Speaker 1: Have you ever wanted a safe space where you can
Speaker 1: just exist, where for a moment in time, you can
Speaker 1: be you, with all the intricacies and parts of you
Speaker 1: that people don't always understand. Welcome to in the deep
Speaker 1: stories that shape us. I'm your host, Zach Stafford, and
Speaker 1: each episode we create a space to be you, all
Speaker 1: of you and all your messy and complicated glory. Every
Speaker 1: story shares what it means to be a black and
Speaker 1: Latin X man living with different hardships, whether it's a
Speaker 1: struggle of identity, discrimination or health, and how they've managed
Speaker 1: to push forward despite the circumstance. We hope to get closer,
Speaker 1: even it's just a little to a road of healing
Speaker 1: and understanding. Hey everyone, welcome back. So today I want
Speaker 1: to talk about something that affects us all I think,
Speaker 1: and that's the idea of how we see ourselves versus
Speaker 1: how others see us. How many times do people think
Speaker 1: they actually know our story, the real story based on
Speaker 1: assumptions or cheeky photo we've posted online, or some water
Speaker 1: cooler talk we've had in passing, And how many times
Speaker 1: have others just gotten it all wrong? Ian Manuel's life
Speaker 1: is one of those stories. That we think we've heard before,
Speaker 1: and chances are you've probably heard his story narrated by
Speaker 1: countless journalists covering the events of one late summer day
Speaker 1: that completely changed the course of his life at fourteen,
Speaker 1: or maybe you've heard about the prolific lawyer Brian Stevenson
Speaker 1: who helped him gain his liberty after twenty six years
Speaker 1: of imprisonment. But Ian's story doesn't begin and end with
Speaker 1: a bout robbery attempt. It begins with his mother and brother,
Speaker 1: who deeply, deeply hurt him, and his grandmother, who did
Speaker 1: her best to give him a semblance of a normal childhood.
Speaker 1: Growing up in Central Park Village in Tampa, Florida. I
Speaker 1: grew up in a single parent home. But my grandmother,
Speaker 1: Lynda Johnson, spoiled me rotten because you know, I felt
Speaker 1: like later on in life and evaluating why she spoiled
Speaker 1: me so much was the fact that she didn't take
Speaker 1: care of our own child, my dad, Jimmy, So she
Speaker 1: poured all the love that she didn't give my dad
Speaker 1: into me. I went to Catholic school for a first
Speaker 1: grade and second grade and half a third grade. I
Speaker 1: received awards and reading and writing. I was very artistic,
Speaker 1: meaning I could draw real good back then. But you
Speaker 1: know what they say, when you don't practice something, it
Speaker 1: has a tendency to leave you. So I started getting
Speaker 1: in trouble later on, around age eleven, man in the
Speaker 1: sixth grade, hanging with the wrong crowd. But before then, man,
Speaker 1: you know I was I was brought up by my mother,
Speaker 1: Peggy Manuel, and she loved me the best she could.
Speaker 1: But we had a mutualist relationship as well. When I
Speaker 1: was with my grandmother, there was nothing but love. When
Speaker 1: I was with my mother, that was loving anger. She
Speaker 1: was a Gemini and I actually seen uh both sides
Speaker 1: of that personality. Uh you know, that was stuff good
Speaker 1: and gentle side, and then there was this angry you know,
Speaker 1: as I talk about in my book, my time would come.
Speaker 1: You know, my mother used to say things to me
Speaker 1: that I don't think any woman should ever say to
Speaker 1: a child, like I found you on my doorstep, or
Speaker 1: why were you so dog skinned? You know, it had
Speaker 1: a bad effect on me. Man. I used to take
Speaker 1: bleached baths to try to make my skin It's like
Speaker 1: uh complexion that my mother would careful and love more.
Speaker 1: You know, I love my dog skin now, but at
Speaker 1: the time. You know, the hurtful thing she said to
Speaker 1: me made me not want to be dark. So I
Speaker 1: love spending time with my grandmother because I knew there
Speaker 1: was not gonna be two sides of the corn with her.
Speaker 1: There was gonna be one side, and that was strictly
Speaker 1: unconditional love. And you know, grandmother would take me to
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Mall when I was a kid, and she
Speaker 1: used to work. She worked twenty six years. She didn't
Speaker 1: know how to read and write. I remember her. She
Speaker 1: get over time and check from Morrison Cafeteria and her
Speaker 1: social Security check and she take them to the bank.
