Cyntoia Brown: A Teen's Murder Sentence and Second Chances

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Ask your travel advisor or visit virginvoyages.com. Now we're voyaging. This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories and we tell stories about everything here on this show. And our favorite stories to tell are just ordinary American redemption stories. Second chances, even third chances that this country allows people to have and to pursue.

It's a beautiful part of our nature. Cyntoia Brown served 15 years of a life sentence for killing a 43 year old real estate agent when she was 16 years old after being forced into prostitution by a man called Cutthroat. The now married Brown Long has never denied her crime, but alleges she acted out of self defense. Here's Cyntoia to share her story. So I was born Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which is a military base right on the line, Kentucky, Tennessee. And I was raised there in Clarksville by my adoptive parents. My father was military. And my mother, she was a teacher. I was really my dad's sidekick when I was younger.

I considered sidekick. I guess he would consider it apprentice because anytime he would build something, I always had to go fetching the tools. I guess it was pretty convenient for him, but those were one of my favorite pastimes with my dad is helping him build stuff, helping him fix stuff around the house. And my mother, it was the same.

Whenever my father retired from the military, he actually started driving trucks, so he would be gone for long periods of time. So it would just be my mom and me. And she was really into gardening. I wasn't, but I did enjoy kind of just hanging outside with her, watching her plant. So up until the point that I turned 16, I thought school was the worst possible thing to have ever happened to me in my life. I should have been really great in school.

I was smart. I was always getting good grades. But for some reason, I was always finding myself in the principal's office, whether that was because I didn't want the teacher to help me with work.

I just wanted to figure it out for myself. Whether I had a smart remark for the teacher, just any little thing would get me sent to the principal's office and found myself getting suspended. I believe I was 11 when I was first expelled from school. I had brought a bottle of Nodos to class, which is caffeine pills. I had found them in my sister's husband's truck.

He had left the truck there whenever he was deployed, and they went to Hawaii. And I was just playing around one day and found these caffeine pills, took them to school for show and tell. And next thing I know, I was expelled for zero tolerance drug policies.

I didn't consider them to be a drug, didn't know they were a drug, but that didn't matter. I was kicked out of school and couldn't return to public school. It seemed like they were just really looking for an excuse, so part of me wasn't necessarily surprised. And it really just added to that feeling that, you know, I just wasn't wanted there and it wasn't a place for me. I never really fit. I was kind of an outcast.

Like I said, when I was growing up, my dad would always tell me all the stories about him, you know, and war and what he did when Charlie was coming at 3 o'clock and how they did. And so I thought, OK, well, this is a game that I want to play with my friends. And so my neighbor, my friend from down the street and some other kids in the neighborhood, we were all together playing random games, you know, bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish and any many, many more. And I said, well, how about this new game? Let's play war.

And they were like, well, what is that? I said, well, we're all going to get some rocks. You stand on that side of the street. We're going to stay on this side of the street. We're just going to throw them at each other and see what happens. And that's what we did. And I ended up picking up the biggest rock that I could that I found. Why?

I don't know. But I threw it and it hit my neighbor square in the forehead. And that was the moment that I knew I'm about to get in trouble. Like this has gone horribly wrong. And she just started bleeding and screaming. And then everybody was like, this is all your fault. And I was like, wait a minute. You all wanted to play.

I thought we were having fun. So after that, nobody's parents really wanted their kids playing with me. And of course, I got in trouble.

My dad, he kind of understood. But it was just I think that was that was like one of the turning points when I kind of lost a lot of friends. So going to alternative school was a completely different experience. These kids had been involved in the justice system already. Most of them were on probation of some kind. Many of them had already been to facilities and they returned back from the facilities to go to this school. They smoked freely.

Some of them did drugs freely. I had never been around that because I was raised in a military community. A lot of the kids that I was around were kids of military families.

They just you just don't do that. And what was different from me being in this alternative school around these kids is these kids didn't judge me. They didn't make me feel like an outcast. They didn't make me feel like I wasn't wanted or I had to be this or be that to fit in with them.

