083 36 Years in Prison for a Crime I Didn't Commit: Judy Henderson

In this interview, I speak with Judy Henderson, who spent 36 years wrongfully incarcerated for a murder she did not commit. Her co-defendant who committed the murder never faced charges. Originally sentenced to 50 years, Judy was ultimately exonerated, regaining her freedom after more than three decades. She shares insights into her life in prison and details the meaningful changes and reforms she championed for women while inside. This conversation highlights her resilience, the challenges of the justice system, and her lasting advocacy.

Her book "When the Light Finds Us: From a Life Sentence to a Life Transformed" is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/When-Light-Finds-Us-Transformed-ebook/dp/B0CR93DD34

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I would come home from work and my clothes would be torn to shreds or my shoes cut up. I ended up attempting suicide. I didn't know that was a darker side that I was unaware of until this murder happened. I was shot. The gentleman was killed. The hitman was sent to kill us because we knew too much. He knew what to do to make it look like he was not guilty. He convinced these women that he was innocent because prison is a very scary, hate-filled, anger-filled dungeon. You could do two things with anger. You can either get bitter or you can get better. Make your life better. Make it what you want it to be. I'm, oldest of eight children to a very close-knit family. My background was one of trying to take care of my younger siblings, and we were raised in a somewhat Christian home, and we had a very abusive father. We ended up, I was sexually molested by a minister at the age of 17, and throughout my life, I had other episodes that are mentioned in the book, When the Light Finds Us, from a life sentence to a life So there's a lot of details in there about my past and about what occurred in my journey and how I got here today. I did marry at the age of 18. I had my first daughter at 19. And then nine years later, I had a son, Chip, and my daughter was Angel. Her father was very abusive also. So there was that kind of learned behavior, you know, from my mom being abused that you feel that's the norm, you know, so. But it took me 12 years before I was able to get up the courage to leave because I was fearful that the violence was escalating and could be turned on the children, especially my daughter.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

So when you say abuse, could you just elaborate a little bit more about the abuse you faced at the hands of your father and then later

SPEAKER_02 2:18

on at the hands of your husband? over nothing. Stress, he would drink. He abused my mother continually. She had a miscarriage because of it, so we probably would have had nine children. But it was something that was just the norm. Even though we had a Christian background, the minister would just tell them, just keep it behind closed doors and God will take care of it. And I remember that so vividly. So it made me believe that this was just the norm. This is just what families did. So whenever I got married, my ex-husband became physically and emotionally abusive. And he would run around with other women and be gone a lot. And he wasn't even there when our daughter was born. I was a middle-class mother that was very devoted to her children. And whenever I felt like the violence could end up turning on her, that's whenever I had the courage to leave after 12 years. And battered women's brains are wired just a little differently. than somebody that's raised in a healthy home. We don't notice red signs. We're very passive, and we don't ask a lot of questions. So I ended up divorcing him. He still wouldn't leave me alone. I would come home from work, and my clothes would be torn to shreds or my shoes cut up. I ended up attempting suicide. I didn't know how I was going to get out of this. So I ended up in a psychiatric ward September through October. I think it was the fall of 1980. Whenever my psychiatrist told me that I needed to move out of the area down where my family lived, which was about 350 miles from there, that's what I ended up doing. My mother and stepfather by then, she had divorced my dad and married a very kind, gentle, loving teddy bear. And my mom got divorced. It was like, oh my gosh, mom, how could you do this? How could you divorce our dad? But that showed me that while my mom can do it, I can do it. It's okay to divorce them. You don't have to stay with them. So there it was, it was just another lesson of learned behavior of how to do that. But my dad hit me for the last time when I was 30 years old. And I told him that I was going to divorce my ex-husband. And he just backhanded me and told me that was the stupidest thing I could ever do, that the kids needed him. And we had a son, of course, and he needed him. So that weighed heavy on my heart and in my thoughts that, yeah, a son does need to But I was still able to get the courage a few months later and divorce him. But even though I ended up in the psychiatric ward, I did end up moving down with my mom and stepfather. Then in April, I met my co-defendant. And he was a real estate broker, had been in the ministry, just a very suave debonair. And I thought, oh gosh, you know, this guy's really nice. He doesn't abuse me. He's not jealous. When you met the co-defender...

SPEAKER_03 5:27

I'm guessing you were going off of like looking for someone exactly the opposite of your ex-husband at that point. What were those little behaviors that you were hyper aware of that you were making sure to avoid at all costs? Okay,

SPEAKER_02 5:42

controlling, that he wasn't controlling me, telling me I smile too much because that's what my ex-husband used to do. When guys would talk to me, he would just get crazy, crazy insane. And my co-defendant did not do any of those things. So it was like, wow. And the fact that he had been in the ministry led me to believe that he was very kind, very gentle. And his mannerism showed that. But we were down 4th of July at my aunt's house and he was sitting beside the pool and he was reading a book about manipulation. And I said, well, you know, he's a real estate broker. So I'm assuming, you know, it has something to do with his career. I look back now and I see red flags. Yes. In June, I came home from picking my son up at the nursery from my salon. And I walk in the door, but there were suitcases sitting inside my foyer. Sure enough, he had decided to move in. I said, whose suitcases are these? And he said, they're mine. No discussion. No, no discussion, no even a sentence about it. And I hadn't had people or guys live with me since my divorce. That I wasn't comfortable with because of the children. And back then, that's just not what we did. Now it's like, okay, let's do that. But back then it wasn't the norm. And I noticed that he was involved with a bondsman that had a bonding company that got criminals out of jail. But I never was that familiar with him, and it wasn't somebody that we socialized with. But I didn't even notice the red flags there, that there was something not right about it. I didn't know that was a darker side that I was unaware of until this murder happened. I look back and I see so many things that I should have paid attention Instead, I was paying attention to the other things that I wanted he was doing that I was just blinded to. watch for red flags. I didn't realize to do that whenever it wasn't physically showing any signs of it. What