Speaker 1: And I fear that we was gonna leave the bank
Speaker 1: empty handed at them all because the teller would say,
Speaker 1: um Ms Johnson, can you just sign your name and
Speaker 1: I'll get you your money, And my grandmother would invariably
Speaker 1: always say I don't know how to spell my name,
Speaker 1: and the teller would say, that's all white, Mrs Johnson,
Speaker 1: just signed X, that's good enough. And I felt a
Speaker 1: huge relief because in my mind I had all these
Speaker 1: fantasies and dreams of that I was gonna get this
Speaker 1: toy and that toy and these cookies and uh so
Speaker 1: when they tell us that we were still gonna be
Speaker 1: able to cast those checks. It was a huge relief
Speaker 1: to me. But growing up and as I got old,
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, my grandmother couldn't even read it write,
Speaker 1: and that's what I do better than anything in the world.
Speaker 1: So it was something to think about. The love that
Speaker 1: Ian received from his grandmother was a complete one, a
Speaker 1: v from the relationship he had with his mother. But
Speaker 1: there was one other person that really let him down,
Speaker 1: his brother. And through these experiences of high highs low lows,
Speaker 1: he was marked by the outside world, one that should
Speaker 1: have protected him as quote a problem that's managed inside
Speaker 1: the walls of an institution. So initially, my brother was
Speaker 1: somebody that I looked up to. He was a very
Speaker 1: popular guy in the city, in the neighborhood. He was like, uh,
Speaker 1: the leader of the neighborhood. We didn't have gangs in Tampa,
Speaker 1: but we had neighborhoods against neighborhoods that would fight each other.
Speaker 1: They called him Big John John And so seeing how
Speaker 1: everyone respected my brother, I wanted to be like him.
Speaker 1: I wanted to grow up to have that type of
Speaker 1: name recognition. You know. I love my brother for a
Speaker 1: long time, and and he was somebody that I looked
Speaker 1: up to at the time. My brother took advantage of
Speaker 1: me and sexually abused me when I was like six
Speaker 1: years old, when I was in kindergarten, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand it why he would do something like that,
Speaker 1: But it was something that that happened and he was
Speaker 1: incarcerated for and something that we never really talked about
Speaker 1: after he was released from jail. We just like put
Speaker 1: it behind us. But I can honestly say that he
Speaker 1: broke a bond between us man because he used to
Speaker 1: protect me all the time. So I'll never be able
Speaker 1: to understand and comprehend why he would do something like
Speaker 1: that to someone he loved and cared for. He's deceased now,
Speaker 1: But I think everyone was ashamed that had occurred, the
Speaker 1: person that did it, the mother that allowed it to
Speaker 1: happened under her roof, and the person that had happened
Speaker 1: to you know, I think that was just a sense
Speaker 1: of shame, and so to not deal with that pain,
Speaker 1: which I feel now as an adult looking back on it,
Speaker 1: to not speak on it really just buried the pain
Speaker 1: within and no one never got to totally heal from it,
Speaker 1: you know, and you you have to address things that happened. Man,
Speaker 1: It's something that I feel like we left on the
Speaker 1: table that shouldn't have been left on the table. Ian
Speaker 1: as a young boy at this point being emotionally and
Speaker 1: physically abused by the people and systems that are supposed
Speaker 1: to protect him, and then in the midnight eighties he
Speaker 1: has to face a new reality his mom being diagnosed
Speaker 1: with HIV. Now, surprisingly, my mother was very vocal about
Speaker 1: being HIV positive. It wasn't something that she heard from
Speaker 1: the world, me or anybody. Uh. She started doing AIDS
Speaker 1: awareness work, taking me with her to pass out AIDS
Speaker 1: pamphlets condoms throughout several neighborhoods in Tampa. She'd take me
Speaker 1: to the AIDS quote when it came to Tampa and
Speaker 1: we signed our name. That AIDS quote I think still
Speaker 1: floats around America somewhere. I probably could go find my
Speaker 1: name on it if I'm lucky. But seriously, she was
Speaker 1: just very vocal and outspoken about being HIV positive and
Speaker 1: hammered at home in my brain to right now, to
Speaker 1: this day, I don't have unprotected sex. Even when I
Speaker 1: had a girlfriend like I would have protected sex, and
Speaker 1: so it's you know, that's something that I'm very, very
Speaker 1: afraid of contracting HIV because my mother died of that disease.