And so I really found that this is kind of where I fit, like this is a place for me. So we all decided to skip school. And sometimes when we skip school, we would just ride the city bus around town, walk around downtown and just see whatever we could get into. But this day, Samantha says, you know, my mom, she's not home. We can go to my house and we could just hang out. And we're like, OK, cool. And when we get there, she's like, oh, man, I forgot my key.

And she's like, no worries, no worries. My bedroom window is open. So she opens the window and I'm the smallest one there.

So they pushed me through the window and I unlock the door. It is her house. But when her mother come home, she didn't feel that we were supposed to be in the house. She was very upset. Some things she claimed were missing from the house that were stolen.

And I mean, I don't know if anybody stole it or not. I can't be accountable for the other people that was with me. But we all ended up being charged not only for breaking and entering, but for theft of property.

And you're listening to Cyntoia Brown and she's the author of Free Cyntoia. My search for redemption in the American prison system when we come back. More of this remarkable story here on our American stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.

Go to our American stories dot com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That's our American stories dot com buying a home rocket mortgage will cover one percent of your rate for the first year at no cost to you, saving you hundreds, even thousands with inflation buster. For example, if you lock a seven percent rate today, you'll only pay six percent for a year.

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Happy streaming. And we continue with our American stories and with Cyntoia Brown's story. Let's pick up where we last left off with Cyntoia being charged with breaking and entering and theft of property after skipping school with friends. And then going to one of her girlfriend's homes where her mother would end up filing charges.

Here's Cyntoia. So after I was charged with my other three co-defendants. That's bad when you say co-defendants when you're talking about a 12 year old, but I actually had to go to juvenile court. And this is my first time ever in a courtroom. My father, he had to pay for an attorney to represent me.

So I spent some time in juvenile detention and the attorney ended up getting a deal where I got out and I was on probation. So whenever I went to the court, one of the first things they do is they send you for a mental evaluation. And so they're in this facility, which I definitely didn't feel like I fit in because this was like a real deal mental facility. You had people who were struggling with autism. You had people who had Down syndrome.

You had people with schizophrenia. It was kind of scary to be in there and again, couldn't be around my parents, couldn't contact my parents. And what I found comforted me there was there was this woman who was teaching some of the girls there how to crochet.

And I started learning and that was something that would calm me. So I just brought my crochet stuff to class and I would sit there and crochet whenever I finished with my work. Well, one day I went to lunch and I remember that I have got my purse. And so I went back into the classroom to get my purse and I saw that the teacher had been in my purse and she was actually going through it. And she was pulling out the yarn saying, you're not supposed to be doing this. And I said, well, you're not supposed to be in my stuff.

And I said, give me that. And I took it out of her hand and all of a sudden she started screaming and hollering, calling for the SRO. Next thing I know, he's coming in and she's saying I've assaulted her. And I said, I didn't assault her. I took my stuff out of her hand. They said, well, did you snatch it?

I said, well, yes, it's mine. They said, well, that's assault. And so I ended up getting charged with assault. I had my probation violated and I was returned back to the facility. But this time I was put in state custody. So two months after I had turned 13 and in state custody, you can have an indeterminate sentence or determinate sentence. I was indeterminate, meaning whenever they felt like they wanted to let me go back home to my parents is when I would go. So I ended up spending a year and a half in state custody. And to be honest with you, the only reason I got out is because my mother got fed up and she had threatened to actually file a suit against the state whenever they had allowed for my news, my picture to be placed in a newspaper.

So I was 15 when I finally got out of state custody. And it was on the ride home back from Nashville to Clarksville that my mom tells me that they had been divorced. And the whole time she had been telling me, you know, he's gone to the store, he's at his friend's house, he's in the backyard working on the pool.

