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Speaker 2: Puturo investigates Embassida.
Speaker 3: A few months after Frank Ross is released from prison
Speaker 3: on compassionate release. We meet a woman named Marie Scott,
Speaker 3: but she doesn't use that name very often.
Speaker 4: I'm so used to.
Speaker 5: The police calling me Maurice goott till I don't even
Speaker 5: use that unless I have to be talking to a cop.
Speaker 3: For decades now, she's gone by Michi. Michi is seventy
Speaker 3: two years old. She was sentenced to life in prison
Speaker 3: at just nineteen years old, and she spent more than
Speaker 3: half a century at a woman's prison in Pennsylvania. In
Speaker 3: January of twenty twenty six, she was given a second chance.
Speaker 4: So I'm free.
Speaker 5: I have to do with fifty three years in prison,
Speaker 5: and right now it doesn't even feel like I have
Speaker 5: feet because everything I.
Speaker 4: Do is flu.
Speaker 3: She's now getting adjusted to her new life, But before
Speaker 3: she was released, Michi says she spent years dealing with
Speaker 3: health issues inside the prison. It started with pain full
Speaker 3: sciatica that made it hard to walk. She thinks this
Speaker 3: was from decades of sleeping on a hard prison mattress.
Speaker 5: Sciatica hit my right leg and I dragged it until forever,
Speaker 5: and that kind of pain when you have a sciatic attack,
Speaker 5: people don't understand.
Speaker 4: That's the kind of pain that makes you holler.
Speaker 3: Coupled with decades of prison meals, lacking in nutrition, limited
Speaker 3: access to the outdoors, and little access to doctors, Michi's
Speaker 3: health issues grew. She says she also worried about cancer.
Speaker 3: She saw so many women inside the prison getting diagnosed
Speaker 3: when it was already too late.
Speaker 5: Many of women had died of cancer in the here
Speaker 5: died shortly thereafter.
Speaker 3: And there is something to her observation. A recent study
Speaker 3: from the National Institute of Health found that women in
Speaker 3: prison are more likely to develop some kinds of cancer,
Speaker 3: and they are also more likely to die because of it.
Speaker 3: Mitschi didn't have this information then, but she says The
Speaker 3: women at MUNCI didn't trust the prison to take their
Speaker 3: health concerns seriously, so they kept tabs on their own bodies,
Speaker 3: their own health. One day, Mitschi found a lump in
Speaker 3: her breast and she pushed to see a doctor.
Speaker 5: And he said, miss Scott, I said yeah. He said,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry to.
Speaker 4: Tell you have breast cancer.
Speaker 3: Mitschi says she fought cancer behind bars at the same
Speaker 3: time that she applied for commutation. That's a process that
Speaker 3: requires governor approval and that basically suspends the rest of
Speaker 3: a person's sentence. Eventually, Mischi was granted her freedom. She
Speaker 3: was released just two days before Frank Ross in January
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5: I'm just so glad that I'm still a lie while
Speaker 5: I'm out here.
Speaker 4: I got free. Being free is one.
Speaker 5: Thing, but staying alive is another, and That's what I'm
Speaker 5: trying to do. Stay alive.
Speaker 3: Michi's story would soon paint a vivid picture of what
Speaker 3: growing old and getting sick in prison feels, like, how
Speaker 3: similar her experience was to Frank's, and how me and
Speaker 3: a woman can make those health challenges somehow even tougher
Speaker 3: to navigate in prison. From Futuro media. It's Latino usay.
Speaker 3: I'm Maria Hosa. Today released To Die Part two. It's
Speaker 3: a three episode mini series about incarcerated elders and the
Speaker 3: grain of American prisons. For this episode, we're going to
Speaker 3: step away temporarily from Frank's story and we're going to
Speaker 3: hear about Michi's experience and the particular challenges that face
Speaker 3: women who are getting older and getting sick in prison. Now,
Speaker 3: it's undeniable that we know less about the experiences of
Speaker 3: women behind bars. Part of that is because women make
Speaker 3: up a smaller percentage of the incarcerated population across the board,
Speaker 3: in both federal and state prisons. The Prison Policy Initiative
Speaker 3: says that about ten percent of people in prison are women.