Speaker 1: I lost the person that I loved a lot to
Speaker 1: a horrible disease, and I swar to myself that I
Speaker 1: would do everything to protect myself from ever contracting the virus.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a child, I couldn't envision my
Speaker 1: mother dying. My mother was still a healthy woman, like
Speaker 1: healthy in the sense that she was over two hundreds
Speaker 1: something pounds, like two thirty pounds, and I just couldn't
Speaker 1: comprehend my strong, vocal mother being torn apart by this
Speaker 1: terrible disease. She passed in June, like a week before
Speaker 1: her birthday. Actually, uh, June eighth nine. Yeah, I remember,
Speaker 1: and uh vividly. I was in solitary confine it but
Speaker 1: uh the sergeant came and got me and UH took
Speaker 1: me to the chapel of the prison chapel, and uh
Speaker 1: on the walk to the chapel, the guy, the sergeant
Speaker 1: asked me, um, and has anyone in your family been sick?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, my mom. And you wouldn't
Speaker 1: believe the thoughts that you're going the prayers that you're
Speaker 1: saying while you walk into the chapel, like, God, anybody
Speaker 1: but my mom. Don't let it be my mom, Let
Speaker 1: it be my brother, Let it be anybody but my mom.
Speaker 1: That's this is the thoughts that's going through my head.
Speaker 1: And I got to the chapel and I just remember
Speaker 1: sitting down black guy afro glasses. I sat across from her,
Speaker 1: and he said, Uh, your brother called, and so right
Speaker 1: then I knew it wasn't my brother, Like my word
Speaker 1: spears was about to be realized. And he said, Uh,
Speaker 1: your brother called and told me your mother had passed away,
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm sorry. I called the hospital um to
Speaker 1: confirm and they have confirmed her death. And so now
Speaker 1: I'm giving you your phone call to your family to
Speaker 1: talk to your brother about what has just happened. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so I remember, and its vividens happened yesterday, and so
Speaker 1: even talking about it now, it's like I'm visualized being
Speaker 1: back in that office. This is almost like a therapy
Speaker 1: session because I haven't talked about this type of stuff
Speaker 1: in a while. Ian was nineteen years old, sitting in
Speaker 1: solitary confinement when his mom passed. We've heard about the
Speaker 1: events that landed him in prison as a young boy
Speaker 1: countless times. Three older friends, the guys he considered his community,
Speaker 1: convinced him to head to the downtown area and commit
Speaker 1: a robbery. Ian says that the mom is leading up
Speaker 1: to the robbery were like a game of hot potato,
Speaker 1: the boys passing off the gun to one another, indecisive
Speaker 1: about who would follow through with the robbery. Finally, his
Speaker 1: friend Mikey, makes an executive decision. Give it to Ian.
Speaker 1: He's not scared, He'll do it, he says. They sat
Speaker 1: in the car waiting for the next random person to
Speaker 1: walk by to make their move, and the person who
Speaker 1: walked by was debbue Bakery and her friend. But as
Speaker 1: the young boys followed through with the plan to ask
Speaker 1: them for change for a twenty dollar bill, something happened
Speaker 1: that made her scream an Ian shot in a panic.
Speaker 1: A few days later, at only fourteen years old, he
Speaker 1: was advised to plead guilty by his lawyer. Ian's mother
Speaker 1: also pressure him and to plead guilty, promised the sentence
Speaker 1: of fifteen years. He agreed, but instead he was sentenced
Speaker 1: as an adult to life in prison without the possibility
Speaker 1: of parole. First of all, I couldn't comprehend life without parole.
Speaker 1: I had just turned fourteen two weeks prior. All this
Speaker 1: legal jargon at the time didn't mean nothing to me.