It was all like he had been gone that whole entire time. But she didn't want it to affect my progress in the program. She didn't want it to overwhelm me or distract me from doing what I needed to do to come home. So that was that was a pretty big bomb that was dropped on me first thing. Then all of a sudden, here's this man that I know absolutely nothing about, who apparently they had been friends from when she used to live in New York. And now they were talking on the phone for hours and hours and hours. And he came to visit there at the house.

And when he came to visit, it's not like he was being a visitor. He was telling me what I needed to do and trying to order me around. And I was just like, hold up, wait a minute, wait a minute. And so I said, well, you know what?

That's fine. I'll just go back and hang out with my friends that I met when I was on the run from state custody. And that's when I ran away. So I called up some friends that I had met while I was on the run in Nashville.

And when I say friends, these are older women. These women are in their mid 20s and I was just 15 years old and they came and they got me. They welcomed me back. And there I was back living the life that I had lived on the run before. And that meant having sex with adult men and that being normalized, that being permitted and even encouraged by the adults that I was around, which is something completely, completely different from what I had been raised with. But I mean, it had become the norm for me. That also meant that I was getting high every day.

I was smoking weed every single day. And that was the time that I had actually met my trafficker is during that time when I was 16 years old. So I met Cut at a gas station here in Nashville, and I actually met him. I was riding with friends who were looking for another man who had just raped me.

And they were going to take out some revenge on him and confront him about what he'd done. And we stopped at the gas station and I wanted some some new ports. And so we walked up, I walked up to this guy and was like, do you have a new port? And he was like, no. And he offered to give me five dollars to get it back if I would give him my number.

So I did. After that, you know, we started talking on the phone. He started coming to pick me up and hang out with me. And I just pretty much just fell head over heels within a matter of days for this stranger, this older guy who did not have good intentions for me at all. But all that I saw when I was with him was that he listened to me. You know, my mind at that time, it was like, wow, like he's really interested in me. No one really pays me this level of attention.

No one really cares about, you know, my life story, my thoughts, my feelings, what I'm into. But here he's just like completely absorbed into it. Now I understand that he was looking, you know, for things that he could manipulate. He was looking for things that he could exploit.

He was listening because he needed to find out how he could really get into my head and play me. So when you're on the run, you know, you can't necessarily just go get a job. I didn't have an I.D. or a license or anything like that. I didn't have my birth certificate.

I couldn't really make money by any kind of legal means. But one of the women that I was staying with, her boyfriend was actually a drug dealer. And so there I was selling drugs in this project in North Nashville at the age of 16, but really just dove headfirst into it. So whenever I would go out when Cut would send me out to go get money, he'd always send me with his gun.

I had never shot a gun, didn't really anticipate ever having to use it. It was just something where, you know, I had it, I knew I had it. It was just a safety measure. But he always had it.

The safety was off. There was a bullet in the chamber. He said if something ever happens, just squeeze the trigger. So that time this guy had picked me up in this little white truck. He had got me something to eat, and while we were sitting there waiting on the food to come, that's when he had asked me, you know, was I up for any action. So I ended up going back to his house with him. And while we was there, you know, I kept trying to like stall because he started acting weird. Like he started showing me guns.

On the drive there he was telling me how he used to be a sharpshooter in the military. And it's like, why does he feel the need to tell me all of these things? And you're listening to Cyntoia Brown's story, and one bad choice after another, and just some really bad choices by the system too and by authorities.

And bad rulemaking and enforcement that almost makes no sense. And you combine all that with a girl who finds out Dad's gone, and then she's gone. And then in come the Predators, and one named Cut, short for Cutthroat. And she loved that he listened to her, but of course he was listening for a reason. He was getting into her mind. He was looking for things he could manipulate, things he could exploit. That's why he listened, said Cyntoia.