Speaker 3: But just as a number of aging people behind bars
Speaker 3: is growing rapidly, so is the number of women. According
Speaker 3: to a study by the Pennsylvania re Entry Coalition, the
Speaker 3: rate of incarceration for women rowse more than fifty percent
Speaker 3: faster than that of men between nineteen eighty and twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: That's why experts say it's important to understand how both
Speaker 3: gender and age play upart in healthcare needs and why
Speaker 3: reform aimed at reducing the number of elderly incarcerated people
Speaker 3: is actually really important and also, dear listener, a warning.
Speaker 3: There are mentions of sexual assault, so take care. Senior
Speaker 3: producer Julia Ta Martinelli picks up the story from here.
Speaker 6: A few weeks after her release. On a dark, rainy
Speaker 6: morning in April, Suave, Michi and I meet at Community
Speaker 6: College of Philadelphia, where Suave works. We sit down together
Speaker 6: in a classroom. Michi is short, or maybe she looks
Speaker 6: shorter than she actually is. She's crouched over a walker
Speaker 6: that she now needs to be mobile. She is a
Speaker 6: black woman with light skin and a bald head. She
Speaker 6: has this great, big, friendly smile with a gap between
Speaker 6: her front teeth. On this day, she's wearing a matching sweatsuit, sneakers,
Speaker 6: and a silver chain. She's got style. Before we get
Speaker 6: into her cancer diagnosis in prison, Michie asked if we
Speaker 6: can take a detour to talk about her past.
Speaker 5: I was raised in Teeneck, New Jersey, three blocks from
Speaker 5: the Isley Brothers. We all grew up together, going between Teeneck,
Speaker 5: New Jersey, to Peka, Kansas and Orlando, Florida.
Speaker 4: Those are the places that I grew up.
Speaker 6: Michi lived with her dad. Her mom had passed away
Speaker 6: when she was young, and she says her father's girlfriend
Speaker 6: just didn't like having her around, so she was shuffled
Speaker 6: around the family. At some point, Michie says that she
Speaker 6: and her older sister ended up living with an aunt.
Speaker 6: Michie says that her sister was sexually assaulted by their uncle,
Speaker 6: and later so was she.
Speaker 5: I learned how to jump out of second floor windows
Speaker 5: because he would pick my lock and I couldn't keep
Speaker 5: out of my room.
Speaker 6: When she got older, Michi says she oathered the courage
Speaker 6: to tell her aunt.
Speaker 5: You know, I wasn't like let this was for comedy again,
Speaker 5: and I'll kill him. I didn't have to kill her effect.
Speaker 5: I was only five six seven in widow until I
Speaker 5: was fifteen years old.
Speaker 6: She says, nothing really came of it. Michi felt ashamed. Later,
Speaker 6: when staying with her grandfather, she says she was molested
Speaker 6: by a neighbor.
Speaker 7: And he said, if you scream, I'll kill you, and
Speaker 7: I didn't scream.
Speaker 6: By sixteen, Michi had a baby. By seventeen, she had
Speaker 6: run away in the streets. She says she was introduced
Speaker 6: to all kinds of things, but the worst do.
Speaker 4: Nobody tell you, Hey, this is Haron. You take this.
Speaker 5: You're gonna throw up and not like it at first,
Speaker 5: but after that you're gonna need it after three days,
Speaker 5: and you're going to start feeling sick, dope, sick.
Speaker 6: That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 5: I got shot, I got stabbed, I got sodomized. I
Speaker 5: got everything that could happen to somebody that young. If
Speaker 5: you homeless in New York, you're gonna get raped. That's
Speaker 5: par for the course.
Speaker 6: Without support and now fighting an addiction, Michi says, so
Speaker 6: she decided to give up custody of her son.
Speaker 5: And I could not figure out how I was going
Speaker 5: to take care of my son the right way. I
Speaker 5: had to give him up because my desire to get
Speaker 5: that sickness off of me was greater than the need
Speaker 5: that I needed to take care of my son.
Speaker 4: I couldn't think logically.
Speaker 6: Eventually, she says, she was able to get clean. Her
Speaker 6: father told her to return to Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: And that was the worst thing that could have happened
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 6: Moving back to Philadelphia would change her life forever. Not
Speaker 6: long after she moved back home, Michie says to her
Speaker 6: father's girlfriend once again and kicked her out. She took
Speaker 6: the first job she found at a restaurant. One night,
Speaker 6: while working the cash register at the front, Michi says
Speaker 6: that her sister ran in. She told her that she
Speaker 6: heard the men about to come in were planning to
Speaker 6: rob her. When the men walked into the restaurant, Michi
Speaker 6: says she told them she had a gun under the register,
Speaker 6: a lie, and then.