Speaker 1: A life sentence, I thought was twenty years. I did
Speaker 1: not know life meant until your demand. I did not
Speaker 1: know life meant that I would not be released until
Speaker 1: the end of my life. Um So the only thing
Speaker 1: going through my mind was I was going to prison
Speaker 1: and I was not going home. That's what I comprehended.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that I could comprehend. I wrote
Speaker 1: my mother in prison, blaming her for being in prison
Speaker 1: with a life sentence, and I distinctively remember her writing
Speaker 1: me back, saying, boy, don't try to lay that guilt
Speaker 1: trip on me. Had you not been out there robbing
Speaker 1: and shooting people, your ask when being prisoned quote unquote.
Speaker 1: But I really took it to heart, you know, not
Speaker 1: trying to blame other people for my problems, but that
Speaker 1: I would not have had a life sentence. Had and
Speaker 1: I probably would have, but you know, who knows, I
Speaker 1: was thirteen. Maybe the jury would have had some leaning
Speaker 1: and seeing on me. You know, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I just felt that my mom misled me man, and
Speaker 1: she she failed as a mother to protect me from
Speaker 1: the system. I just don't know how you moved past that.
Speaker 1: Did you ever moved past it with her before she passed? Uh?
Speaker 1: To be honest, I don't think I ever did. I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever did, because I felt like she
Speaker 1: let me down at one of the most vulnerable times
Speaker 1: in my life. So to recap Ian his fourteen a
Speaker 1: literal child sitting in solitary confinement, being raised by correctional officers,
Speaker 1: and a system that failed to protect him. But even
Speaker 1: through these lonely moments, his imagination kept him going and
Speaker 1: sparked a new love for an unexpected interest poetry. Confinement calms.
Speaker 1: The first day that I entered in prison, but I
Speaker 1: was only for three weeks. I was placed in solitary
Speaker 1: confinement the first day I went to prison based on
Speaker 1: the fact that I was fourteen, but that was only
Speaker 1: for three weeks at the reception center. After that, I
Speaker 1: was transferred to an adult prison. While I was placed
Speaker 1: in jail, a real population and giving all the privileges
Speaker 1: if you can call them that, as an adult prisoner,
Speaker 1: and uh, I rebelled because I wasn't an adult and
Speaker 1: the officers would yell at me. I would yell back.
Speaker 1: I would do typical teenage behavior, stuff like I would
Speaker 1: be in an unauthorized areas what new kids do when
Speaker 1: they're young, They're in places they're not supposed to be.
Speaker 1: The officers would curse at me. I would curse back.
Speaker 1: I would get in fights. I uh walk in the
Speaker 1: grass when I was supposed to walk on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: and all of that would I would get right ups.
Speaker 1: And if you get enough, right up, and they label
Speaker 1: you a management problem, unable to be controlled in the
Speaker 1: general population. So I was placed in long term solitary
Speaker 1: confinement in November nineteen ninety two, and it was a
Speaker 1: place I would stay until November two thousand ten. So
Speaker 1: for eighteen secutive years I was in solitary confinement. You're
Speaker 1: a kid growing up in solitary confinnment by yourself. What
Speaker 1: she was going through your head during this time? Are
Speaker 1: you reading? How are you taking care of yourself? What
Speaker 1: were the days like? Oh? They were boring. It was
Speaker 1: filled with monotoney. You know. I had to find my way. Man,
Speaker 1: I was growing up in prison. But not only was
Speaker 1: I growing up in prison, I was boring up inside
Speaker 1: of a cell, the size of a walk in closet
Speaker 1: or freight elevator. You know, so it was difficult, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I started out reading urban novels,
Speaker 1: Donald Goran's Iceberg Slim, and then, you know, over the years,
Speaker 1: my mentality grew. You know, I started reading fountain Head
Speaker 1: by An rand Uh, The Seat of the Soul by
Speaker 1: Gary Zoukal, The Power of Now by E Cart Totally
Speaker 1: the autobiography of Malcolm X. I read thousands of books
Speaker 1: in solitary, but the thing that changed my life Albert
Speaker 1: Einstein says that imagination is more important than knowledge, and
Speaker 1: it was my imagination that sustained me. Thank God for
Speaker 1: my childlike imagination. Someone sent me Tupucks Currents book The
Speaker 1: Roles that Grew from Concrete, and I fell in love
Speaker 1: with the poetry, and I started rewriting two part poems
Speaker 1: and sharing with my fellow prisoners. And then the prisoners
Speaker 1: loved it so much they started paying me to write
Speaker 1: their girlfriends and their wives poetry. And next thing, you know, man,
Speaker 1: I I felt alive again. I felt something of value
Speaker 1: that happened to offer the world. I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: know what It's like the first poem that I wrote
Speaker 1: that really got some recognition was a born called Genie
Speaker 1: in the Bottle, and it's about solitary confinement, and I
Speaker 1: love to share it with you right now. It says
Speaker 1: I'm the genie in the bottle. The world has forgotten.