When we come back, more of this story, a remarkable redemption story, Cyntoia Brown's story, here on Our American Stories. Buying a home, Rocket Mortgage will cover 1% of your rate for the first year at no cost to you, saving you hundreds, even thousands with Inflation Buster. For example, if you lock a 7% rate today, you'll only pay 6% for a year. That's more game days, more girls' trips, more family gatherings, every month for a year, and your rate is secured for 30 years. Plus, if rates drop within three years of your home purchase, you get exclusive savings when you refinance with Rate Drop Advantage, more kitchen upgrades, more room to grow, more cash in your pocket. Save when you buy today and refinance tomorrow. Call 833-7-ROCKET today or visit inflationbuster.com to start saving. That's 833-7-ROCKET or go to inflationbuster.com.

For fees covered, rate, luck, date, requirements, and other terms and conditions, visit inflationbuster.com, call 1-833-7-ROCKET, equalizing lender license on all 56, and unless consumeraccess.org number 33. Another week, another free pass to entertainment. Check out all the shows and movies you can watch with Xfinity Flex, no strings attached. Face the darkness in the season two premiere of Yellow Jackets from Showtime.

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Happy streaming! And we continue with our American stories and Cyntoia Brown's story. Let's pick up where we last left off with 16-year-old Cyntoia at the home of a man who had picked her up for, as he called it, action. She said he was acting weird and showing her his guns and talking about how he was a sharpshooter.

Here's Cyntoia. Why does he feel the need to tell me all of these things? He tried to tell me that he wrote the song by Lee Greenwood, proud to be an American, which obviously I knew that was a lie. Like it was really strange, it was really uncomfortable. And like with him talking about this gun, then when we got to the house, you know, showing me this gun, it's like I felt that he was trying to intimidate me and at that point I just wanted to leave.

So I kept trying to stall. So I said, well, you know what, I'm just going to go up and I'm just going to pretend like I'm asleep. I'm going to ask him if I can have a nap real quick.

And so that's what I did. And while I was laying there pretending like I was asleep, he kept getting up and going into the next room, and then coming back just like staring at me, like looking over at me, going into the bathroom, going to the next room, and like this whole time like I'm just freaking out. I'm like, what is he doing?

Like what's really going on? There was a moment like when he got into the bed and he had reached over and grabbed me, and I was like, ah, and I was, you know, it was a little bit more emphatic than just like, you know, somebody who was really sleeping that may just kind of shrug away. And I'm like, oh, he knows I'm pretending now.

Now he's going to be pissed off. And he rolls over, and I'm thinking he's reaching for something. And all this is happening, like all these thoughts are happening like within the space of like two seconds.

And that's just a small fraction of the thoughts. And he would explain like how my mind was just racing at that time, just panic was just really setting in. And he goes, and I see his body turn, and that's when I had grabbed the gun out of the nightstand, out of the purse that was on the nightstand, and I shot him.

It was like this pop, and then it was like quiet. So I went back to the hotel room, and Cut was there at the room, and I came in, and I was like, I think I just killed somebody. And he was like, what? Like he thought I was playing.

I was like, I'm so serious. I just shot someone. And like he didn't believe me, but he just told me to go wipe down the car, wipe down the truck, and park it in the Walmart parking lot. And so that's what I did. So we were laying down, and the cops knock on the door. And so they come in with these shotguns, and like these big old guns pointed at me, like cocking these guns. So I was tried there in the juvenile court.

They had a transfer hearing about November. So I actually sat there and told the judge everything that had happened in the hopes that she would see, okay, well, this wasn't a malicious situation. This isn't something that she should be prosecuted for murder for. I'll just keep her in the juvenile system and treat her. But then you have the district attorney who was saying, no, like she's incorrigible.

There's nothing else that you can do for her. She needs to be tried as an adult, and as a matter of fact, I believe all of this was premeditated. Two weeks after the hearing, I was called down to the visitation area, and I was told by my public defender that I was tried as an adult, that I was going to be transferred. And I felt like the world just like fell from beneath me because now I went from, okay, maybe I'll spend three years in the treatment facility here going through DCS again to know I may end up spending the rest of my life in prison. So I was taken to the adult jail to CCA. I had to be housed in segregation, just basically stuck in a box until my trial. And my trial didn't happen until two years after I first went to the adult jail. Very difficult because you can't like talk to people on a regular basis.