Speaker 5: All of a sudden, this guy comes from the in
Speaker 5: part of the restaurant and has a silver gun up
Speaker 5: in his hand, and he's telling them to get the
Speaker 5: hell out, cussing it to the guys.
Speaker 6: After a life of abuse, Michi says she felt cared for.
Speaker 5: I felt like if a guy took me to the movies,
Speaker 5: he was in love with me, if he wanted to
Speaker 5: take me to dinner, he's getting ready to pull out
Speaker 5: a ring and.
Speaker 4: Ask me to marry him. So if he saves my life,
Speaker 4: how do you think I feel? He's hero all my
Speaker 4: life for me? There's nothing to.
Speaker 5: This guy that asked me did I would say no to?
Speaker 5: So ten days later, when he asked me to go
Speaker 5: on a robbery.
Speaker 4: With him, I said, what am I supposed to do.
Speaker 4: He said, just be a lookout. I said look out
Speaker 4: for what?
Speaker 5: And he said for any band that comes or cops
Speaker 5: to come.
Speaker 4: But it didn't end up happening like that.
Speaker 6: Michi says she had never done anything like that, but
Speaker 6: she figured all she had to do was stand outside
Speaker 6: a gas station. The man named Leroy would go inside
Speaker 6: and take the money from a safe. In her head,
Speaker 6: at nineteen years old, Michi says she just saw an
Speaker 6: opportunity to help this man, this hero who had helped her.
Speaker 6: She didn't think too much about it. She figured it
Speaker 6: would all be done in a matter of minutes. Instead,
Speaker 6: when they got there.
Speaker 5: He wanted me to go inside with him, and he
Speaker 5: wanted me to search the man when he put that
Speaker 5: knife around his neck, and the man had to watch
Speaker 5: a wallet and a gun, and I felt it.
Speaker 4: I don't know how many.
Speaker 5: Hundreds of times lifeers will always think to themselves in
Speaker 5: their rooms, some quiet place, how that crime could have
Speaker 5: been done differently. I wished that I would have took
Speaker 5: that gun and shot my codeyfind it.
Speaker 4: That's what I wished.
Speaker 6: What actually happened was far different from the fantasy that
Speaker 6: she would later envision in her cell.
Speaker 4: We went in, I searched him.
Speaker 5: I went to the safe, and the man had told
Speaker 5: us his name is mister Michael Kirgan. I don't want
Speaker 5: to call him the man, because he's part of me.
Speaker 5: Mister Kirkhan said, there's a safe over there. It's already opened,
Speaker 5: and I went over it and there were these coins
Speaker 5: wrapped up in paper.
Speaker 4: That's all it was in the safe, and I took
Speaker 4: them all me.
Speaker 6: She says. When she looked outside, she saw the victims
Speaker 6: coworker who was arriving for his shift.
Speaker 5: I screamed, and when I screamed, the gun went off.
Speaker 5: And I didn't see it, but I knew that he
Speaker 5: had killed our victim. And he ran to the door.
Speaker 5: And my feet are like stuck like seamen in the ground.
Speaker 5: That man lost his life for eighty seven dollars, no number.
Speaker 5: If I had said eighty seven million dollars, that man
Speaker 5: lost his life for a million dollars, it wouldn't be
Speaker 5: worth it. No money, no, nothing would be worth taking
Speaker 5: somebody's life. I can tell you that, even though I
Speaker 5: didn't kill him, I'm responsible for his death. And I
Speaker 5: can tell you what it feels like to be responsible
Speaker 5: for killing.
Speaker 6: Somebody Michi and the shooter went to trial separately. Both
Speaker 6: received life sentences. Me she says, she never spoke to
Speaker 6: him again.
Speaker 5: I hated him for using me, knowing that I never
Speaker 5: knew anything about how to nobody.
Speaker 4: You didn't have to do that. Why you take me
Speaker 4: with you?
Speaker 6: Her first few days in prison were a blur.
Speaker 5: I wasn't even thinking about that I killed anybody, because
Speaker 5: in my mind, I didn't shoot nobody, I didn't stab nobody.
