on her deathbed.
Speaker 2: And we were talking one day and I asked her
Speaker 2: if she was going to be buried in the same
Speaker 2: cemetery as my mom and dad, because I knew they
Speaker 2: had two other lots there. And she said no, She said,
Speaker 2: Lloyd and our to be buried down in another cemetery.
Speaker 2: She said, why don't you and Davy take those two lots?
Speaker 2: And I said why did dad have four lots? Anyway,
Speaker 2: she said, you don't know, and I said, no, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Sharon. My sister was seven years older than
Speaker 2: I was. And so she said, when Mama was pregnant
Speaker 2: with you, the doctor told Mama and dad that she
Speaker 2: would die had given birth to you, and you would die.
Speaker 2: And so Daddy went and bought four lots, one for
Speaker 2: you and Mama, and then one for him and I
Speaker 2: when we died, And so I now tell people this.
Speaker 2: I've known for years that the Devil's tried to kill me.
Speaker 2: I've been in over twenty five car wrecks and motorcycle wrecks.
Speaker 2: I've been in riots, in prisons. I've overdosed a few times.
Speaker 2: I've had two heart attacks to do it cocaine. The
Speaker 2: Devil's been trying to kill me forever, but I just
Speaker 2: found out seven years ago. He was trying to kill
Speaker 2: me before I was even born. He didn't want me
Speaker 2: to be born telling you how good God is, and
Speaker 2: the devil did not want me to do that. But
Speaker 2: it took a long time to get there. When I
Speaker 2: was about eight years old, I started smoking cigarettes. I
Speaker 2: started looking at pornography. I started stealing, and it just progressed.
Speaker 2: My mom and dad took me to church as a kid,
Speaker 2: but I was always doing something wrong, even in church.
Speaker 2: At church, I was doing stuff wrong, and I was
Speaker 2: always doing stuff wrong. I had a rebellious streak in me,
Speaker 2: and the older I got, the worse it got. When
Speaker 2: I was eighteen years old, I was at a crossroads
Speaker 2: in my life. Let me back up. A year before that,
Speaker 2: I was shooting pool in the pool hall. I stayed
Speaker 2: in the pool hall about twelve hours a day. I
Speaker 2: didn't go to school. I learned more in the pool
Speaker 2: hall that I did school anyway, So that's where I
Speaker 2: loved to go every day. And I was shooting pool
Speaker 2: one day and a guy that I barely knew came
Speaker 2: up behind me and said, Hey, Bill, let's go join
Speaker 2: the Marines. And I said, let me finish this game.
Speaker 2: And that's how serious I took life, because I knew
Speaker 2: if I didn't like the Marines, I just quit. Because
Speaker 2: I quit everything. I quit jobs, I quit girls, I
Speaker 2: quit anything that didn't go the way I thought it
Speaker 2: should go. And so I thought, if the Marines don't
Speaker 2: go right, I'll just quit. And so when I was eighteen,
Speaker 2: I stood before a Marine Corps colonel. I'd already gotten
Speaker 2: in a lot of trouble in the Marines, and I
Speaker 2: stood before a Marine Corps colonel and he said, if
Speaker 2: you don't straighten up, you'll be in the penitentiary before
Speaker 2: you're twenty one years old. And I was at a
Speaker 2: crossroads in my life right there. I had a choice
Speaker 2: of straightening up, taking his advice, and my life would
Speaker 2: have gone a different direction. But what do you think
Speaker 2: I did. I laughed in his face. And by the
Speaker 2: time I was twenty one, I had ridden twenty five
Speaker 2: hundred miles in handcuffs and leg irons and waite chains.
Speaker 2: I'd been locked up in several states. I'd seen murders
Speaker 2: and rapes and suicides and prisons. I came out of
Speaker 2: that prison a very hard hearted man. And when I
Speaker 2: came out of that prison in nineteen sixty four, I said,
Speaker 2: I had two goals. I'm never going back and I'm
Speaker 2: never gonna get caught. I had no intentions of living
Speaker 2: a law abiding life. I had no intentions of straightening up.