SPEAKER_03 8:04

were those behavioral traits that you think you displayed that attracted these kind of men? And this is going to be useful for anyone who keeps finding themselves in that cycle again and again.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yes. I think it was I didn't ask any questions because I had learned not to ask questions because whenever I would ask questions in my marriage, it was a smack in the face or knocked into a window or kicked in the ribs and it ended up like that. So I didn't ask questions. I recommend and advise anybody that gets into a relationship, even men, they need to ask questions. I think you need to not be afraid to ask questions, not be afraid to pay attention to their behaviors, keeping secrets. I think that's another thing that I never paid attention to. Why would I think he would be keeping secrets? He was with me. We did things together. He wasn't gone for days. He didn't abuse alcohol. All these were the things that I was looking at that was nice. I should have paid more attention. I should have asked more questions. Of course, today, I know what to do. So the murder happened. A hitman was sent to kill us because we knew too much about this. So what actually

SPEAKER_03 9:15

conspired sort of that night in that that kind of caused this whole situation?

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Okay, so I had a girlfriend up in Kansas City that was dating the gentleman and my co-defendant and I had went up there before we started dating. He had a conference to go to, a real estate conference. And okay, believe it or not, I was going up there to try to make amends with my ex-husband. Now, is that crazy or what? You know, we were just going as friends, my co-defendant and I. And of course, it was a disaster when I tried to do that. And so we were staying at a hotel. He had one room, I had another. It was very respectful. So that was another sign. Oh my gosh, he's not trying to do anything. And I thought, wow, that's really great. because I wasn't ready for any of that after what I'd been through. But my girlfriend came over to meet with us and we were having drinks in the lounge. She had mentioned about her boyfriend that lived down in the area where we were at. And I guess whenever she had mentioned that, he perked up and he wanted to hear more. And I didn't pick up on that at all. I thought, okay, well, same area. He's a businessman, you know, so no big deal. And so that's how the victim's name was brought up. And And it ended up that he wanted to meet with him. And whenever he did, it turned violent and he killed the victim. all my IDs. I couldn't call my family, but my family was aware of where we were going because I was able to give that information to my mother, but because I never thought I would be back. So I accepted the fact that I didn't know when or how, but I wouldn't make it back to Missouri. Then we got up there and my co-defendant became very abusive. And that's when I ended up attempting suicide again. He choked me to the point he had to buy And he started dealing in drugs. And so it was a very, very bad situation. So I just had resigned to the fact that I wouldn't make it back to see my children. But God had a different plan. I mean, I always tell people, I feel like I'm the cat of nine lives because there's so many times I could have died because the hit man, whenever he came to the hotel where we were at to let us know, he was like, I'm going to die. what he was supposed to do. I should have died then, but I didn't. And then we ended up getting arrested, brought back to Missouri. And that's where we had the same attorney representing both of us, which is a serious constitutional conflict of interest. What happened then cannot happen today to any defendant.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Yes. So the attorney, in a sense, was representing the both of you in this fight together to kind of help the both of you together, right? Correct. So how is there a conflict of interest

SPEAKER_02 12:26

here? Because you're you cannot honestly represent one defendant and allow that defendant to take the stand because you can't tell the truth because it's going to affect the other client. So I could either not take the stand in my behalf to prove I did not commit this murder, or I could be silent, which I was, or the attorney told me I could come up with an alibi, which would be a lie, you know, that I would say that I was with my mother shopping and And that's what he suggested. And I wasn't even at the scene. I refused to get my family involved in anything crazy like this. That's just not what we would do. What about the stance of self-defense? No, he didn't even bring that up as an option. No. He just said, you cannot testify because it would hurt my co-defendant, his other client. So he was getting money from both of us. And so the money played a big factor. But little did I know, my co-defendant was seeing two other criminal attorneys on the side. And whenever I went to trial first, I was convicted. He fired that attorney and hired these other two and he was acquitted. And

SPEAKER_03 13:37

somehow managed to kind of make it look like you were the one that committed the murder. Exactly. The reality is you just happened to be sort of at the scene with the co-defendant. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Because now I really didn't have a defense. My attorney put on mitigating circumstances and mitigating evidence and care Thank you. you know, having a defense, I did not because it would hurt my co-defendant.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

What was the motivation for your co-defendant though, to put this or pin this on you? Why not try to fight a case that was him acting on self-defense or someone else at the scene doing this?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

He planted everything to where everybody saw me, saw my car with personalized planes. He had the whole situation set up to where it looked like that he wasn't even involved. He was at a restaurant bar while myself and the co-defendant were having drinks. And when I went over to talk to him, he pushed me out of the way. He said, don't stop here. Don't stop here. Keep going. And because I was going to the restroom and I saw him and I thought, what's he doing here? And so he made sure that he set it up so good. I mean, that's how good he was. He was very charismatic, very debonair, very convincing. And so he was not He even paid witnesses to take the stand in his behalf to make him have an alibi witness that he was at a totally different restaurant bar and the bartender said he was there. And they gave me signed affidavits that they were put, this much money was put on their commissary, you know, for them to buy items at the canteen. He knew what to do to make it look like he was not guilty. And then later that year, he was arrested and convicted of selling$250,000 worth of cocaine to an undercut or FBI agent. So his criminal background came to light. light. Sketch, yeah,

SPEAKER_03 16:56

exactly. Super sketch. Yeah. What was the motive of all of this? Why were they having these confrontations?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Like I said, whenever we went up in April, we weren't dating, we were friends. But whenever we came back, he started dating me. So I think in my mind, things were starting to be planned in the very beginning, now that I look hindsight. I think that's when the wheels started turning and and things started happening and I was totally blind to it. I didn't see why I would think anything wrong was going on, but I didn't ask questions.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

I should have. When the court case was going on, they were trying to do is find motive for why you would do something like this in order to be able to charge you for murder. What were the conclusions that they had come up with at that point to find your motive for doing something like this?