Speaker 4: I'm not a killer, but I'm in jailed for first
Speaker 4: degree murder.
Speaker 6: She remembers being in a room in a group of
Speaker 6: women reading a newspaper. They kept looking at her.
Speaker 4: And they said, this is you. I was on front page.
Speaker 4: I said, oh God.
Speaker 3: When we come back, we hear more from Michi about
Speaker 3: her life in prison. The challenges of accessing healthcare inside
Speaker 3: and now being a woman makes the situation all that
Speaker 3: more complicated.
Speaker 4: Stay with us. Yes, have you ever.
Speaker 8: Seen people fighting on TikTok? But you can't figure out
Speaker 8: for the life of you, why want to know.
Speaker 9: All the juicy social media drama but also want to
Speaker 9: protect your piece?
Speaker 8: On the go Touch Grass podcast, comedians Elise Morales, That's.
Speaker 9: Me and Millie Tamaraz.
Speaker 8: That's me break down the week in internet discourse, viral memes,
Speaker 8: TikTok trends, and niche influencer drama. So you can go
Speaker 8: to literally anything else with your time.
Speaker 9: Whether you're happily offline or extremely online. Go Touch Grass
Speaker 9: podcast is the pod for you.
Speaker 3: It's Latino USA. I'm Maria no Hosa. We've been hearing
Speaker 3: from Michi about how a traumatic childhood ultimately led her
Speaker 3: down a road that ended in a prison cell. Now
Speaker 3: we're going to hear from her about what growing older
Speaker 3: and sicker in prison really feels like. Senior producer Jujiata
Speaker 3: Martinelli continues the story here.
Speaker 6: And that's how the years went by at sci Munci.
Speaker 6: Mitchi says that she was far from a model prisoner.
Speaker 6: In the beginning, she ran away three times. On one occasion,
Speaker 6: she was caught a couple of months later.
Speaker 4: I was eight weeks pregnant, she says.
Speaker 6: She gave birth in shackles.
Speaker 5: I had a little girl, and that little girl is
Speaker 5: in her forties now.
Speaker 4: I never got to raise her.
Speaker 6: The baby's aunt on her father's side took custody.
Speaker 5: I said, when she gets old enough to call you anything,
Speaker 5: let her call you mom, because my mother died when
Speaker 5: I was three, and when I asked my aunt about
Speaker 5: five years old, could I call her mommy?
Speaker 4: She said no, and that hurt me.
Speaker 5: And I never wanted my daughter to feel like I
Speaker 5: felt when I was denied calling somebody mom.
Speaker 6: Eventually, Mitchie was able to attend therapy in prison. She
Speaker 6: says that she spoke out loud for the first time
Speaker 6: with other women about the abuse she had endured, about
Speaker 6: the shame that she carried so deep inside of her,
Speaker 6: about the terrible thing that she was a part of,
Speaker 6: just so she could feel valued by a man she
Speaker 6: didn't even know.
Speaker 5: Loathed myself for what I did. I am a person
Speaker 5: of embarrassment. I am a person of regret. I am
Speaker 5: a person of negligence. I am a person of bad,
Speaker 5: but I am also a person of good. Today I
Speaker 5: am a person of good. You know, my life is
Speaker 5: worse up to now it wasn't before.
Speaker 4: What is worth up to now?
Speaker 6: Mitchie says she has now been sober for over thirty
Speaker 6: years in prison, She says she made it her mission
Speaker 6: to help other women do the same. Mitchie's story is
Speaker 6: rife with trauma, but as she tells us. It's not
Speaker 6: so different from the experiences of many of the women
Speaker 6: she met in prison. A recent study by the Council
Speaker 6: of Criminal Justice estimates that about seventy percent of incarcerated
Speaker 6: women report being victims of abuse or sexual assault in
Speaker 6: their childhood. Women in prison also consistently report higher rates
Speaker 6: of mental health issues and addiction. All of these factors
Speaker 6: raised the likelihood that these women will have more severe
Speaker 6: health issues, especially as they get older. People who study
Speaker 6: access to healthcare in prison say that institutions are not
Speaker 6: prepared to address complex healthcare needs like these. Mitchie says
Speaker 6: her experience with the healthcare system was basically nonexistent.