You can't have visitation with your family, phone calls, anything like that. So the trial lasted several days, and I think it was like six hours they took to deliberate. And they came back in. I started looking at them, each and every one, as they came in because I'm like, I need any kind of sign. What are they about to tell me?

And like none of them will look at me. And this one guy, the only black guy who was on the jury, like he just like kind of just shook his head and hung his head. And that's when I knew. I was like, yeah, yep, it's not good.

And they convicted me of first degree murder and sentenced me to life in prison on the spot, automatic life sentence. I didn't cry. I didn't hold my head down or anything. And then when I got into my cell, I just broke down.

It was nighttime by that time. And I just remember crying and praying. And I said, God, if you get me out of here, I'll tell the world about you.

Like, you know, just let him know I'll do anything. If you just get me out of here, please don't let me spend the rest of my life in prison. So there was about two weeks between the time that I was convicted and sentenced until I was actually transported to the prison. And during that time, some of the women who had already been to prison and who were back in the county, they were trying to coach me and tell me, well, this is how you need to carry yourself. And you need to walk around like this when you walk on the compound and make sure your head's held high.

And let me show you how to throw a punch. And so they were going through all this. And I'm thinking, oh, man, like it's going to be rough. Like I'm thinking visions of, you know, the show Oz and every prison movie that I've ever watched. It's like, man, like this this is no joke. And, you know, I start stuffing my face with pop tarts and pretzel pieces thinking I got to buff up because, you know, I'm headed to the to the big house. And I get there and it's like a college campus. Like, you know, I'm like, well, this is not what I expected. I mean, it was more psychological warfare and psychological oppression, more psychological attacks than there was like the physical attacks.

But I actually found that like that was worse. So, you know, my attorney had told me before I had ever got to the prison, he was like, you know, you can go in there. You can start acting all crazy. And I mean, you can do that life sentence or you can go in there.

You can take every program that they accept you into. You can act like you have some sense and you can have a chance at getting out of prison someday. And by the grace of God, I ended up getting into the college course, came out of prison with not one, but two degrees. So Mrs. Seabrooks was the principal there at the prison.

But what I will always appreciate most about Miss Seabrooks is that she was the person, the first person that told me, God's not going to let you out of here until you come to him. You will not be free until you come to Christ. And at that time, I had just like fallen into this state where I didn't even believe anymore. At least I said I didn't believe. Really, I was just angry because I felt that, you know, I did what I was told in Sunday school and God, he didn't hold up his end of the bargain. And so I just can't be true. But really, I was just upset. And at the time I just brushed it off. I was like, no, Miss Seabrooks, that's not how the law works.

I'll get out when my attorneys argue before the appellate court and the appellate court overturns my sentence. And she said, all right, I'm telling you what I know. And you're listening to Cyntoia Brown talking about her sentence, the mindset that she had to adopt, and some people who started to care about her. She talked about the psychological attacks, which, as she put it, were worse than any potential physical attacks. And this one lady, Miss Seabrooks, who kept telling her that God had the answers for her. She was putting her faith in law and lawyers.

When we return, more of Cyntoia Brown's remarkable life story, a great redemption story here on Our American Stories. Buying a home, Rocket Mortgage will cover 1% of your rate for the first year at no cost to you, saving you hundreds, even thousands, with Inflation Buster. For example, if you lock a 7% rate today, you'll only pay 6% for a year. That's more game days, more girls' trips, more family gatherings every month for a year. And your rate is secured for 30 years. Plus, if rates drop within three years of your home purchase, you get exclusive savings when you refinance with Rate Drop Advantage. More kitchen upgrades.

More room to grow. More cash in your pocket. Save when you buy today and refinance tomorrow. Call 833-7-ROCKET today or visit inflationbuster.com to start saving. That's 833-7-ROCKET or go to inflationbuster.com.