Speaker 1: They put me in this abyss and closed up the top.
Speaker 1: I was a little boy when they did what they did,
Speaker 1: but time continued to tick, and I'm no longer a kid.
Speaker 1: My mother is dead and so is my father. I've
Speaker 1: been abandoned by family while trapped in this bottle, but
Speaker 1: I hold on the hope that someone will open the top,
Speaker 1: answer my prayers and help me out. Sometimes people pick
Speaker 1: up the bottle and put that eye to the whole.
Speaker 1: But instead of compassion, acting different and cold, I suffer
Speaker 1: sensory deprivation, a lost sense of direction. There's no mirror
Speaker 1: in this bottle for me to see my reflection. They say,
Speaker 1: being lonely and alone are two different definitions, but it's
Speaker 1: only me in this bottle, so I fit both descriptions.
Speaker 1: What I need is a friend, someone to extend the hand.
Speaker 1: It could be as simple as picking up a pen,
Speaker 1: someone who cares accepts me for who I am, my
Speaker 1: magna netic personality and my baggage from the past. Someone
Speaker 1: who helps here the sorrow will work on building out
Speaker 1: to morals. Someone who refuses to leave me to die
Speaker 1: in this bottom. It allowed me to reclaim my sense
Speaker 1: of freedom. Listen, God gives each and every one of
Speaker 1: us a gift. My gift just happens to be the
Speaker 1: ability to compose words and ways that move people. People
Speaker 1: ask me, how did you survive? Man? You know, not
Speaker 1: only did I survived. I survived with my sanity, my talent,
Speaker 1: and my humanity and tact and that was a tall
Speaker 1: order to do. But I will say, despite all of that,
Speaker 1: I would have died in prison had it not been
Speaker 1: for Brian Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative taking my
Speaker 1: case and two thousand six and eventually appealing to the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to overturn all juvenile life sentences that lead
Speaker 1: to my release in two thousand sixteen. So despite the
Speaker 1: freedom that I felt in writing, my physical freedom would
Speaker 1: have never came had it not been for God sending
Speaker 1: me the best lawyer in America. When you found out
Speaker 1: these cases were being appealed and that you had won.
Speaker 1: What was that day? Where were you? What was going
Speaker 1: on in your head? I was listening to a small
Speaker 1: a m FM transistor radio and solitary confoundly that I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have had that someone had smuggled to me. And
Speaker 1: I was listening to NPR, and um it came on
Speaker 1: and like at the top of the hour, like one o'clock,
Speaker 1: and they said, and the U. S. Supreme Court, in
Speaker 1: a five four decision has overturned all life sentences for
Speaker 1: juveniles if they have not committed a non homicide crime.
Speaker 1: And they went on to the next story. And I
Speaker 1: had to wait thirty agonizing minutes to hear this again.
Speaker 1: And when I listened to it again, they said a
Speaker 1: six three decision, but it was still in my favorite
Speaker 1: and I just screamed, man, I just screamed loud. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's over, it's over. I just remember screaming it's over,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was, but it wasn't. Because when
Speaker 1: I went back to court in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: thinking I was gonna be released because my sentence was
Speaker 1: deemed cruel and unusual punishment and unconstitutional, the State of
Speaker 1: Florida said, your honor, we are killing the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision, and everyone in the court room was
Speaker 1: stunned because there was like, there's nothing to a field.
Speaker 1: This came from the highest court in the land, and
Speaker 1: they said, trying to catch twenty two Yes, yea honor.
Speaker 1: But the U. S. Supreme Court said, this is for
Speaker 1: juveniles who committed non homicide offenses. Mr Manual committed attempted homicide,
Speaker 1: which falls under the homicide statue, so we don't believe
Speaker 1: that this law should apply to him. So they sent
Speaker 1: me back to prison, and they appealed to the Florida
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, who refused to hear their appeal. They appealed
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Supreme Court, who denied search where
Speaker 1: meaning they denied. They appealed as well. And I went
Speaker 1: back to court in two thousand eleven thinking I was
Speaker 1: going home, but I didn't. I got back into judge
Speaker 1: said something before he went in his chambers to deliberate,
Speaker 1: to let me know I wasn't going home that day.