Speaker 5: You mean the care that health give you or your
Speaker 5: own health is to care for because there is no healthcare.
Speaker 5: You know, the people who come to play doctor on us.
Speaker 6: Mitchie says that as she got older, she began to
Speaker 6: lose friends one by one, some to cancer and others
Speaker 6: to various other illnesses. It was from these women that
Speaker 6: she learned to take meticulous care of herself and to
Speaker 6: note any changes in her body.
Speaker 5: This one day, I get in the shower and I
Speaker 5: feel is not and I said, oh, that cad to
Speaker 5: come overnight let me jump on this is it now?
Speaker 4: What is inside of me?
Speaker 6: Mitchie says she put in a request a visit in
Speaker 6: the prison infirmary. She saved up for money for the
Speaker 6: five dollars cope. Yes, incarcerated people also have a cope.
Speaker 5: Paid my five dollars. I said, look a not just
Speaker 5: popped up on me overnight. I need a check for cancer.
Speaker 5: So it took them like a month to put me
Speaker 5: on the list for ultrasound. They said it was fine
Speaker 5: that I was on a stage too.
Speaker 6: But Mitchie didn't trust the results. She wanted to attack
Speaker 6: cancer as hard as possible. She wanted to live, so
Speaker 6: she insisted on another opinion. She wanted to see a
Speaker 6: doctor at a hospital.
Speaker 5: They finally came back a month later and took me
Speaker 5: out to see the on colleges. He did his own
Speaker 5: and half an hour later he came back and he said,
Speaker 5: miss Scott, and he sat down and said yeah.
Speaker 4: He said, I'm sorry to.
Speaker 5: Tell you have breast cancer.
Speaker 6: She began chemotherapy. Because Michi was not terminal, she couldn't
Speaker 6: apply for compassionate release, but Michi could apply for something
Speaker 6: called commutation. That's a process that could potentially reduce her
Speaker 6: life sentence and allow her to be released from prison.
Speaker 6: Michi had tried once to apply but had been denied.
Speaker 6: She decided to try again with the support of the
Speaker 6: Abolitionist Law Center, who also represented Frank Cross. Michi says
Speaker 6: that many people wrote letters of support, including some within
Speaker 6: the prison administration. Supporters on the outside made calls and
Speaker 6: wrote letters to the governor and the Board of Parole
Speaker 6: asking for her release. By then, Leroy Saxton, the actual shooter,
Speaker 6: was already free. He was resentenced and released from prison
Speaker 6: years prior when laws governing juvenile life sentences were amended,
Speaker 6: and yet Michi, who received a life sentence for murder
Speaker 6: despite not killing anyone herself, was still in prison. Supporters
Speaker 6: asked the state to consider the fifty years she spent inside,
Speaker 6: her rehabilitation and her illness.
Speaker 5: And I used the rest of that time in Muncie
Speaker 5: fighting breast cancer to the point where I said, just
Speaker 5: take the other one too. I don't want either one
Speaker 5: of them because I don't ever want to go through
Speaker 5: what I went through trying to get rid of breast cancer.
Speaker 6: Eventually, she had a double mis stectomy.
Speaker 5: So now I don't have any breast but I don't
Speaker 5: want cancer coming up with me through the breasts, you know,
Speaker 5: So if it comes again, it's going to have to
Speaker 5: come back somewhere else.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back, and we're back. Senior producer Juliata
Speaker 3: Martinelli continues from here.
Speaker 6: Michi says undergoing chemotherapy and a double mistectomy was difficult
Speaker 6: and painful. She made a point of speaking to the
Speaker 6: younger women and passing on the wisdom that she had received.
Speaker 5: And I tell the women, I said, you got to
Speaker 5: speak up for yourself. Tell them you want more than
Speaker 5: a Maym gram. You wanted three D because you're resident.
Speaker 5: Don't let them tell.
Speaker 4: You that you can't have And if they do tell
Speaker 4: you that.
Speaker 10: Let me know.
Speaker 6: While we're recording our interview, Michi receives a call from prison.
Speaker 3: This call is subject to recording and monitory.
Speaker 6: It's her friend Terry calling to check up on her.
Speaker 6: Michi and Terry were cellmates like thirty years ago, but
Speaker 6: they're still really close friends.
Speaker 10: She has been such a great fund to me and
Speaker 10: it has been a blessing in to have her in
Speaker 10: mind corner and.