Speaker 2: I was just going to be more careful. And I
Speaker 2: went for almost nineteen years before I got caught. And
Speaker 2: in that nineteen years, my life progressed from everything from
Speaker 2: small petty burglary, really, from as small as picking tips
Speaker 2: up off tables. I always picked up tips. If I
Speaker 2: had three or four thousand dollars in my pocket, I
Speaker 2: was walking out of a restaurant and there was two
Speaker 2: or three dollars laying on the table, and nobody was looking,
Speaker 2: I had now three or four and two dollars in
Speaker 2: my pocket. I did anything that was illegal, and so
Speaker 2: I went from petty burglary to international gun smuggling. My
Speaker 2: partner was going to Columbia to Bogata to buy cocaine,
Speaker 2: and we were sending midnight specials over there. We'd buy
Speaker 2: pistols on the street for one hundred dollars, and in
Speaker 2: South America, a handguns illegal and they would bring one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, and so we would send ten handguns over
Speaker 2: there and turn one thousand dollars into ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That's pretty serious crime if you get caught for international
Speaker 2: gun smuggling. But that was the least of my worries
Speaker 2: because I didn't think I could get caught. I had
Speaker 2: moved up to where I wanted power and money and influence,
Speaker 2: and I had all three of those things. I had
Speaker 2: enough money to stay in five hundred dollars a night hotels,
Speaker 2: I rode in limousines. I bought twenty thousand dollars for
Speaker 2: a one night party worth of cocaine. So I had
Speaker 2: the money had always wanted. I had enough power to
Speaker 2: make a phone call and have somebody killed so I
Speaker 2: had the power it had always wanted, and I had
Speaker 2: enough influence that when I was arrested, it was September fifth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, and it wasn't a traffic ticket. I'd
Speaker 2: put on sitches in the back of a guy's head
Speaker 2: with a ball bat, and it was a very serious charge,
Speaker 2: originally attempted murder, and I got booked in the jail.
Speaker 2: I love to ask this questions in jails. I love
Speaker 2: to ask guys, how many of you have ever been
Speaker 2: locked up on a weekend? And every hand goes up,
Speaker 2: every hand goes up. And then I asked this question,
Speaker 2: what happens when you get arrested on a weekend and
Speaker 2: everybody yells at the same time nothing, because you're not
Speaker 2: going anywhere on a weekend. Well, they booked me in
Speaker 2: the jail at two o'clock Sunday afternoon, September fifth, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, and I walked out of that jail at
Speaker 2: one thirty Monday morning. Because of the influence I had.
Speaker 2: When I got arrested, we made our first phone call,
Speaker 2: called a city councilman, and we were selling cocaine too,
Speaker 2: and said you knew who to call, and this city
Speaker 2: councilman called the judge that we were selling cocaine to.
Speaker 2: And I love to ask this question in prison, how
Speaker 2: many of you know that when you're selling cocaine to
Speaker 2: a judge, he doesn't want you in jail. So we
Speaker 2: were out of jail in less than twelve hours on
Speaker 2: a weekend. I walked out of that jail at one
Speaker 2: thirty Monday morning. And when I walked out of that jail,
Speaker 2: I said, Bill Korm, you finally arrived. You got money,
Speaker 2: you got power, and you got influence. But there was
Speaker 2: something missing in my life. I had this money and
Speaker 2: this power and this influence. The Bible says, what's it
Speaker 2: gained him? What is the profit a man to gain
Speaker 2: the whole world and lose his own soul? And that's
Speaker 2: where I was. I had all this money and power
Speaker 2: and influence, but I had no peace. I was looking
Speaker 2: for peace all the time. I'd been looking for years.
Speaker 2: I mean there was a time in my life I
Speaker 2: looked like a white mister t I wore my shirts
Speaker 2: on button down to my belly button, with gold chains
Speaker 2: around my neck and carrying guns anything to you know,
Speaker 2: look important. But I was really looking for peace. And
Speaker 2: I had no peace. If I was in a restaurant
Speaker 2: eating and a cop came in, I'd go pay my
Speaker 2: bill and get out the door. Or I might go
Speaker 2: in the bathroom, go out the window to pay on
Speaker 2: what stage of my life I was in and guess what.
