Transcript
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Happy New Year and welcome welcome to season three of Round Trip Death, the NDE podcast
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unlike any other. As promised, we're kicking off the New Year with an extremely unusual episode,
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an interview with near-death experiencer and death row inmate Michael Bain.
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Michael is incarcerated in Tennessee and as you will hear, we're communicating over an old prison
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landline, so I apologize in advance for the audio quality of this episode, but know that you'll find
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it worth listening to. From the time that they pronounced me death was a good 45 minutes. They
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cut my clothes and then they paddled my hoax, my heart had stopped and I could see people screaming
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and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else.
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The only thing that I could feel if you could imagine absolute love and peace, there wasn't
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anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again.
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Incredibly safe and felt at home. Hey, good morning Michael. It's good to meet you.
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Nice to meet you. Good morning. Good morning. So our podcast is all about near-death experiences
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and I interview people from all over the world and all walks of life that have had near-death
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experiences and we'd love to hear about yours today. Well, before I have you jump into it,
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can you just tell our listeners a little bit about you and your circumstances? They don't know who
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you are yet. My name is John Michael Bain. I go by Michael Michael. I'm on Tennessee's death row
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in Nashville, Tennessee. I've been here since 1990. I've got a web page which is freemichaelbain.weebly.com
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and I also have an Instagram page that says Tennessee death row inmate six justice. I've been
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trying for many, many years to get DNA testing and stuff like that right there for my case.
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I've been trying since 93 since I first seen it on the TV. They do DNA tests and I just recently
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got it, but there's a big process going on here in Tennessee right now that the attorney general
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for the state of Tennessee is fighting with all the local DAs about he should have all the authority
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over these death penalty cases and they're saying, no, because you're appointed and we're elected. We
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should have it and that's the only thing that's holding me up right now. Okay. I was 23 years
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old when I come here and now I'm going to turn 59. Wow, you've been there a long time. Long time.
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Hey, let's go back to 1994. I believe it was September 5th, 1994. You were already in prison.
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What happened that day? I was on death row at that time. We went out to the yard to go to the
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red yard to exercise and stuff like that. Me and a few guys go out on the yard and we played
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P-knuckle. Me and the guy Henry Hodges and I played partners with, I thought at the time was one of my
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good friends. Me and him was playing partners against somebody else. We'd been playing for about
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15 minutes and we'd all sat down at this concrete table and stool and everything.
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Behind me is a phone booth where you make phone calls when you go out to the yard.
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All of a sudden, he told somebody, he said, man, Henry told somebody else that was in the
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case. He said, take my hand. I need to make a phone call right quick. I didn't think that,
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because everybody said that table was pretty cool. He got behind me, started dialing the number.
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I heard him dial the number. I was standing in the cars. I was standing up, dealing the cars to all
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the other players. When I sat down, he put his arm around my neck and I thought he was just playing.
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So I pulled his arm from around my neck and when I pulled his arm back,
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it had my arm and his arm had blood all over it. So before I could get up, he stabbed me in the back,
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right through my back to my heart and cut my kidneys open. But what I didn't know at the time,
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he'd already cut my throat. He cut my drug domain completely in two.
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That is unbelievable that you're alive to talk about that today.
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I realized that. I realized that. And I thank God for it every day. It's just a miracle.
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But he chased me around the record because there was no officer and there was a lot of inmates
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on the record that were screaming and hard to get some help out there. And finally after about
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20 minutes or so, some officers come out there and they wouldn't come into the cage because he
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had a knife, right? So they opened the cage up and I just went outside the cage and I don't know
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if I should say this over here, but I was so mad at myself for being, for letting somebody sneak up
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on me from behind like anyone somebody that I thought was real close to me. So I turned around
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and looked at him and I told him, I said, you better pray to God that I die because when I come
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back, you're mine. I said, I promise you that. And I went and laid down in the floor in the
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Epoch. And what they didn't realize when I laid down in the floor, that there was two officers,
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they're officer Sean and officer Salem. They pitched the order. They was in, they was in
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Medevax in Vietnam and they pitched the arteries off in my neck to keep me from bleeding all that.