SPEAKER_02 17:50

If they feel they have enough evidence, just circumstantial evidence

SPEAKER_03 17:54

That's

SPEAKER_02 17:55

enough to convict somebody. And my co-defendant's ex-girlfriend took the stand and said that I told her that I shot and killed the victim. And yes, and she was one of them. They ended up breaking up and she started dating the person that lived in Alaska where we went. And they lived together then. So that's how she was affiliated with me and knew me because that's where we went was to Alaska to them. And I didn't even know that was his ex-girlfriend until after we got there and all this was coming out. And I thought, what? Yeah, I think she got paid for it, for testifying. So he was in the county jail. And the one person that he was talking with in the county jail, he put a contract out on me. And when she came to prison, she befriended me. And I thought she was a friend. Instead, another offender said, Judy, she has a contract on you. Your co-defendant wants you dead.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

He was getting a little bit paranoid when he was there in prison, like wanted you dead because you might find some evidence to be able to catch him out for this.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Well, he was fearful that I was going to testify against him now.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Or testify, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

That's what he was afraid of, that I would take the stand, and I was going to. And so whenever the prosecution, they have to let the defense attorneys know what witnesses they're going to call. So he was aware I was going. to testify. So he had to counteract that. And the way to do that was to get other offenders to say that I told them. So that would have been five people that would have contradicted what I was going to say. And they came back to the county jail to testify for him. And the prosecution later I found out because I was housed at different locations. And so whenever these four defendants, four offenders came back and was held in the county jail to testify in his his behalf, the prosecution said, Judy, I can't put you on the stand. And he didn't even tell me. I didn't even know until after he was acquitted why they didn't use me. And I thought, what do you mean? What do you mean offenders are coming back to testify? I couldn't understand it. So it was just, I was in shock. I could not believe it. And I didn't know who these offenders were. Until they made parole and they ended up coming back to prison, they wanted to check in protective custody because they They thought I knew who they were. And another officer came and said, Judy, I've got some information for you. And he said, I think we found a way for you to get out of prison. I said, what? He said, we've got somebody that just came back to prison. They were career criminals. So they come in and out, in and out that said that she was afraid to go in population because she was afraid you would have her hurt. I said, for what? And that's when he told me what she had told him. And he told her, he said, and witnesses. And so I got this legal document and then come to find out there was another one that came back a couple years after that. And she also gave me an affidavit.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

I'm curious, did the courts literally only use all of these testimonies from all these people to kind of charge you? Was that evidence enough for them to be able to confirm that you were the one doing this? Yes,

SPEAKER_02 21:49

because the one that was involved in this, they ended up giving him immunity the one that my co-defendant went to after the murder and said it's done it's happened you know and here's here's the gun here's the bullets and he ended up turning state's evidence against my co-defendant and they gave him immunity for doing that but the jury did not believe him in a co-defendant's trial but they believed him whenever he testified in my behalf although he actually kind of helped me because he said she had been shot she didn't know it was going to happen. So he ended up testifying against my co-defendant. My co-defendant's jury did not believe him because Greg had paid so many people to give him an alibi that the jury believed him. And he was allowed to address the jury himself, which was made up of women, 12 women. And I'm telling you, girl, he was so good at talking to women that he convinced these women that he was innocent, that I was this black widow that just coerced him and manipulated him into doing this, and that he didn't do it, that I did it, but I was trying to put it on him. So it was, oh, girl, I was livid. You can't even imagine how angry I was. One, for going to prison. One, for him allowing me to go to prison. And then for putting a hit on me, I thought, oh no, you just made a King Kong here because now I'm ready to fight. I am going to fight.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

And so I did. At this point, because I do know a lot of people that have been sort of like survivors, victims of abuse, they live under a lot of fear. And there's so much coercion and there's so much almost brain fog. And then also having to witness a murder in front of you. It's all this trauma that's sort of coming down on you. And then on top of that, you have your co-defendant that's standing there basically threatening you in the court the whole court that's not really taking you aside was there any any point in this at this point that you kind of almost started to believe that like I don't even know what happened anymore like maybe I did do this maybe or were you very sure that no like I had nothing to do with this this was this was not no

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I was very sure nobody in my family would have ever thought that I would be sitting in a courtroom charged with murder that just was not me not my person No, he could not convince me. No, all he did was fuel the anger that ended up because I figured out you could do two things with anger. You can either get bitter or you can get better. And I chose better. And I love my family, my children so deeply that I took that deep love I had for them and the anger that fueled me and combine those together. And I fought tooth and nail for 36 years to come home. What was the official sentence for

SPEAKER_03 24:46

you? for

SPEAKER_02 24:47

you. I could either have gotten or received life without parole for 50 years or the death penalty. The judge did put in the instructions to the jury that she was a relatively minor participant. To give the jury a little hint as to she did not commit this murder, but they evidently didn't get the hint. But that's down the road, of course. I did 36 years. The girl that took the contract out on me, that actually helped establish my ground in the prison and general population.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Because

SPEAKER_02 26:07

prison is a very scary, hate-filled, anger-filled dungeon.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

I want to know more about your prison time. Like, talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Yes. I went there and it was so foreign. I mean, I didn't even know what they meant when they used some of their terminology. Like, if somebody asked you, I want a square, what would that mean to you? I

SPEAKER_03 26:31

want a square. A fight?