Speaker 2: The cop wasn't even after me. He didn't even know
Speaker 2: Bill korm was in the restaurant. The cop came in
Speaker 2: there because he was hungry. He just came in there
Speaker 2: to get something to eat. And after I became a Christian,
Speaker 2: I was reading in the Bible and it says a
Speaker 2: wicked man runs when no one's chasing him, and I
Speaker 2: went wow, I left a lot of steak dinners sitting
Speaker 2: at the table because the waitress said, just set my
Speaker 2: meal down, and a cop walked in, and I got
Speaker 2: up and went and paid my bill and walked out
Speaker 2: the door. And after I read that, I was like,
Speaker 2: I could have eate all them dinners.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Bill Korham, and what a line
Speaker 1: that is. A wicked man runs when no one's chasing him,
Speaker 1: and he well, he was running, and he was running
Speaker 1: towards peace. He couldn't find it. He tried power, he
Speaker 1: tried money, he tried influence. None of them worked. He
Speaker 1: made one phone call and got himself out of jail.
Speaker 1: Had the power to kill a person, and would routinely
Speaker 1: have large parties, large limos fancy tell rooms something was
Speaker 1: missing in his life. And boy, the young Bill Korum,
Speaker 1: when I can just see the scene of him looking
Speaker 1: at a superior officer in the Marine Corps and just
Speaker 1: laughing in the guy's face, and all he was trying
Speaker 1: to do that officer was warn him that if he
Speaker 1: kept going down the road he was going, he'd end
Speaker 1: up in prison. I love the way this started. I
Speaker 1: was the enemy of God for thirty nine years. When
Speaker 1: we come back, more of Bill Korum's story from Kansas City,
Speaker 1: underworld Enforcer to prison ministry. Here on our American Stories,
Speaker 1: and we returned to our American stories and the redemption
Speaker 1: story of Bill Korum. He's the author of The Ultimate Pardon.
Speaker 1: Pick it up at Amazon or wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1: You won't be able to put it down. When we
Speaker 1: last left off, Bill was telling us about how he
Speaker 1: was a criminal, the enemy of God in his own words.
Speaker 1: Now Bill turns to telling us about his parents and
Speaker 1: reading from his aforementioned book, Take it away, bill Oh.
Speaker 2: My mother was on her knees for her life. Her
Speaker 2: knees were wore out. There is no one I know
Speaker 2: of on my mother's or dad's side of the family
Speaker 2: whoever went to prison or got into trouble like I did.
Speaker 2: I have to take responsibility for my own actions. No
Speaker 2: one held a gun in my head. I made choices.
Speaker 2: If there was ever a black sheep in family, it
Speaker 2: was me, and I was the blackest of them all.
Speaker 2: There's one commandment in the Bible that comes with the
Speaker 2: promise that says, if we honor our father and mother,
Speaker 2: we will have long life. I would not be honoring
Speaker 2: my parents if I didn't tell you this about them.
Speaker 2: I have personally never known anyone whose parents loved them
Speaker 2: like mine. I'm not saying there is no one. I
Speaker 2: have just not personally met them. Most inmates I have
Speaker 2: talked to over the years have come from broken homes.
Speaker 2: My parents were married sixty three years. Drugs and alcohol
Speaker 2: have plagued most inmates homes since their birth. My folks
Speaker 2: never touched the drop of alcohol in their lives. My
Speaker 2: mother and father didn't smoke or use any kind of drugs.
Speaker 2: I never heard a curse word come out of either
Speaker 2: one of their mouths. The only time in my life
Speaker 2: I remember my dad saying anything that could be considered
Speaker 2: cussing was when I was with that fifteen year old
Speaker 2: girl in the hotel and he asked me what I'd
Speaker 2: done to her. I worked by my dad's side building
Speaker 2: houses and never heard him swear or tell a dirty joke.
Speaker 2: I did see him walk away when other people told him.