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But what they didn't know that I was stabbed in the back and my kidney was cut open too.
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When I laid down on that, on that tile floor, it kind of sealed off those two wounds for me. I
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was lucky. I was very lucky. I was blessed. I wasn't lucky. I was blessed. No nurses helped me that
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day. It was all of them two officers and they brought the ambulance down here and I had a,
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they put, they put those IVs in both groins and both arms to keep me alive. But before I got that,
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before I got out to Vanderbilt Hospital, Vanderbilt, promising, I blacked all the way out. I blacked
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all the way out. I was in this dark place. It was really dark, really quiet, the most peaceful
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place I'd ever been in my life. And it seemed like I was only in there for a few minutes, but
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it was like, almost like an eternity too. But I was in a place that I felt like I needed to be
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at the time. You know what I'm saying? It was so, I don't know how to play. I don't know how to say
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it, but it was just so, I don't know, peaceful, and joyous and stuff. But there was no light. I
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mean, everybody's always talking about they seem to like, I didn't see a light. It was all dark.
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It was just all calm and all peaceful. And then I heard this voice say, it's not your time, Michael.
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It's not your time. Go back. That's when I woke up. Now, that sounds very simple and very short.
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And a lot of near-death experiences are very simple and very short. Some people call that dark
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place the void. Does that sound like a word that describes where you were? I mean, there was nothing
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else around. So I guess it would be a void. Couldn't see anything. It was total darkness.
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I don't know. For some reason, the term sounds a little bit dark, dreary and negative to me,
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but you didn't feel that way, did you? Tell us more about what you felt.
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No, not at all. Not at all. I was just calm and peaceful. It was like,
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peace like I'd never felt in my life. And it was just, it was, it was so unreal to me.
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Did you feel the presence of anybody else there?
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I just heard the voice. I felt, I felt love like I'd never felt it before, though.
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Tell me about the love. It was just like overwhelming.
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Just like, it was just so overwhelming. It was unreal.
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Keep going. Keep explaining. I don't know that you can explain something like that. When you've
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been to know me, you would know that there's never been a lot of love in my life until,
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in the last few years. But at that moment in that time, it was like, it was all love. It was about
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me and nothing else. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Whatever that voice was or whoever that
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voice was, they were saying it wasn't my time. There was a reason it wasn't my time. I truly
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believe that. I truly believe that no matter how bad you've been hurt or injured or anything like
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there, right there, if it's not your time, you're not going to go. There's a, there's someone looking
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out for us. So do you think that maybe the reason that you had an experience like this was,
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had something to do with the kind of life that you led versus people that, you know, hear angels
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and see a light and a tunnel and all that kind of thing? I don't know. I've never thought about it
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that way. I mean, my life was just, I mean, I mean, I probably shouldn't say this, but there are,
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there are people in this world that I truly believe shouldn't have children. And my parents was
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those, was two of those people that I thought should never have children. They didn't know how
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to, they didn't know how to raise kids. They didn't know how to nurture them or take care of them.
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So until, until that day, I don't think I really knew what blood was about.
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Yeah. Go ahead and just briefly and in just one minute or less, tell us about how you were raised.
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Oh, we moved around a lot. My dad was a farmhand. So we moved around a lot because he couldn't pay
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the bills and stuff like that right there. We just go from town to town, place to place.
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And what was it like in your home? Did you have a nice bed time story every night and a kiss on
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the forehead and put to bed? No, nothing like that. No, no, nothing like that. Nothing like that.
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My mom was an alcoholic. So what little money my dad made, she'd always drink it up. All of us
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kids learn how to cook at a young age because if we didn't cook, we sometimes when she was drinking,
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we wouldn't get paid. Yeah. So you just had to take care of yourselves. Yeah. Yeah. We never had
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birthdays stuff like the other Christmas gifts or anything like that. That's hard for some of us to
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relate to. And I'm sure it had something to do with the kind of life that you've led. Did you
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ever think that you would end up in prison though? I never thought I'd end up on death row. You know
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what I'm saying? I was wild as a youngster. So I mean, I didn't think nothing about it at the time.