UNKNOWN 26:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

No. I want to be even, like fair and square. Let's be even. What is that?

SPEAKER_02 26:39

A square is a cigarette. Oh.

UNKNOWN 26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

All right. And if they said a goon squad, what does that term mean to you? Like your crew, your friends? No, it's the staff that's been trained in to defuse a riot or the goon squad's coming. So everybody hit the deck or weapons or whatever. And I thought, what do all these terms mean? I have no idea. I don't know how to talk their language. What am I going to do? Because like I said, I was a middle-class mother, professional business owner. This world was just totally foreign. Yeah. Like I'd been dropped off in another country where I didn't know anybody, didn't know the language, didn't understand the rules. Because they don't have laws, they have standard operating procedures, which are policies that govern you. You get violations if you go out of bounds and you cross the line and go into another area of the prison. You're not supposed to be in. You get a violation if you have a piece of fruit. You get a violation if you have something in your locker that is against the rules, like too many shirts. You're allowed, what was it, 12 shirts, six bottoms. And you can get a violation if you were one item over. Just crazy things that you wouldn't even think would be a rule.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Is it in Missouri or was it in? In Missouri. No, Missouri. Now, would you say that it was sort of grouped by race as well. I've had episodes with male guests who've been in prison before and they said it really is different groups by race. They don't really mix. Is that also the case in a female prison? Not so

SPEAKER_02 28:18

much so. I mean, there were some, but there was not as much as there are in men's prisons, I don't believe. Women are more like passive aggressive. You have a lot that will attack you because Missouri no longer had mental health institutions after a few years. So they would put the mentally ill in prison too. So you didn't know when somebody was just going to click out on you. That's why you have to be vigilant all the time. Always pay attention. Learn to read lips because you don't know what are they planning. So you have to more or less be on high alert 24-7. Even officers, if they don't like you, they have the authority to make your life miserable. And I had a lieutenant call me down to his office at two o'clock in the morning when I was first new in prison. And he said, I just want you to know, Judy, he said, you're going to have a hard road ahead of you because there's a lot of female staff that don't like you. I said, great. You might take my name and you might take my children from me. And you might tell me you're going to break me down and build me back up. But I want you to know I'm already broken. I'm as broken as I'm going to allow anybody to ever make me. And what you're giving Getting ready to tackle is not going to be fun for either one of us. And I had to just pull up my bootstraps and say, okay, Judy, you've got to change. You've got to get therapy to understand why you were here, what happened, why you didn't see these red flags. And that's the first time I'd ever heard about battered women's syndrome. I went to a workshop and I thought, oh my God, that's me. I started doing every program I could think of that they had because I had to arm myself with weapons the only weapons that I had to fight with was my brain and I had to get smarter I had to learn the statutes the laws I became a certified paralegal because I had to understand the laws that got me here and the court of all the courts that I went through my appeals denied but there was one federal court that asked a panel of three judges asked the federal prosecuting attorney do you feel there was some sandbag going on in her trial. And the prosecuting attorney said, yes, there is, there was. And yet they would not overturn my case because it would affect too many other cases that had the same attorney representing two defendants. And it would be too expensive for the state. So it was all about the money. It wasn't about the right or the wrong. So I had to end up building my team from the ground up with politicians. I had to learn politics. I had to get sent or state representatives involved. I had to get a support team. I reached out to law schools at different universities. We formed a coalition, myself and another law professor. And for 12 women, I ended up helping pass the battered women syndrome that became a statute and law in the state of Missouri, where women that were abused and killed their abusers had a defense whenever they went to trial. So that was very I was there to help fight for these women. Did you

SPEAKER_03 31:39

find that there were like a lot of the inmates had been abused before and found them were in prison as a result of some kind of abuse with their family or friends or partners?

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Yes. When I finally saw that I was getting healthy and I was getting understanding better, I realized there was a lot of battered women in prison that didn't realize they were battered. So I started Women Against Violence, which is for battered women, for them to understand the cycle, the honeymoon phase, and here we go again. It was just a vicious cycle, and that's what abuse is. It was such a powerful group that even the governor's office sent a representative to sit in on our sessions, and they went back to the governor's office, and they created a domestic violence task force in their state to fight this for women. I didn't stop. I helped a lot of women even become better mothers because a lot of them didn't know even how to be moms and didn't know how to navigate communication with their children, how to understand their children's love languages. How do you mother behind bars? But I did it. I was very successful at it. My daughter and I remained close all through the years. She said the one reason, mom, that I didn't know this until just recently, that I always felt so safe talking to you and telling you everything is because I knew you couldn't punish me. I said, oh, thanks a lot, Angel. But yeah, there's all sorts of programs that I started for mothers and their children. And we had to start a program that involved the family unit, the relatives, the moms, the aunts, the uncles, the dads, the

SPEAKER_03 33:23

cousins. What were some of the other patterns that you found among the women inmates over there?