Speaker 2: My mother died when she was ninety three years old,
Speaker 2: and she had never been in a movie theater or
Speaker 2: to a dance. They were the most loving, unselfish people
Speaker 2: I've ever known in my whole life. I remember Mom
Speaker 2: would put me and my sister to bed at night,
Speaker 2: and if Dad asked for a bowl of ice cream,
Speaker 2: she would not get him one unless she got Sharon
Speaker 2: an eye up and gave us one. They visited me
Speaker 2: everywhere I got locked up. When I got locked up
Speaker 2: in Clarksdale, Mississippi, they drove five hundred and fifty miles
Speaker 2: to see me. When I was waiting to go to
Speaker 2: try And, Oxford, they drove six hundred miles to see me.
Speaker 2: Dad told me years later that sometimes they drove down
Speaker 2: visited me then drove home bathe changed clothes and drove
Speaker 2: right back. It was a twelve hundred mile round trip,
Speaker 2: and they made him many times. I remember one time
Speaker 2: they came to see me and ask if I wanted
Speaker 2: a chocolate malt. I wanted one, for sure, but there
Speaker 2: were ten or twelve guys in the big cell I
Speaker 2: was in. Dad asked the jailer if he could bring
Speaker 2: everyone malts. The jailer gave him me okay. In a
Speaker 2: few minutes, he returned with the malts for everyone, including
Speaker 2: the jailer. When my friends and I hopped the freight
Speaker 2: trade and got locked up in took them carey New Mexico,
Speaker 2: my dad made the thirteen hundred mile round trip to
Speaker 2: get us out of jail and take us home. When
Speaker 2: I was sent to Ashland, Kentucky for sixty day observation,
Speaker 2: they made a fourteen hundred mile round trip to see me.
Speaker 2: I was there with guys who had been locked up
Speaker 2: for years and their families only lived an hour or
Speaker 2: two away, and they never got a visit. They visited
Speaker 2: me in San Diego when I was in boot camp,
Speaker 2: which was sixteen hundred miles one way. When I was
Speaker 2: in the brig in Millington, Tennessee. They drove over five
Speaker 2: hundred miles to see me. Inglewood, Colorado, was another place
Speaker 2: they drove six hundred miles to see me. I figured
Speaker 2: it up once. My dad drove over twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: miles in one year visiting me. The average Miley on
Speaker 2: a car back then was ten thousand miles a year.
Speaker 2: If I came in at eleven o'clock at night with
Speaker 2: a couple of buddies, my mom would get out of
Speaker 2: bed ask if we were hungry. All one one of
Speaker 2: them had to do was nod his head, and she
Speaker 2: whipped up a five course meal. She loved to cook
Speaker 2: for me and to watch me eat. I think she
Speaker 2: tried to kill every friend I brought around with food.
Speaker 2: There was no one who could cook like my mother.
Speaker 2: She didn't use recipes, and everyone in our family has
Speaker 2: tried to copy her cooking since she's been gone, but
Speaker 2: no one's mastered it. Are you starting to get the
Speaker 2: picture of how much my parents loved me? No matter
Speaker 2: what I did. They loved me and my sister and
Speaker 2: I came first and they were second. They did everything
Speaker 2: possible to help me, and still I was a rebel.
Speaker 2: If there was ever a human on this earth who
Speaker 2: should have excelled and never been in trouble, it was me.
Speaker 2: I had their blessing from the time I was born
Speaker 2: until they died. And see when I wrote this, I
Speaker 2: didn't know I was supposed to die before I was
Speaker 2: even born. If they did all that for me when
Speaker 2: I was rebellious, how much more would they have done
Speaker 2: for me if I had not been rebellious. I don't
Speaker 2: believe they would have done anymore because their love was
Speaker 2: not conditional. Mom used to have dreams about me. She
Speaker 2: wore her knees out praying for me. She told me
Speaker 2: so many answers to the prayers she prayed for me.
Speaker 2: I could fill another book. When Debbie started praying for me,
Speaker 2: Mom encouraged her and they prayed together. My Saint Me.