Speaker 6: To be herves Mitchi asked Terry if she would be
Speaker 6: willing to talk to us and tell us about her
Speaker 6: own struggles with prison healthcare.
Speaker 10: Well, I've had seven surgeryes in fifteen years, so between
Speaker 10: my carpo tunnel, my hysterectomy, my foot surgery, my two
Speaker 10: back surgery, it's been rough.
Speaker 6: Terry says. It's difficult to get a diagnosis, let alone treatment.
Speaker 10: But fortunately for me, I have a very strong support
Speaker 10: system and family, so when something is wrong, I can
Speaker 10: voice it that it will do research for me, and
Speaker 10: then I go into the doctor's clinical to sit call
Speaker 10: and say, okay, now this is what I know what
Speaker 10: you're going to do. So I think that has made
Speaker 10: my way easier. For watching other people around me get
Speaker 10: sick and not have that has really been a challenge.
Speaker 10: The healthcare system that they bought into sucks.
Speaker 6: Terry is referring to Pennsylvania's private prison healthcare system. All
Speaker 6: across the country, private companies will bid for contracts with prisons.
Speaker 6: Elected officials and the Department of Correction often tell taxpayers
Speaker 6: that this is a good thing, that it's cheaper for
Speaker 6: the state, and that they're passing the responsibility of healthcare
Speaker 6: to professionals. It sounds good on paper. The problem is
Speaker 6: private companies are incentivized to reduce spending and maximize profit,
Speaker 6: and there's little oversight across the country, and over the
Speaker 6: years there have been thousands of reports of neglect, failure
Speaker 6: to provide adequate care, working with doctors who've lost their
Speaker 6: medical licenses, among other issues, Terry says even the most
Speaker 6: basic of medical needs can become a month's or even
Speaker 6: years long process that requires putting up a fight.
Speaker 10: A prime example, I had issues with my foot. It
Speaker 10: took a five years to get permission just to even
Speaker 10: pay for my own shoes because what they were selling
Speaker 10: on commentary wasn't what specialist and physical therapist say that
Speaker 10: i's and that now every shoe that I get has
Speaker 10: to be under one hundred dollars as far as its value.
Speaker 10: None of those shoes in less than one hundred and
Speaker 10: sixty bucks.
Speaker 6: Shoes A doctor had prescribed shoes that she was willing
Speaker 6: to pay for, and still Terry says that it took
Speaker 6: years for the prison to approve the request.
Speaker 10: Everything is so quickie cutter in and output quickly. They
Speaker 10: don't listen, and them not listening has been to the
Speaker 10: detriment of hundreds of people. I have to get off
Speaker 10: the phone because of somebody's phone down.
Speaker 4: Y'all all right to call you, lady.
Speaker 8: I love y'all talk to your phone.
Speaker 6: Michi tells me that she doesn't have that many friends
Speaker 6: left around her age. Many have died inside. She's one
Speaker 6: of the survivors and one of the only ones to
Speaker 6: be granted her freedom. That came about on January seventh
Speaker 6: of this year, when her commutation was approved and she
Speaker 6: was released from prison into a halfway house in Philadelphia.
Speaker 6: All she had with her was a bag and a
Speaker 6: five day supply of her medication.
Speaker 5: I'm supposed to be on medicine for the rest of
Speaker 5: my life, a pill in the morning and a pill
Speaker 5: at night to keep it from coming back somewhere else
Speaker 5: in me. So who's to say it's not going to
Speaker 5: pop up somewhere else.
Speaker 6: Mitchie tells me she hasn't taken her medication in over
Speaker 6: two weeks. Now that she's free, it's her responsibility to
Speaker 6: sign up for Medicare or to find health insurance and
Speaker 6: seek out a medical provider, you name it.
Speaker 5: I guess that's incumbent upon me, who has never even
Speaker 5: built out an application before. In jail, they do all
Speaker 5: that shit for you. I don't know how to take
Speaker 5: care of medical needs. I'm learning, just like I'm learning
Speaker 5: the phone. I'm learning how to find ways to take
Speaker 5: care of myself through the phone. So I'm trying to
Speaker 5: get Social Security, I'm trying to get medicare.
Speaker 4: I wrote all these different people.