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Okay, so I became a fitness trainer because I noticed that there was one that didn't like themselves. They didn't like their bodies. And I thought, if I can get these women to love who they are and put in the work to transform themselves, that they would end up not wanting to go back to that lifestyle. And so because I always put on makeup, because I also became a hairdresser and a dog trainer, I was able to put makeup on them, do their hair, you know, let them see, look how beautiful you are. See? And it does take all that to be beautiful but you need to love who you are whatever that may take to get you to that point so that really helped a lot of them and to this day they became trainers so whenever they got out they had a profession so we did a lot of work on their inside with being battered women and on the outside to transform them and it was so rewarding and one of them that I worked with when she came in as a baby lifer she was like 18 and as a lifer we try to take younger lifers under our wings because they're preyed upon. So I took her under my wing. Now she's an attorney today. She did 18 years. I did 36 years. It was very rewarding, all that I was able to do and get involved with. I love helping people. I still do it to this day. I work with lifers to come home.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Did you ever come across women that just came across or seemed... Like not a result of, you know, abuse or not a result, but they just...

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Did it. It was just innate. Yeah. It was just built in them. Yes. And those are the ones that were usually had the mental diseases, you know, that weren't getting either the right medications, the right combination of therapy.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

But what I'm hearing here, Judy, is that you genuinely believe that every single person in there for some reason, but not all by their own choice, but either it was a result of their environment or it's a result of a mental health. Is that something you believe that?

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Yeah, it is something I believe. I believe that there's a lot of people that if given the right help, we wouldn't have to have the population that we have now. Because you can either be a work state where you're using these people as slaves just to do work for$8.50 a month, or you can not have as many prisoners and show them, spend more money on their rehabilitation, more money on their counseling, more money on helping them mentally. So, I mean, those are just some of my thoughts. I don't think that everybody that's in there should be there. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it, I think.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

But more on the fun stuff, like talk to me more about like the crazy fun things that you experienced in prison, the skills that you learned that you probably wouldn't have learned on the outside.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Sure. Okay. Well, I learned how to bake a cake out of a package of cookies and a soda. So everybody get your pen and paper out. I'm going to give you the recipe. So you take any kind of cookies you want, brush them up, put them in a bowl and put about three fourths of a can of soda. Doesn't matter if it's Sprite, Dr. Pepper, root beer, Coke, it doesn't matter. Put it in there, mix it up like batter, stick it in the microwave, two to four minutes, you know, stick a little toothpick in it or whatever you have. You have a cake. Then you melt your Hershey candy bars and put M&Ms on the top and you have icing and it's pretty.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

It's so amazing that all the Also, is that

SPEAKER_02 37:15

like prison alcohol? Is that a thing? Yeah, that sounds good. asked me one day if I would help them create a honor dorm for lifers. And I said, yeah, of course I will. I said, even though I'm not going to be here, I'm going to help you do this. And he said, Judy, and they would tell me this all the time, you're going to die in prison. You might as well accept it. So let's just go ahead and get this honor dorm created. I said, okay, but I am going home. I just want you to know that. I never gave up. I never said I was going to be there ever, ever. I told him the only way I would do it is if I could have have a dog as my cellmate and not an offender and he said you want a dog as your cellmate I said yes because I was I helped start the puppies for parole program where we would take shelter animals shelter dogs they would bring them to us and we would train them and then they would be adopted so yeah so I got a black lab in my cell instead of a person so that was fun to have on the honor dorm no other offender ever had a dog as a roommate unless you were in the program

SPEAKER_03 39:11

all of the other the inmates over there must have been really happy to have a little dog around in the

SPEAKER_02 39:17

prison. Yeah, they did. And that dog was trained so well. I could take him out on the yard without a leash and he would just stay right by my side. I don't care if balls were flying from playing softball or tennis balls, he would not leave my side. And he'd play hide and go seek with the offenders on the unit. And he was fun to have. Well, we would make facials out of egg beaters, you know, the egg beaters that in a carton they would sell those as a fundraiser because we had organizations that I helped create restorative justice organization and you we would make these have these fundraisers so we could give back to the community you know send money or buy them things that they different shelters would need so we would use that as our facial um use sugar as our scrub sugar honey honey was another thing we would put on our

SPEAKER_03 40:08

face what about like um your role how did you make friends when you first entered? It was very

SPEAKER_02 40:13

hard. When I first went to prison, there was 100 women and we were in a co-ed prison with men and women. The only one I know, the only one in the United States. Yeah, that was a little cray cray.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

How would that

SPEAKER_02 40:31

even work? I'm just trying to picture, how would that even look or work? The story about our prison was in one of the, it was a motorcycle magazine back then in the 80s about the women's prison and how there was so many pregnancies. Because we would go to church together, we would have recreation together, we could go to classes together. But you didn't live in the same units together, of course, and you would not have meals together because the dining room was too small. But we'd play racquetball, handball, do all these other activities at the gym together. But there were a also, I realize a lot of abortions because administration would suggest that very strongly. And what are the laws on abortion in Missouri? You could have abortions back then. I

SPEAKER_03 41:41

would imagine there would be a lot of fights and violence over this stuff as well, over love.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

Yes, there was. What would happen is there would be a lot of jealousies. Believe this or not, and this is really crazy now that I look back, is they would have dances once a month and in the gym and they would listen to records back then. And if anybody put on a fast dance, that was a no-no. No fast dances, all slow dances. So you can only imagine. That was just like, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? And so the commonality we had is these women wanted to look good. They wanted to look nice for these guys. So I put on their makeup to warm and I would do their hair. And my really nice clothes in. She sent ultra suede suits. She sent my fur coat into a prison. And I said, Mom, we cannot have these things. I mean, they let me have them, but I said, this is not what you wear in prison. She would send me, back then it was called Fredericks of Hollywood, kind of like Victoria's Secret clothes. I said, no, Mom, not here. This is not what we wear here. Now they have uniforms, but back then you had your own clothes.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