Speaker 1: He said there was a statement made about rehabilitation. However,
Speaker 1: when Mr Manuel's crime happened, the legislative intent was to punish,
Speaker 1: not rehabilitate, And he went in his chambers to deliberate,
Speaker 1: and he came back out, and he afforded my life sentences,
Speaker 1: and in place of my life sentences, he sentenced me
Speaker 1: to sixty five years in prison. I went back to prison,
Speaker 1: and I wrote this poem called My Time Will Come.
Speaker 1: The poem says, I promise you the print of my
Speaker 1: question has a purpose, and the same person that you
Speaker 1: persecute will one day be worshiped. Though I stand before you,
Speaker 1: bat chested and shirtless, with my soul and emotions naked,
Speaker 1: just wanting to be nurtured. Yeah, despite the desperation, desertion,
Speaker 1: and hurting, my time gonna come. Though I compose this
Speaker 1: poem not knowing if I'll ever be able to perform
Speaker 1: it in an auditorium, I do it with the faith
Speaker 1: of a poet that believes he was born to do it,
Speaker 1: like an acorn caught up in a storm, flung from
Speaker 1: the branch where it was born. You can only hold
Speaker 1: me back for so long. My time gonna come. Despite
Speaker 1: the difficulties and disappointments. My determination remains undaunted. Though the
Speaker 1: waters of my tomorrows are deep and uncharted, the buoyance
Speaker 1: of my character will float on, wavering towards him like
Speaker 1: a song written yet unrecorded. My time gonna come. Though
Speaker 1: you wrap me and change and sprayed me with chemical
Speaker 1: flames and did all of the things you did to
Speaker 1: add to my pain, my circumstances will change. I believe
Speaker 1: it's with the depths of my being that as long
Speaker 1: as this world continues to spend, it cannot end until
Speaker 1: it's been enjoyed by end. Remember this day because things
Speaker 1: won't always beat its way. My time gonna come, My
Speaker 1: time gonna come against all conceivable odds. My time gonna come.
Speaker 1: If five years later I was released. Wow, did you
Speaker 1: think about that poem when you find out you're being released?
Speaker 1: I definitely did, And that's why it's the tide of
Speaker 1: my book. My time will come. In the traditional sense,
Speaker 1: we often find ourselves starting a process of forgiving with others,
Speaker 1: but Ian how to approach forgiven us from the thin
Speaker 1: and slowly start expanding to those who he had wronged
Speaker 1: and those that had wronged him. Even before the overturn
Speaker 1: of his life sentence, he thought a lot about forgiveness,
Speaker 1: especially when it came to his victim who survive the
Speaker 1: robbery I called Debbie when I was fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: My lawyer at the time had sent me all of
Speaker 1: my legal documents, and I saw in the police report
Speaker 1: Debbie's address and phone number, and I just felt compelled
Speaker 1: to reach out to her. My grandmother didn't raise me
Speaker 1: to hurt people. That's not who I am as a person.
Speaker 1: And so I called Debbie collect. You know, back then
Speaker 1: you could just press zero and get a live operator.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that still works these days, right,
Speaker 1: But I called Debbie. She accepted the call. She said,
Speaker 1: can you ask him his last name? And I said, yes, Manual,
Speaker 1: and she said, with a tentative voice, yes. I except
Speaker 1: and I don't remember a lot about that first phone call,
Speaker 1: except I said I'd like to wish you and your
Speaker 1: family a merry Christmas and to apologize for shooting you
Speaker 1: in the face. And then Debbie asked me a question
Speaker 1: that no fourteen year old should ever have to answer.