Speaker 2: Mother prayed for almost forty years for me. Just surrender
Speaker 2: to Jesus. She prayed, many times, not my will, but
Speaker 2: that will be done. My dad gave me godly advice
Speaker 2: all my life. He tried everything he knew of to
Speaker 2: point me in the right direction, although I didn't listen
Speaker 2: to him at the time. Thankfully, he saw me walk
Speaker 2: out of the darkness and into the light before he
Speaker 2: died in nineteen ninety one. We got to spend eight
Speaker 2: years together on the same page. Mom got to enjoy
Speaker 2: seeing me love God and loved my dad those last
Speaker 2: eight years of his life. Mom died in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: but she spent the last sixteen years of her life
Speaker 2: praising the Lord for his answer to her prayers for
Speaker 2: my salvation. We had many good times together. Mom and
Speaker 2: her best friend and life dad are together and get
Speaker 2: in heaven. I look forward to the day I joined them,
Speaker 2: no wonder. I hated and cussed that psychiatrist at Ashland
Speaker 2: when he told me that it was my mom and
Speaker 2: Dad's fault that I turned into a criminal. So you know,
Speaker 2: I was doing five hundred dollars worth of cocaine to day.
Speaker 2: I was drinking two quarts of whiskey to day. I
Speaker 2: was kissed my wife goodbye and say I see tonight.
Speaker 2: And I'd come home for weeks. My kids had called
Speaker 2: come over and say where's Dad, Debbie sav and senr Dad.
Speaker 2: In weeks, I was doing every kind of legal drug
Speaker 2: there was. I mean, I would have took a earth
Speaker 2: control pill if I thought I could get eige on it.
Speaker 2: There was nothing I wouldn't do, and I did it
Speaker 2: in massive amounts. If everybody else was doing three of them,
Speaker 2: I wanted to do six. I wanted to do more
Speaker 2: than anybody getting implicated. As one of the leading cocaine
Speaker 2: dealers in Kansa, Missouri, I had a lot of money
Speaker 2: being an enforcer for the Kansas City Underworld. I was
Speaker 2: out there doing enforcement, doing contract work, doing some serious,
Speaker 2: serious stuff. I wasn't thinking about my kids. I was
Speaker 2: thinking about what I was doing for the family out there,
Speaker 2: and that's all I cared about was my job I
Speaker 2: was doing, making sure I did it right. Didn't care
Speaker 2: about anybody except me. I carried a flamethrower on my
Speaker 2: back and it was always lit. I'd burn up every
Speaker 2: bridge I went over because I wasn't going back. I
Speaker 2: had no reason to go back. I was only going forward.
Speaker 2: My motto is, if you're not living on the edge,
Speaker 2: you're taking up too much space. And I was out there, going, going, going.
Speaker 2: My wife says, I was going two hundred miles an
Speaker 2: hour in the world, just doing cocaine and drinking, and
Speaker 2: people go, well, you couldn't drink two quarts of whiskey,
Speaker 2: And I said you never did cocaine, did you, Because
Speaker 2: when you're doing cocaine, you could drink ten quartz of whiskey.
Speaker 2: You can't get drunk when you're doing cocaine. That's why
Speaker 2: people die of speedballs. They do heroin and cocaine together
Speaker 2: because your heart's beating so fast. Like I used to
Speaker 2: go home when i'd been gone for three four weeks
Speaker 2: at a time, there was a seven eleven not far
Speaker 2: from our house. Remember that seven eleven used to be
Speaker 2: up there on the Right Time Road, and we lived
Speaker 2: at sixty two twenty four Willow And I'd be gone
Speaker 2: three weeks and I decided to go home, and I
Speaker 2: didn't have nothing. I didn't have any downers or no pills.