Well, what about things like gender-based violence You know, like people that were in prison for abusing female partners or like women that had been abused and they were being put in the same prison. And now there's that mix happening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Because we also had two while I was there that were in transition of becoming opposite sex. So they were housed there also. So it could get pretty crazy with that combination. But a lot of the women and men formed relationships and ended up getting married after they left. There was a fight one time. I was in the visiting room talking to one of the guys that I played racquetball in because I was pretty active in sports and stuff. in prison. He said, hey, Judy, let's play racquetball tonight. I said, sure, sure, we'll play. So he went to dinner with his buddy in the dining room. Pretty soon, I heard the goon squad running, and I had officers come to me and say, we just want you to know you caused a fight. They said, well, so I was having dinner and telling his buddy he was going to play racquetball with you tonight, and they got into it because you were supposed to play racquetball with somebody else, and he took a fork, and we had metal forks then. stabbed him in the hand. And I said, oh my God, those stupid things like that would happen. And sometimes the guys would get really jealous of women that was going to be with other women. And it was not a well received gesture.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

So what were the kind of arguments, fights, violence that was happening in the all females prison usually centered around?

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Women are pretty passive aggressive usually. So they will wait and prey on you. And sometimes it would be one woman liking another woman's woman. You know, a lot of love, hate. Maybe one wouldn't have a lot of money. The other one would have money. So they were hooked up like that. But a fight could generate over, it was my turn in the microwave. You know, what are you jumping line for? Now, what was taken very seriously is if there was fights in the dining room, because that was an area that would be considered a riot area. And so if you got into a fight there, you would do a lot more time in the hole. You would have a different kind of violation than just a fighting violation. We did have a food strike one time because we had so many women attempting suicide because we had a warden that felt Punishment was the way to deal with offenders. We had washers and dryers on each unit. He took those, and everybody had to wash out of buckets, five-gallon buckets. And it was so depressing. We had to hang clothes everywhere. He took away so many different things, and the girls just couldn't take the pressure of everything that was going on for his watch. And so they started hanging themselves in the prison. And so we thought, administration has to pay attention. Central authorities which was in another city, had to pay attention to what was going on in this prison. So not myself, but I do know others that did come up with a plan to have a food strike, which you always have to send numbers to central office about how many was eating in the dining room. How many did you have for breakfast? How many did you have for lunch? How many did you have for dinner? Because they could kind of see if there was something brewing when people didn't go to the dining room room, what's happening? Is there a food strike going on? What's going on? And so we made sure that those that didn't have money had food to eat. So we all went on a food strike for lunch because we knew that would get attention from central office. I ended up going to the hole because I wouldn't tell them who started the food strike. The warden, he called me over to his office and he said, Henderson, I want to know who started this. And I just, I have no idea. You know, I don't know what to say, sir. I don't know what you're talking about. And he said, I'm going to give you one more chance.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

I was curious about how many times you found yourself in the hole in your time there.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Well, I went to the hole for that because I wouldn't tell them, reveal who started the food strike. I was in the hole for having too many clothes. I had 96 tops and 35 pair of shoes. More than me. You know what? Female staff said that they didn't have that many. I said, okay, I want you to count your tops. Summer, winter, spring, fall tops. And I was so good at hiding things. You learn so many different things in prison, how to compact things in a small space. They sold laundry baskets. So I had six laundry baskets lined up under my bed and I would put clothes underneath my mattress because it was only an inch on a metal bed. And then I made shoe racks out of sheets to hang at each end of the, we had a closet at this prison. And so it took four officers, six hours to go through my property and I got a violation. So I went to the hole for that immediately. Yeah, but you know, the first year of my, well, the first two years, I got 23 violations. After that, they really were very few and far between. I think for a total of 36 years, I ended up with maybe, maybe 28 Right. But you do have staff that will try to write you up for nothing just because they don't like you. But by that time, I had learned the policies enough and the rules enough that I would quote them back to them and challenge them. If you do write me up, I'm going to grieve you because you have no right to do this. And they would tell me I couldn't do this. And I would say, well, then you can't do that. Because if you do that, you're violating a rule. And they'd say, okay, Judy, go ahead and do it. So it was like, don't play these games with me because I'm going to play them back with you. We had on one officer when I first came to prison that was there for, well, he was a property room officer. So we had a lot of pull with the offenders to get their property if they wanted it. But you had to do sexual favors for him. And I absolutely refused. And by that time, I was already so angry, you know, that don't mess with me because I will get you back. I had to figure out a way to get him out of there because so many of the women that were being abused were just constantly crying and just, I mean, it was affecting them in such horrible ways. So I ended up setting him up and where he had to call me down for my contact solution because they didn't have it in the canteen. He wouldn't call me down for my property. He would make my sister take those home, take any property that was sent out home with him or with them. When he called me down, I saw an officer that wasn't one of the good old boys that would brush it under the rug. He was a very strict caseworker that would report anything he saw. So I thought, here's how we're going to play this. And I was thinking in my head real fast, he's coming down the hall. If I time it just right, he's going to look in here because I'm going to leave the door open and he's going to see what's going on. And so I went in, the property officer gave me my contact solution. He said, now, what do I get, Judy? I said, anything you want. And so he grabbed me and started kissing me and I was facing the door. So I saw the case where He saw it, and I went up to my cell, and I knew it was just a matter of minutes before I'd be called to the warden's office. I went down there. There was the investigator. There was the warden, the assistant warden, and, of course, the caseworker and him. And I walked in. They said, Judy, we understand you were just kissing the property room officer. I said, no, he was kissing me. And he jumped up, and he threw a fit. I didn't do that. She's a manipulator. I didn't do anything like that. I said, okay, I request a PSE, which is a voice test, voice lie detector test. He refused to take one. I passed it. They gave him early retirement. So he went to... That's too lenient though. Oh, yeah. That's what they did back then. They did not. And still, even in our new Chillicothe prison where I was at, we had cases where I testified what I did in deposition for several girls that were being sexually molested by officers. And this was after I came home. It is a common place for that to occur in women's prisons. And so I will fight for that till the day I die to get those officers out of there.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

