homework, girls, and friday night football were paul s priorities when he was last a free man. that was me just a few months before i got locked up. wow. yeah, i was in my senior year of high school when i got locked up. are you ready for your picture? yeah. all right. when we met him at indiana state prison, he was 43, had served 26 years of a 55-year sentence and was working as the visiting room photographer. all right, look at me. we went digital about three months ago. still kind of learning it. there s a lot of things with the 35 millimeter, you know, i was accustomed to. when i first met paul he came up to me because i had a little digital camera and paul had taken photographs of people on family days and whatnot. he had a million questions about photography and, you know, telling me everything he did. so for me he was like one of the
with you and your brother when ray gets out? sitting down and going for a nice little walk with him. being able to look at him eyeball to eyeball and talk to him, you know. various things, you know. family. he s got a little girl. he s a grandpa now. i don t have no kids where he does. i d like to see him be able to be a good father to his daughter and a good grandpa. sure, that would be nice. obviously i ll get choked up as soon as i see him, no doubt. are you going to make it this time staying out? yeah, i believe i m going to make it, no doubt. coming up, ray slagle approaches his release date. i have no doubt in my mind. you know, i m going to do it. [ bleep ]. this is dead. but his final hours are consumed by doubt. i started i m practically having a panic attack. i m like, man, am i going to make it?
most harmless people at the prison. have a good one. thanks, paul. all right. with his very simple, sweet demeanor, i was shocked to find out that he and his family had murdered his father. growing up we didn t have what you d say a normal life. i don t know what normal would be though, so i mean i would characterize it as dysfunctional. my dad was an alcoholic. he would rant and rave from the time he got up. on a number of occasions, at least a dozen occasions, my mom would call the hammond police department. he was violent? oh, yeah. mom would have maybe a black eye, bloody nose, bloody lip. he told us his mother wasn t the only target of his father s violence. he was, too. but it wasn t his idea to kill him. i was doing some algebra homework, sitting in my room. my sister walked in, made a comment about dad was really screwing her life up, and we had to do something and all this.
situation behind paul s father s murder. the brother-in-law is convicted and given the electric chair. he s the last man to die in the electric chair. everything went wrong about that execution. they had to actually fry him five times because i guess the electric chair wasn t functioning properly at the time. his mother is sent away to prison forever. both received 55 years for the murder, 45 years for the conspiracy to commit murder. in my mom s case, she ll be 83 years old in about two weeks. as far as i know she s the oldest woman prisoner in the state of indiana. and his sister ended up testifying against the rest of the family, and she s out there free. my sister received eight years. last time i seen her was 1983 when she was on the witness stand testifying against me and my mom. i remember thinking back then, what hope there s going to be for me after all this time in prison. but maybe i pulled through a little more saner than i expected. i don t know.
and board and victim s crime fund, so while i m here, about half my paycheck will go to the state, but it allows me to go ahead and save some money up for when i get out because, you know, from my experience of talking to other guys that have gotten out, the ones that have the most trouble don t have family to go to or anything. i have family. my mom, but she s locked up herself. so i m on my own. i need to do whatever i can because nothing is free anymore. once he arrived at the work release facility, he met with sergeant david gowan for an orientation. he soon discovered his new life wouldn t start as quickly as he had hoped. right back here in the visiting room. now, the first two weeks you need to calm down, take it easy, okay, get acclimated to the facility, learn what s going on, get used to the schedules, the routines, and things of that nature. after the two weeks, they re