That's 833-7-ROCKET or go to inflationbuster.com to start saving. Another week, another free pass to entertainment. Check out all the shows and movies you can watch with Xfinity Flex, no strings attached.

Face the darkness in the season two premiere of Yellow Jackets from Showtime. Crack open the history vault and dig into shows like America, The Story of Us. Then watch free picks from networks like Disney Stories Central and more with the kids.

Give your ears some love with Hit Nation Junior on iHeartRadio. Easily discover new free content each week across the best streaming apps. Say free this week into your Xfinity voice remote. You wouldn't settle for watching a blurry TV, would you? So why settle for just okay TV sound? Upgrade your streaming and sound all in one with Roku Streambar. This powerful two-in-one upgrade for any TV lets you stream your favorite entertainment in brilliant 4K HDR picture and hear every detail with auto speech clarity.

Whether you're hosting a party or just cleaning the house, turn it up and rock out with iHeartRadio and room-filling sound. Learn more about Roku Streambar today at roku.com. Happy streaming. And we continue here with Our American Stories and with Cyntoia Brown's story. Let's pick up where we last left off. It's 2006 and Cyntoia Brown has just been convicted of aggravated robbery and first-degree murder for killing 43-year-old real estate agent Johnny Allen. While in prison, she began going to college. We had just heard her principal had once told Cyntoia that she needed to know Christ if she ever expected to leave. But Cyntoia put her faith in the law and the process.

Here's Cyntoia with the rest of the story. So when I was first arrested all over the news, I was painted as this horrible person. Like the news just vilified me. I was this dangerous individual.

The streets are safer without me. But my attorney had actually met a documentary filmmaker through one of her other cases and had invited him to come in and start filming my process through the court system and interviewing me. He took all those interviews and he created a documentary. A lot of people started writing me from that and just being really supportive. I started noticing, even within the media, that time was changing and there was some support from me. All of a sudden I get this letter from a man in Texas. I read the letter, I opened it up, and immediately the thing that stood out was that the edges of the letter were burnt. That was the second thing I noticed.

The first thing I noticed was that he was really fine. He had sent these two pictures of himself. I ended up writing him because something was like, I'm going to write him back. I need to write him back.

From that one letter we started writing several letters. We started talking on the phone. He started telling me about Christ, which you have to know that everyone else who would try to tell me about Jesus, I brushed it off. I dismissed it. I didn't want to hear it.

But there was something about when Jamie was talking to me about him. We continued writing. Not long after that I won him over. We just decided that no matter what happened, no matter what the court said, God said I was going to get out and we were going to walk in that faith and we were going to trust in that.

We weren't going to focus on the appeals because my very last appeal had been denied. We weren't going to focus on what the lawyer said. We were just going to focus on the Lord. We were going to focus on building a relationship with him. When we kept our focus there, all of a sudden things started picking up on the outside. Things started picking up with the appeal. The appeal that was closed in the federal court, it all of a sudden opened back up. Six months after he first wrote me and told me what he said, I look on the news and it's a trending topic.

I look on the news and people all over the world from all walks of life are now talking about free centolia. Jamie said, are you surprised? I'm like, well, yeah. He said, what did I tell you about my God? I was like, I know what you said and I believe it, but it's happening. He said, I told you what he said. He doesn't lie.

It just gave me goosebumps. That was just one thing. Months after that, Jamie and our pastor, Minister Tim McGee, he said that I was going to get a date in March. He said he didn't know what kind of date it was.

He didn't know if it was an out date or what date, but it was something that was going to lead to me getting out, something that was necessary to me getting out. We said, OK. So March comes by. First week goes by.

Second week to March goes by. Nothing. No word.

No anything. Then in that third week of March, Jamie had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. I remember calling him and he just said, you're coming home. He started crying. My husband doesn't cry. He's a man's man.

He's a jujitsu champion. He's not sitting here crying on the phone with no one, but he just broke down. He said, God is bringing my wife home. I was like, OK, did the lawyer call you? He's like, no. I said, oh, did you see something on the news? He said, no. I said, well, OK, yeah, baby, I'm coming home.

