he had such a difficult time talking about it that it was a little surprising to me. it s something that you never get over. i was the type i didn t even hunt. i didn t kill nothing. i was about i was john denver all the way. you know? i think about it often. you know? i do. but to live in here, to live in here, to be honest, i had to put it out of my mind. that s the only way you can deal with it. only way i can deal with it. it was interesting for me to watch how lawrence chose to deal with the vast amount of time he had to serve. he was very involved in the leather shop. and then he also had these little rocks on to which he would paint these intricate and elaborate tableaus. that mountain scene right there on the back of this one. purple mountain majesty thing, you know?
they ve come up with distractions to really take their mind off of their crimes. but sometimes our very presence in prison can change all of that. lawrence stall has spent the last two decades in prison. most of it at the holman correctional facility in alabama and sometimes it seems to have been just as long as since he s heard the sound of his real name. hey, redtop. they call me redtop. they call me ringating red. is there one you prefer? none. i just answer to them all. i ve learned to answer to them all over the years. stall began serving his sentence 28 years earlier, when he was 22 years old. back when i first came here there was a lot of violence. was it scary? were you scared a lot? scared to death. my first impression of lawrence stall was that he doesn t fit.
i went and straightened up for a few years. even now up to this day it s hard to believe that my little brother s gone. i write letters to him. on his birthday i write letters to him. christmas i write letters to him. what do you say? i apologize to him. i just talk to him. and as i talk to him, seems like i don t know, maybe i m helping myself in a way to ease the pain because it s a deep pain. sometimes it s real deep. if i can turn it back right now and get my life right now, for my brother to come back, i d do it in a heartbeat. i live my life. there s nothing here for me. that s the way i feel. there s nothing here. but it s not possible. so i can t do it, just like i say. every time i write him i m always apologizing. i guess i ll apologize until the day i die. i think it s my fault. like a dagger that s in me, all
killed. how did they die? they got shotgunned. shotgun. in their confessions, stall and his co-defendant claimed the other pulled the trigger. in the end they each received life sentences. but stall s sentence went beyond what was handed down by the judge. it s not something i like to talk about a lot. i can talk about it more now, but it still bothers me a whole lot, even today. uh yeah. in fact, just talking about it, i don t know if i can. i don t know if i can do this. for me, lawrence stall was a rare experience doing lockup. he truly and genuinely seemed remorseful about his crime. talking about it has me shaking already.
and he tells me, be ready because we re coming for you. and i m like, ready for what? and he pretty much basically told me that they re coming, they re going to cut all the tattoos off of me that are aryan related and basically take my life. not long after shephard was given the knife, correctional officers find and confiscated it. it s small, easily concealed, honed in, a good edge on it. this one has a little magnet on the side of it so they can stash it any place they want to. up underneath the cabinet, under the bed. it s easy to get to it so they can use it real quick. if they were coming to get you, why would they give you a knife? that s just being noble. i mean, part of being aryan is