Speaker 2: I'd pull in that seven eleven, I'd buy four or
Speaker 2: five bottles a n iquill and I'd start driving toward
Speaker 2: the house because I was trying to slow my heart
Speaker 2: down so she wouldn't hear it, because I thought it
Speaker 2: was going to jump out of my chest. That's why
Speaker 2: I had two heart attacks from doing cocaine, because your
Speaker 2: heart's getting go so fast, And that's why people mix
Speaker 2: it with heroin and they do. That's what John Belushi
Speaker 2: died of was speedballs, heroin and cocaine mixed.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Bill Korham talk about his life
Speaker 1: on the edge and that, unlike so many people he
Speaker 1: shared prison space with, he was not the product of
Speaker 1: a broken home. When we come back more of Bill
Speaker 1: Korham's story here on our American stories, and we return
Speaker 1: to our American stories and the final portion of our
Speaker 1: story with Bill korm author of The Ultimate Pardon. When
Speaker 1: we last left off, Bill had become an enforcer for
Speaker 1: the Kansas City Underworld and had gotten arrested for attempted murder.
Speaker 1: Let's return to the story here again is Bill Koram Well.
Speaker 2: I I was still moving a lot of drugs even
Speaker 2: though I'd gotten busted. I was charged with first gear
Speaker 2: assault with intent to kill, which carried fifteen to life
Speaker 2: in Missouri, and we also were charged with first gree burglary,
Speaker 2: which carried like five to twenty or something, so really
Speaker 2: I faced some minimum of twenty years in a maximum
Speaker 2: of life. And then I got implicated as being one
Speaker 2: of the leading cocaine dealers in the city, which just
Speaker 2: added to the problems. I was staying away from home
Speaker 2: because they were watching us by that time, after a
Speaker 2: guy gave a twenty page statement to the Missouri and
Speaker 2: Narcotics Division, which was like a book, and he named
Speaker 2: everybody in there that we were dealing with, including the
Speaker 2: judge that we got out of jail with. All of
Speaker 2: the people that we knew and were associated with were
Speaker 2: starting to fall like flies. I mean they were starting
Speaker 2: to drop, and they were getting arrested, they were getting killed,
Speaker 2: they were getting you know, And I was watching all
Speaker 2: this stuff, taking it all in. I was still moving drugs,
Speaker 2: but I was staying out of town about seventy five
Speaker 2: miles from here, and I was standing in an old
Speaker 2: farmhouse a friend of mine that I'd been an associate with,
Speaker 2: and he was a real big gangster, I mean, a killer.
Speaker 2: Early and one night I went to bed. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if the story's worth telling or not, but
Speaker 2: every time i'd come to Kansas and go back down there,
Speaker 2: like when I was going across seven Highway, it was
Speaker 2: down toward the lake. And every time i'd go down
Speaker 2: that seven Highway, and back then it was single lane,
Speaker 2: a lot of it, I would drive that car as
Speaker 2: fast as it'd go. If I was in a car
Speaker 2: that'd go one hundred and forty, I'd go on hundred
Speaker 2: and forty. If I was in a car, go one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten, I'd go under ten. And it was
Speaker 2: almost like I wanted to die. There was a real
Speaker 2: war going on. I mean, the more I think about it,
Speaker 2: I should really write it all down someday, hadn't I
Speaker 2: But anyway, this one particular night, I went upstairs to
Speaker 2: go to bed, and I was going upstairs and looking
Speaker 2: at the wall. Paint on the wall was coming off.
Speaker 2: The handrail was all chipped, and I thought, this, this
Speaker 2: whole house looks like I feel because even though I
Speaker 2: was only not quite forty, but I had a lot
Speaker 2: of miles on me. Like I said, I've been locked
Speaker 2: up in ten states. I've ridden twenty five hundred miles
Speaker 2: in handcuffs like underways. I've been in car wrecks and
Speaker 2: motorcycle wrecks and just a lot of stuff that I
Speaker 2: shouldn't have made it through, crazy crazy stuff, And you know,
Speaker 2: I got implicated or not implicated. I got nicknamed crazy
Speaker 2: Bill because of some of the stupid stuff I did.
Speaker 2: Just completely off the chain. And I just was going
Speaker 2: up that stairway and I was tired, I was so tired,
Speaker 2: and I got in bed and I turned on the
Speaker 2: rock and roll and I was laying there and the radio,
Speaker 2: you know how like some radios when they don't have
Speaker 2: good connection and you're trying to tune them in and
Speaker 2: there mean to hear a little music, and I turn
Speaker 2: it and I only got it on a rock and
Speaker 2: roll station. I was laying there and then it went
Speaker 2: and I heard a preacher going, no matter what you've done,
Speaker 2: God loves you. He's got a plan for your life.