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I really didn't. I went to prison in 1982 and I committed that crime. I drove a
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getaway car in a robbery, but I didn't. I wouldn't have no partners when I hear.
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I would never killed anybody for money anyway, for anything unless you hurt one of my children.
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I mean, we might have a problem. All right. Let's come back to your experience that you had.
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So you're in this dark, but peaceful and loving place. You hear a voice that says it's not your
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time yet. Have I left anything out? Was there any more to it than that? No, I don't think so.
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Okay. Not at all. It was just that simple. I couldn't believe it. What happened next?
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Now I woke up and I was rolled into Vanderbilt, Thomas Center unit in Nashville, Tennessee,
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and the doctor gave me a shot with a big needle. Went straight to my heart. It was adrenaline.
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Then they put a mask over my face and I fell asleep and the next morning I woke up and they'd
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teach me all the put staple. They didn't teach me if they put staples all in me and Dr. Rutherford
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was telling all the interns and stuff around that he said, if I'd have had to have a half a
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couple blood out of this man's body yesterday, he said he would have been dead. So I didn't have
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much blood in my body when I got there. No, you absolutely did not. I look at that light.
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I absolutely look at that light. You know, it wasn't his doing and it wasn't my doing it.
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I'm still alive. It was only by the grace of God, I believe that. So tell me about your belief in
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God. Did you have a belief before this experience? How did it happen after? When I was a kid, I used
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to go to church every Sunday and then we started moving around. So I got out of that in here on
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death row. You have to have something. You've got to find something to believe in. So I started
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reading the Bible again and got off into it and I didn't really go to these churches in the prison
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system in this prison because people have their own agenda and I'm one of those people. I believe
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if you're going to serve God, you've got to serve him completely, not just a little bit.
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So I believe in God, but I'm not a person who is
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believes in Christianity as an institution. If that makes any sense. Sure. Hi, this is Will. I
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wanted to jump on for a second today and talk a little bit about smart labels. Smart labels has
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been super helpful for me and my wife to organize our storage. We may be a young married couple,
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but we still have some of those little boxes that we put away for summer clothes and camping gear.
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Smart labels makes it super easy. You just put a QR code on the box. The app walks you
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right through how to categorize everything. And then when we need stuff in the spring,
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you can just search right on the app what you're looking for and it tells you exactly what box
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it's in. Smart labels also comes in a few different colors. So if you're moving, makes it awesome.
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You can categorize your boxes by different colors. So your kitchen is red, your bathroom is blue.
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And as soon as you get that moving truck there, you know exactly what boxes are what we used to
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use sticky notes on boxes and they were always falling off. But smart labels made it super easy
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to not only categorize things, but also look them up in the future. Will just told you how much he
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likes smart labels. Now I have the fun job. I get to give some away. Just head on over to
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round trip death on Facebook. There's a post there today. You're going to see the details.
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It's really easy and you just might win a set. How has this experience made your feeling about
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death? In other words, most people in general are fearful of death. I'm not afraid of death no
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more. People that have faith maybe have less fear. Yeah, go ahead and explain. He just mentioned
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you don't have fear anymore. Go ahead and expound on that. I don't fear death anymore.
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But really included, I never have. It's never been one of those things I was afraid of because I
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always felt like I was going to be okay. I've always felt that way. Now my friends that I talked
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to on the phone, they all know that they know I'm at peace with death and everything. So it
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doesn't affect me like it does most people. Most people, it's all they think about. I don't think
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about it at all. But somebody brings it up. Sure. So other people on death row, are they
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struggling with the fact that they may be put to death one of these days? Oh yes, because I mean,
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a lot of them go medications. They take halodol and stuff like that right there and
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values and things like that right there to get from them in primary because they can't cope on a
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daily basis. But you're at peace with it. Yeah. I don't actually believe I'm going to die here.