It seems like, yeah, it is kind of like what of those situations where very easy for these officers to get away with this because one whoever's in prison is already seen as guilty you know as manipulative and whatever so they're by default already at a disadvantage and then they're women and they're easy to prey on and they're already vulnerable many of them have been victim of these things they've been silenced for so long so yeah it's an easy target

SPEAKER_02 52:09

it is easy and there's very few that will actually stand up and fight against that but I I had established myself well enough in the prison where I won several violations that I received. They were thrown out completely. One officer, she ended up having a stroke because it stressed her out so bad because she couldn't get me. She ended up coming back to work after she recovered somewhat. She couldn't work in general population. She had to work in an office. But she came to my cell door and she said, Judy, I want to apologize. I said, okay, for what? And she said, for always being so mean to you. and trying to write you up. I said, thank you. Because I told her when this happened to her, I saw her and I said, I'm so sorry. I said, I've kept you in my prayers. I wasn't a mean spirited person. I didn't want to see things like that to happen. But if you're going to come at me and try to always get me in the hole, tear up my property, plant things that shouldn't have been there and write me up for bribing an officer when I didn't even have a conversation with you about bribery, that officer ended up becoming a a white shirt, which is a captain or a lieutenant or a sergeant. And she came back years later and said she wanted to apologize for giving me that violation, but she was told to do it that morning at roll call just so they could have something to put me in the hole for. So there's a lot of, a lot that goes on in the prisons that people don't have a clue about. What was the hole like? The hole, sometimes I would be put in solitary confinement where there was two big doors, no windows and a concrete slab. You slept But you did have, it was called a wet cell, so you had a stool and a sink, and they would give you your food through what they call a chuck hole, which they slide your tray in, and you have no contact with anybody, nobody. The other hole, which is segregated, they call it, there are cells next to each other, so you can talk to people, you can communicate, you can have conversations all day and not be alone. They give you books to read. And I did a lot of exercising whenever they would put me in the hole. But they did end up sending me to Arizona for four years over that property officer that got fired. Yeah. They wanted to put me in a prison that housed a lot of incorrigibles from all around the United States. And they wanted me away from my family. So they sent me to Arizona for four years. I thrived there. That's where it's a wealthy state. So they had all kinds of college classes, all kinds of activities. And that's where I started Women Against Violence. did a lot of good things there and got a lot of good, serious therapy. And then God was always a part of my journey too. I want to give him the glory for giving me the resilience, giving me the courage. I always had Jeremiah 29, 11 above my cell mirror. I know the plans I have for you, a future and prosperity and good health. And prison was not a future. So I knew, you know, what he does for one, he's going to do for another and he shows no favors And I got a lot of women out of prison. So I knew I was coming. And I got double the blessing because my sentence was commuted to life served, time served. The governor came to the prison that day to give me my paperwork, which I didn't know he was coming. And six months later, gave me a full pardon. So I was totally exonerated with the help of my prosecutor that put me in prison. And a lot of lot of supporters.

SPEAKER_03 55:43

So that's why I'm sitting here with you today. Yeah. What was that moment like, that day that you were told that?

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Oh, I don't even know if there's words. I fell to my knees crying because I was teaching a fitness class. And so I didn't have my makeup on. I wasn't ready. I had makeup on, but I was sweaty. And so it was like, oh my gosh. And they kept telling me, Judy, you have to go to the visiting room. You have to go to the visiting room. I said, I'm not going. That's not me. That's another Henderson. And they said, no, it's you. And if you don't go, you're just going to the hole. I said, okay, I'm going. I'm going to the visiting room. And so I got up there and I had to wait like an hour and a half because they said it was an attorney visit but I knew my attorney wouldn't come without letting me know because everybody knew do not go visit Judy unless she knows you're coming because she will not be ready and you will wait until she gets her makeup on until she gets her hair done and so they knew not to come unexpectedly so I just thought oh my gosh because I had filed clemency since 1983 with six governors and I was on my seventh governor um But unbeknownst to me, he came, my seventh governor's number of completion. And when I saw him, I just fell to my knees bawling because I knew it had to be good. And so he had me

SPEAKER_01 57:05

sit down in a chair. And he said, on behalf of the state of Missouri, I want to commute your sentence to life served. And he said, you're going to go home today. And I said,

SPEAKER_02 57:26

what did you just say? He said, you're going to go home today. Today, right now. And he said, right now. And the warden came in and he let me know that I would be taken down to my cell to pack my property and that I could see whoever I wanted to see and tell them bye. And the governor said, I want to get out of the way because people are here that hadn't given up hope on you and had fought for you all this time. And I'm going to get out of the way so they can come in and see you. And then what my daughter and my son and my grandchildren and my attorneys. And we just sit there and held each other and cried. And it was happy tears, of course.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

Can you talk to me a little bit about adjusting to life outside? What were the new things that you'd seen?