He says, no, you're coming home. God told me. I heard it clear as day. The next week comes, it's the last week of March, getting down to the wire. And all of a sudden, March 30th, my attorneys call Jamie and say, we got a date for a hearing. And the hearing that they're talking about is one that less than one percent of people get for clemency petitions.

It's next to impossible to get a hearing with the parole board. And I got one. And we got that date March 30th. At the conclusion of the hearing, I ended up getting four votes for me to be granted clemency and then two votes for me not to be granted clemency.

So at this time, the governor of Tennessee was Bill Haslam. And so it was up to him to make the decision. And, you know, I thank God that I had Jamie there. I was like, you need to remember that he is not the one making the decision. God has made the decision and he's already said what's going to happen. And you need to make sure that your faith is in him, not in the process, not in not in what anybody else down here on this earth is doing or saying. You need to trust what God has said.

And I said, you're right. And when I tell you like that is so much easier said than done. So it was a struggle. It was a struggle for Jamie as well. It was a true test of faith. At one point, you know, Jamie was like, there has to be something like something more, you know, that we need to be doing, you know, with our faith. There's something more with our relationship, you know, with Christ that that we're not doing because like, why is it there's nothing?

Why is it we're going through this wilderness period? And so Jamie decided I've got to step out on faith. He sold everything that he owned in Texas.

And when I tell you everything, I mean everything. All in the space of one day, he had gotten rid of his Mercedes. He had gotten rid of his Bentley, which was his dream car. He had gotten rid of every stitch of furniture in his condo.

And I remember just boo hoo and crying. I said, you don't have a bed to sleep on? What are you going to sleep on? He said, you don't get it. He said, you don't understand. He said, I am going to get my wife. I'm going to move to Tennessee and get my wife because God says you're coming out and I believe him.

So I'm going to act accordingly. So he sold everything and he moved up to Tennessee. And a couple of weeks after that is when my attorney's got the call from the governor's office from the lieutenant governor that the governor wanted to meet with him. And he met with him. He let them know that he was going to grant me clemency. So one of the things that I learned, you know, even from me sitting in prison, seeing people come back and forth, back and forth in and out of those doors is the thing that made the people who stayed out different from the people who came back and forth in is was these are the people who understood like what really went in to that action.

What really went into that night that ended up with me getting charged? What are the real impacts of what I've done? And, you know, by going through that thought process, you really understand like how your actions affect other people. And until you understand that your actions do affect other people and so you understand, you know, we live in community with one another.

We have to be accountable, not just for our own actions, but we have to be accountable to each other. Like you're not going to learn how to live in the free world. You're not going to learn how to be successful as a citizen. You're not going to be successful as a person. Like how can you have any healthy relationships?

How can you have any kind of healthy dealings, whether it be personal business or otherwise, if you don't get that basic concept? So we actually got married while I was still incarcerated. Unbeknownst to me, he had already picked out a ring with my mom. My mom had went to Texas.

He flew out to Texas for a Cowboys versus Texans game. They, you know, him and her like they had already had this planned out where Tim was going to pick me up in the van with Jamie. And then Tim was going to do the ceremony right there on the spot, all this, that and the other. But when, you know, they came with the news to say that I was getting out of prison, that's when he told me all about that.

I was like, oh, how sweet. We don't have to wait. So he was like, what do you mean we don't have to wait? I said, oh, we don't have to wait. We can do this now. He said, well, how are we going to do it now? I said, not to worry. Don't worry.

I'll take care of it. And what a laugh. And that is Cyntoia Brown telling her story. And what a love story, folks.

You can't imagine someone doing that kind of thing for you. Free Cyntoia is the book, My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System. I urge you to get it. And if you have anybody in your family struggling with the law, struggling with drugs, struggling with life itself, this is a book worth reading. Cyntoia Brown's story here on Our American Stories.

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