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I don't believe God saved me in order to let me die here. I don't believe that was my purpose.
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I don't believe that was his purpose in saving me. So what do you think the purpose was? I have no
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clue. I've been searching for that for the longest time. I've been searching for that purpose.
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You know, we all are. We're all searching for our purpose, not just you.
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Have you ever read a book? Have you ever read a book, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl?
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Yes, I have. Yeah, that's one of my most favorite books. It was written the same year I was born
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in 1964. So in some ways, do you relate to him and the experience that he had in Germany?
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To a little bit, yeah. To a little bit, yeah. You know, there's a quote in there and he says,
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be grateful for small mercies. Yeah, and it's been a while since I read it, but it seems like
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he was all about the attitude that you have and the attitude that you had, he had, was what kept
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him alive. But I think in that book, for the most part, he was also looking forward to being back
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with his wife when he got out of there. And what he didn't know was within six weeks after they
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was both captured, she was put to death. Right. And if he had known that, he may not have survived it.
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He may not have survived. He may have given up. Yeah.
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Yeah. So what keeps you going every day? My friends. My friends, I've got friends that I talk to on a
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daily basis. I'm talking about in the free world, not inside the prison. I talk to them on a daily
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basis. We set up scheduled phone calls and stuff like that right there and they keep me going.
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You're trying to help me get up out of here. That's what keeps me going. Well, people like Jeff,
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who I just recently met. People like Jeff. Yes, I've got several of them. Jeff, Emily,
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Glenda, Beverly, Stephanie, Taylor, Emily, E, I got a bunch of them. What is an average day like on
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death row? I get up in the morning, usually around five o'clock and do what I need to do before they
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unlock the doors. And then I got a job here. I'm the clerk here on this unit. I take care of all
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general paperwork and commissary and laundry and things like that, with their ordering clothes and
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stuff like that. That's my baby routine and I make phone calls throughout the periodic week or
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after the day. That's nice that you're able to do that. What would you say to other people that
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maybe are dealing with either the loss of a loved one recently or they really have kind of an over
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abundance of a fear of death? What would you tell them that might help them today? I don't know about
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if you just recently lost a loved one. I mean, we've all gone through that at one time or another
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and it's not a good thing. I think you just have to keep the faith and just keep moving forward.
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Time heals all wounds. I truly believe that. I've lost both of my parents since I've been here.
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I've lost a lot of family members and time heals all wounds because there's nothing we can do about
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what's happened. You know what I'm saying? We just got to keep moving forward and that's what our
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people and our family and our loved ones would want us to do as far as fear and death. I don't
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know how to answer that question because I've never feared death. It's never been that way for me.
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I truly believe if your heart is right, you're going to be okay no matter where you go.
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If you believe in God, then you know where you're going. If you believe in Him.
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What other changes happened in you because of this experience?
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I don't think I'm so angry anymore. When I first come here, I was so angry because they
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locked me up for something I didn't do and I think so many people knew that I didn't commit
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this crime. It was just unreal. I mean, everybody says they're not guilty when they're locked up,
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but I mean, they had no physical evidence against me whatsoever. It was just a bunch of lies.
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It's just unreal. After that experience, I just realized, you know, there's not enough time to hate.
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There's not enough time to be angry. So I go through the day as pleasant as I can be. I mean,
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it doesn't cost a thing. It doesn't cost you a dime to say hello or good morning to somebody
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or say something encouraging to make people feel a little better. Thanks like that right there.
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It doesn't cost a dime to do that. It's nothing off of me. You know,
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don't make somebody else's day bad just because your day's bad. Tell me about your thoughts on
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forgiveness. Sounds like you've had to forgive some people. You know, people don't realize this,
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but I think forgiveness is not about somebody else's about yourself, right? I mean, for me,
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it only hurts me if I hold it, if I hold it, hold it inside. You know what I'm saying? So I let it go
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as quick and as fast as I possibly can no matter how bad it is. Henry Hodges, I'm not going to
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tell you. Henry Hodges cut my throat and he tried to kill me, but every now and then he'll call me
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to his door and he'll ask me to cook something for him because he can't get to the microwave. They
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got him locked down or to, you know, turn in his commissary form or things like that right there.