Speaker 6: Michi says she's now in the process of getting the
Speaker 6: support she needs. But as hard as it is to
Speaker 6: start over while recovering from cancer, she says, at least
Speaker 6: now she's free.
Speaker 5: Right now, it doesn't even feel like I have feet,
Speaker 5: because everything I do is flu you know, it's on
Speaker 5: a float. And things that I see that people.
Speaker 4: Take for granted is huge to me. What kind of
Speaker 4: stuff like puppies.
Speaker 5: Walking down the street with their leases. I am like
Speaker 5: a bad boon in a car. When I see a puppy,
Speaker 5: everything is animated. That's the best way I can explain
Speaker 5: coming out into freedom after being so long. I had
Speaker 5: a friend of mine from an organization that was doing
Speaker 5: paintings or pictures of what we thought freedom would be
Speaker 5: like before we had even had a chance to get it.
Speaker 5: So I told them freedom to me would be like
Speaker 5: me standing on Mars and looking down at Earth and
Speaker 5: I'm seeing I'm getting ready to get a ship to
Speaker 5: be transported to Earth. But in the meantime, you see
Speaker 5: all these thoughts coming out of my head, like.
Speaker 4: What is a microwave? Or never, what is a iPhone?
Speaker 5: I've never had these things in my hand, So all
Speaker 5: of these things that people take for granted are huge
Speaker 5: deferred dreams. To me, life was a deferred dream until
Speaker 5: I woke up outside.
Speaker 6: You know, so then it looked like you thought that
Speaker 6: it would when you were imagining being on Mars.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, no, it was better. It was better.
Speaker 6: Michi has now been free for more than five months.
Speaker 6: She's building a relationship with her daughter and grandson and
Speaker 6: is looking forward to moving away from the halfway house
Speaker 6: into her own place eventually. She's finally back on her
Speaker 6: medication and learning how to navigate the healthcare system on
Speaker 6: the outside. She's also been more open to sharing her
Speaker 6: story and experiences with cancer inside and supporting an effort
Speaker 6: to reform the system. Lawyers and advocates in Pennsylvania are
Speaker 6: asking the state to take into account the aging population,
Speaker 6: and they're supporting a bill that would expand access to
Speaker 6: medical transfers or compassionate release so someone like Michi could
Speaker 6: seek out better quality healthcare on the outside for being
Speaker 6: considered terminally ill. Well delve into those werefom efforts on
Speaker 6: the next episode of Release to Die, and we go
Speaker 6: back to Frank Ross and an unexpected hurdle.
Speaker 10: He's now facing the Bill Silver petition to revoke his
Speaker 10: compact records and now we've got a.
Speaker 6: Record that's next time on the final chapter of Released
Speaker 6: to Die.
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Juliata Martinelli, who was edited
Speaker 3: by Merlin Bishop. He was mixed by Stephanie Lebau. Scoring
Speaker 3: and sound designed by Jacob Rossari. Fact checking for this
Speaker 3: episode by Roxanna Aguire. Fernanda Echavari is our managing editor.
Speaker 3: Nancy Trujiro is our production manager. The Latino USA team
Speaker 3: also includes Julia Caruso, Renal l Lanos, Junior Greis, Nuna
Speaker 3: or Matt Marquez, Ariana Rodriguez, and Nicole Rothwell. Benni, Lei
Speaker 3: Amidis and I are executive producers. I'm Your Host Bardaino Kosa.
Speaker 3: Latino USA is part of Iheart's Mike Utura podcast network.
Speaker 3: Executive producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana.
Speaker 4: Join us again on our next episode.
Speaker 3: Dear listener. In the meantime, look for us on all
Speaker 3: of your social media and don't forget to join Fuuturo Plus.
Speaker 3: You get to listen to everything add free and have
Speaker 3: special virtual events. So join Fuduo Plus now, Notteva, Yes Joe.
Speaker 6: Latino USA is made possible in part by Public Welfare Foundation,
Speaker 6: catalyzing transformative approaches to justice that are community led, restorative,
Speaker 6: and racially just. The Mellon Foundation MELON makes grants to
Speaker 6: port the visionaries and communities that unlock the power of
Speaker 6: the arts and humanities to help connect us all more
Speaker 6: at melon dot org. Funding for Latino USA's coverage of
Speaker 6: a Culture of Health is made possible in part by
Speaker 6: a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.