SPEAKER_02 58:09

Well, by the time I got to my daughter's house, I didn't know there was going to be tons of people there. And so that was crazy seeing everybody. And it was joyful, of course, but I spotted so strawberries. And I thought,

SPEAKER_00 58:26

I can have strawberries? That was like really cool to have a strawberry.

SPEAKER_02 58:31

And I still wasn't used to eating with metal forks, spoons and stuff. I would look for plasticware in my daughter's kitchen. I'd say, Angel, where's the plasticware? I can't find anything to eat with. She said, Mom, you can have a fork, a metal fork. So sometimes she'd have to remind me. And the seatbelt. She would always have to tell me, Mom, put on your seatbelt. And the Then getting used to sleeping in a bed that without a mattress, it's just an inch thick. I thought I was going to have to sleep on the floor the first night because it was too soft. I couldn't do it. Then I had my own bathroom with my bedroom. And it was like, I walked in there and I thought, where am I going to put my toothbrush? There's too much room in here. I'll never find it. Because we're used to just a little metal locker to put our toothbrush in. Left side, top shelf. It just felt weird to have so much space. And then whenever I went to your bathrooms out here, it was like, okay, I stood up. How do you flush this stool? What do you do? Because I hear nothing and there's no handle. I don't know how to flush it. And so I'd have to have Angel go to the bathroom with me several times before I could learn all the different ways of how to flush a stool or how to turn on the sink and how to get soap. We had a bar of soap. Good grief. And now you have it in these containers. You have water. You just put your hand under the faucet and it comes on. And it was like, this is too much. And the population, the roads, just so much traffic. And the total environment had changed. The landmarks had changed. I didn't even recognize anything anymore. Where do you go eat? You have so many places. And everybody asked me, Judy, where do you like to eat? What's your favorite place? I said, I don't know. That's a big decision to make because I like it all.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:23

Right. Right. So in a way, you're kind of probably feeling really lonely in this really crowded space and just like, so like, I'm kind of lost. Like, what do I do with this?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Yeah, it was. And I know it was December 20th, whenever I was released. My daughter hadn't shopped yet. She said, come on, mom, we have to speed shop. I said, what are you talking about speed shop? I haven't even been in a store. And so we went shopping and it was like, oh my God, I'm in this store. What do I do? All these, you know, all these people that's just going here and going there and not paying any attention to me. And then you have these machines where you put cards. Nobody pays with money. And it's like, what are these machines and what are these cards everybody's using? They're using different kinds of cards. And I thought, I will never understand what all this means. It's too much. So it was really challenging. The inside of a car looked like a cockpit. All these gadgets and all these buttons. I thought, I will never be able to learn how to drive because I'm a afraid I'll eject myself out of the car or something, you know. And then my son-in-law got me an iPhone. And I'd never seen an iPhone before. And I asked him, what do you do with this? And now I can just maneuver it like it was nothing. Whenever I went in, phones were on the wall. And during my incarceration, phones were still on the wall. We didn't have, you know, tablets. We didn't have computers. So, yeah, technology was, oh my gosh, I wouldn't never understand these computers. Then I went to give a talk at Catholic Charities of Kansas City, St. Joseph, an agency that helps the poor, helps the homeless and babies. They wanted me to come to work for them. I said, work? I said, I think I'm retired from prison. I don't know how I can work at your agency. I don't know anything about computers or anything like that. And they said, we're going to teach you. And so I've been there for six years. I just can't imagine not doing that because it's so rewarding helping so many different areas of their lives and still being able to help offenders when they come home and get them housing and get them food and get them a job that's all so important to me yeah

SPEAKER_03 1:02:36

and the way you're really helping with that recidivism stuff right like because we know that there's people that end up re-offending because they're not being given the support that they need

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

yes and I still work on different laws getting passed here in the state of Missouri and for those that are still incarcerated that do need to come home I still meet with politicians in their behalf and work with their families. So the work is never done. And then when people started hearing my story, they said, Judy, you have to write a book. You have to let people know and give them hope. Let them know that it's not hopeless. And so, like I said, it took us six years to do When the Light Finds Us. And I hope everybody grabs the book, enjoys the book, and try to put yourself, whatever your situation is in your life, Yeah, I love that. attention whenever you get out to make sure he's not in a crowd where you're at or something. So I, of course, I don't acknowledge him by his name. I don't want to honor him in any way. I forgave him. I forgave the system that did this to me because there's two things you, like I said earlier, you can either get bitter or get better, but I want it to be positive.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:16

I

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

did a vision board. Everything on my vision board has come true except for a couple of sports cars and a jet.

UNKNOWN 1:04:23

And

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

But everything else has come true. We're hoping to do a movie, you know, from this story. Life is good. I can't be angry about anything out here.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:37

My life is great. Make your life

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

better. Make it what you want it to be. Create a vision board. I made one out of two backs of legal pad cardboard. It was very generic, but I'll tell you that vision board keeps you focused on your goals. You keep saying it. You keep believing it, and it will happen. Trust me. Yes, it does happen. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:15

Judy, thank you so much for being on Multispectrum with us today. You're welcome. I really, really appreciate you sharing this.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

Well, thank you for having me. And I appreciate you letting me share my story.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:30

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

The

SPEAKER_03 1:05:54

show would be nothing without you. I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to... Thank you.