Speaker 1: She said, Ian, why did you shoot me? And I said, Debbie,
Speaker 1: it all happened so fast, it was a mistake. And
Speaker 1: we talked. The fifteen minute phone call ended. I asked,
Speaker 1: could our call back? She said yes? And all I
Speaker 1: remember about the second phone call was asking could writer
Speaker 1: and she said yes, and That's how corresponded started and
Speaker 1: we eventually developed a friendship. And I believe every human
Speaker 1: being has these desires to do things, impulses to act,
Speaker 1: and yet we pushed these ideas to these feelings down,
Speaker 1: like in another word, it's a crazy idea. And I
Speaker 1: have found in my forty four years of existence that
Speaker 1: every time I've listened to that call of my heart
Speaker 1: and not pushing it aside, it has led to some
Speaker 1: extraordinary things, whether that was calling Debbie at fourteen, whether
Speaker 1: that was writing the US Senator Bill Nelson when I
Speaker 1: was in solitary confinement, and I didn't know it at
Speaker 1: the time because I was fourteen, but I know it
Speaker 1: now as an older spiritual person that that's what I
Speaker 1: was doing. Man, I was following my heart and not
Speaker 1: pushing the idea down, even though it was a crazy idea.
Speaker 1: Called the lady, you shot and have a conversation with it,
Speaker 1: like most people are gonna gonna report you to the
Speaker 1: authorities first of all, gonna run far away from you.
Speaker 1: But it worked. She accepted the call, and you know,
Speaker 1: we became friends. And I have a phone number right
Speaker 1: now and context or caller right now to this day.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people get it wrong about punishment. You know, when
Speaker 1: I was in prison, every time they would execute somebody
Speaker 1: at an electric chair or the guernee at Florida State Prison,
Speaker 1: I would turn on NPR the next morning and I
Speaker 1: would listen to the family members say this is what
Speaker 1: my uncle, my brother, my dad, my mother would have wanted.
Speaker 1: Justice has been served. But by debt be surviving, not dying.
Speaker 1: No one could tell that story for her. Only she
Speaker 1: could come forth and say what she wanted. And she
Speaker 1: wanted me out of prison. Right. That was forgiveness. Man.
Speaker 1: It was a process that she didn't forgive me instantly.
Speaker 1: It was a growth process. It was her seeing me
Speaker 1: my true self, that I wasn't a bad person, that
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to intentionally kill her, you know. And
Speaker 1: I'm just thankful that she survived and was able to
Speaker 1: tell her own story. Instell of having angry husband say
Speaker 1: this is what my wife would have wanted Ian to
Speaker 1: die in prison. You know, I'm showing the world, first
Speaker 1: of all, that I deserved a second chance. And I
Speaker 1: am also a manifestation that dreams actually do come true.
Speaker 1: Because getting out wasn't good enough for me. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to just get out. I didn't want to just survive.
Speaker 1: I wanted to flyve. I used to dive within the
Speaker 1: depths of my imagination. I'm gonna be this big superstar
Speaker 1: rapper when I get out, gonna have a movie. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do a book, and I have a book. I
Speaker 1: signed a movie deal. And there's so much more that
Speaker 1: I'm doing with my life that shows that the system,
Speaker 1: if it could, just throws people away. And it's my
Speaker 1: belief that there's thousands of more eends in prison that
Speaker 1: deserve a second chance. And by me thriving out here,
Speaker 1: I mean I give emails and letters from prisoners all
Speaker 1: the time saying, and you gotta make it man. You
Speaker 1: give us hope, You show us that this is possible. Man,
Speaker 1: make it man. And so I'm inspired by the people
Speaker 1: I left behind, and I just try to keep it
Speaker 1: really through my authenticity by being myself. Well, I'm a
Speaker 1: manifestation that dreams come true. Man, So follow your dreams,
Speaker 1: stick to him, and believing yourself non't matter what. Ian
Speaker 1: brings us an idea that's so special and yet so
Speaker 1: simple that our circumstances do not have to define our
Speaker 1: ability to lose touch with what makes us human, and
Speaker 1: it's the ability to continue dreaming even in the most
Speaker 1: desolated places, or forgiving those that have wronged us, those
Speaker 1: we have wronged, or even forgive ourselves for past mistakes
Speaker 1: that keeps us on track to internal peace and healing.
Speaker 1: This has been in the deep stories that shape us.
Speaker 1: Find this episode in others on the i Heeart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: The show is for duced by Yvonne Chien and mastered
Speaker 1: by James Foster. Our show researcher is Jordan Raggio and
Speaker 1: our writer is Vette Lopez. A special shout out to
Speaker 1: our guest Ian Manuel. I'm your host Zach Stafford.