Speaker 2: And I went, I don't want to hear that. Back
Speaker 2: to the rock and roll, and I laid back down.
Speaker 2: Jesus will forgive you no matter what you've done. He
Speaker 2: loves you. And I went and it just kept happening.
Speaker 2: It kept going back to this guy preaching, and then
Speaker 2: God gave me like a vision, I mean almost a vision.
Speaker 2: I guess I never had a vision, I don't think,
Speaker 2: but maybe that time, but I remember seeing I don't
Speaker 2: think it was a dream. I think I was right away,
Speaker 2: but I saw rex I'd had like I flipped a
Speaker 2: van one time, six times, end over end, after went
Speaker 2: end over end six times. Then I rolled it down
Speaker 2: a hill. It ended up in a like a creek.
Speaker 2: Every piece of metal was twisted and mangled. Three of
Speaker 2: the wheels and tires got ripped off. Looked like a
Speaker 2: train hited. I took my mother to see that. Man.
Speaker 2: She started crying and she said, son, don't you see
Speaker 2: God hiss his hand on you? And I looked there
Speaker 2: and I said, Mom, God had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: I'm a good driver. And that's how warped my mind was.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a seatbelt on. I broke the steering
Speaker 2: wheel in half, and I bent the brake pedal on
Speaker 2: a forty five degree angle pushing. I pulled my hamstring
Speaker 2: real bad because I knew if I let go, I
Speaker 2: was going out. So I stayed in there. I held
Speaker 2: on and so I'm like, God didn't do that. I
Speaker 2: did that. I mean, look, I'm big and strong because
Speaker 2: I used to be real big and strong. I'm a
Speaker 2: good driver. I didn't let go. My nickname was Superman.
Speaker 2: I thought I was Superman. So that night the Lord
Speaker 2: showed me and some of those wrecks and some of
Speaker 2: those crisis and some of the things that I'd done,
Speaker 2: and that it wasn't me, it was his love. And
Speaker 2: that's the night that's the night. And I said, God,
Speaker 2: if you're real and you can change, Bill Cornwall lived
Speaker 2: my life for you. And I went to sleep and
Speaker 2: slept peacefully, which I never did usually. Woke up the
Speaker 2: next morning, called her and said, you want to come
Speaker 2: get me? And I left my guns down there and
Speaker 2: didn't think about that, went home, slept for a week.
Speaker 2: I get a phone call one day she's at work.
Speaker 2: I answered the phone and all I heard was you
Speaker 2: can't walk out on us. Click, and I knew what
Speaker 2: it meant, and I had this terrible fear. I didn't
Speaker 2: have a Bible yet, but her Bible was laying there,
Speaker 2: and I picked it up, then opened it up, and
Speaker 2: it said, if a man's ways please God, he makes
Speaker 2: even his enemies to be at peace with him. That's
Speaker 2: the only thing I could see. If a man's ways
Speaker 2: please God, he makes even his enemies to be at
Speaker 2: peace with him. And I said, God, I want my
Speaker 2: ways to please you, because I knew I had some enemies.
Speaker 2: After I got that phone call, I knew that. I
Speaker 2: knew that, so then I fell asleep. I had her
Speaker 2: Bible and I sit down a recliner and I laid
Speaker 2: back and I had her Bible right here on my chest,
Speaker 2: and I had a dream of her. I heard the doorbell,
Speaker 2: I saw her walk across the floor, opened the door,
Speaker 2: and I saw the barrel of the gun and the
Speaker 2: fire and saw her fall to the floor dead. And
Speaker 2: I just woke up in total fear. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, they're gonna kill Debbie. They're not gonna
Speaker 2: kill me, They're gonna kill her. They're gonna kill my family.
Speaker 2: And again her Bible was right here, so I just
Speaker 2: opened it up and the only words I could see said,
Speaker 2: no weapon formed against you. She'll prosper. And then I
Speaker 2: flipped it just went like this, and the only words
Speaker 2: I could see said the Lord is my Light and
Speaker 2: my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Of Whom shall I
Speaker 2: be afraid? And I was like, Wow, this book is true.