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I had to let all of that go and it was really easy for me because I don't believe in holding
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grudges at all. How about forgiving your parents? I think I've done that years ago. I kind of left
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home at an early age. I never had much to contact with them anymore. Just recently, me and my two
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sisters and my brother just started talking again after all these years. It's been about, I guess,
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in the last two and a half years, we started talking again. It's been many, many years since
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I've talked to anybody. It's in my family. And do you know the people that accused you of your crime
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and have you been able to forgive them? I don't know. You don't know the circumstances. So there
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was two young boys, 16 and 17, that was involved in this crime and they're the ones that testified
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against me. And I couldn't hold a grudge against them because I felt like they was doing it to
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protect their parents. You know what I'm saying? They weren't doing it to hurt me. They was doing
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it to protect the people that they love because they both know that what they were saying wasn't
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true at all. You're an amazingly forgiving person. But that's what you just asked me a while ago.
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I mean, if you hold a grudge against somebody, it don't hurt nobody but you because it's eating you
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alive on the inside. You may not see it on the outside, but it's on the inside. We have to let
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it all go. So what do you think about God and the afterlife? And did your experience, how much did
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it affect that? I don't give it any thought. I just think about it like this right here. If it's
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anything like I've already felt, I'm ready to go. And where do you think it is that you're going to go?
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I'm going to go to heaven. What do you think that's like? I don't know. I would like to find out.
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I have no clue, but if it's just loving and it's peaceful, it was that day, I'm ready.
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Sign me up. Well, Michael, I can tell you, I've interviewed a couple of hundred people
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now and spent a lot of time with them that have had near-death experiences. And one of the
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commonalities is love and God's love and the immensity of the love, the unexplainable love,
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that you had a glimpse into. And I'm glad that you had that glimpse. That's just awesome because
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when you get there, there's going to be even more of an outpouring of it. I hope so. I'm praying so.
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Do you believe that some people experience more of a hell kind of place? I don't know. I hope not.
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I don't know. I think for there to be evil, there has to be an evil place too. You know what I'm
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saying? To be real evil. I've heard this saying by other people all the time, talking about somebody
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else. There's a place, you know, there's a place in hell for somebody like you. I don't think I
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would ever say that about anybody, but because that would be like wishing it on yourself. So I
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try not to think about that kind of stuff. Wishing it on somebody else. You know, people are here
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to wish a lot of stuff on other people. I don't do that. And I think you just wish it on yourself.
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So I don't think about stuff like that at all. I'm grateful for the happiness and the peace that
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I have in my own life. I appreciate your great attitude and how it keeps you going every day.
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It sounds like you are a positive influence for lots of other people that are incarcerated there.
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I try to be. I try to be. Have you been able to tell very many other people about the experience
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that you had? There's very few people that I talk about that experience with. My friend Emma and Jeff
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brought it up to me and Jeff talked about it. And then you got in touch with Jeff because of
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it or he got in touch with you because of it. I don't know which one. So there's very few people
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know about it. I think that's a personal thing until recently in the last three, four years,
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I've opened my heart. He's been opened by so many different people that's come into my life.
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You have one minute remaining. So I guess I just wanted to share my experience so everybody would
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understand. Well, I appreciate it. We just got the alert that we have less than a minute left.
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Is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners? No, I just appreciate you
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taking the time and in the effort to, you know, to do what you can to make things better for everybody.
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Thank you, Michael. Thank you for listening and just a quick reminder of the master class
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called What Really Happens After We Die. This is the last week to sign up. So go to the show notes
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for a link to all the information and the half price registration for round trip death listeners.
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Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.