Speaker 2: And then I began to read and then said, if
Speaker 2: you don't do what it says, you deceive your own self.
Speaker 2: And see I was the poorst to see in the planet.
Speaker 2: I wanted to deceive everybody. I lied to everybody. When
Speaker 2: I was married to my first wife, I had three
Speaker 2: girlfriends at the same time. None of them knew I
Speaker 2: had other girlfriends. She didn't know I had any girlfriends.
Speaker 2: I was cheating on all four of them, and I
Speaker 2: loved it. I had an old lady tell me one
Speaker 2: time when I had my office up there at that
Speaker 2: Baptist church. That old woman said, you know, she was
Speaker 2: about ninety five. I was probably fifty five. She goes,
Speaker 2: you know, son, if you never tell a lie, you
Speaker 2: don't have to remember what you said. And I thought, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's the whist over there. In nineteen eighty seven, I
Speaker 2: went to Africa with some men from our church, and
Speaker 2: that was a miracle too, because I was on paper.
Speaker 2: I was on parole. And when I went and asked
Speaker 2: my pro officer could I go to Africa, he laughed
Speaker 2: at me. He said, Bill, you can't even go across
Speaker 2: the state line. I'm not going to let you leave
Speaker 2: the country. And I said, well, I didn't figure you would,
Speaker 2: but I just wanted to ask. And I was getting
Speaker 2: ready to walk out of his office, and he said, hey, Bill,
Speaker 2: tell you what I'll do. If you'll write a letter
Speaker 2: to the judge who sentenced you, and that judge will
Speaker 2: give you permission to even apply for a passport, I'll
Speaker 2: let you go to Africa. I did I sent the
Speaker 2: letter to the passport application and the money and I
Speaker 2: went to Africa. So I'm in Africa. I'm walking along
Speaker 2: a trail with ten men from the church and I
Speaker 2: almost stepped on a grasshopper and I picked it up
Speaker 2: and just kind of threw it to the side, and
Speaker 2: out of the side of my eye, I saw it
Speaker 2: landing a little puddle of water, and I said, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: hold up, wait up. So they all stopped and I
Speaker 2: ran over in the grass. I got the grasshopper out
Speaker 2: of the water to put him in the grass, and
Speaker 2: I ran and caught up with him. And they said, Bill,
Speaker 2: what were you doing back there? And I said, I
Speaker 2: didn't want that grasshopper to drown. And then I started crying,
Speaker 2: and they said why are you crying? And I said,
Speaker 2: because four years ago I would kill a man for money,
Speaker 2: and today I don't want a bug to die. And
Speaker 2: I knew right then that God had taken my heart
Speaker 2: of stone and given me a heart of fleation. I
Speaker 2: wrote a little track called Heart of Stone, and I
Speaker 2: would sing this over and over and over if I
Speaker 2: had the opportunity. I'll just tell you what it says.
Speaker 2: I can't sing it because I tell guys in prison,
Speaker 2: if I sing, you'll sign up for death row because
Speaker 2: my voice is terrible. I've got a face for radio
Speaker 2: and a voice for the dog pound. I can't sing.
Speaker 2: I wish I could sing, because I'd love to sing
Speaker 2: the song. The song says this, it's my desire to
Speaker 2: live for Jesus. It's my desire to live for him.
Speaker 2: If you could see where Jesus brought me from to
Speaker 2: where I am today, you would know the reason why
Speaker 2: I love him. So if you could see where Jesus
Speaker 2: brought me from to where I am today, then you
Speaker 2: would know the reason why I love him. So that's
Speaker 2: my story.
Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Bill Korum for sharing his
Speaker 1: raw story and man it's rough, and that story about
Speaker 1: the grasshopper. We're just crying in our studio. The story
Speaker 1: of Bill Krhum a beautiful faith story and the end
Speaker 1: is story about God, his story about Jesus Christ. Here
Speaker 1: on our American Stories