Locked In with Ian Bick - How I Survived 25+ Years in Kansas’ Worst Prisons | Luis Gutierrez

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

Luis Gutierrez got pulled into California and Kansas gangs at a young age after a rough childhood that set him on a violent path. In this episode, Luis tells the full story of how a crime that resulted in the murder of his close friend led him to turn down an 11-year plea deal and receive life in prison, sending him into some of Kansas’ most brutal and dangerous maximum-security prisons. He shares raw, uncensored stories from inside those prisons, the violence he witnessed, and the mindset required to survive decades behind bars. Luis also opens up about the redemption that changed his life in prison, the steps he took to earn a real chance at freedom, and an unexpected love story after meeting a prison staff member who ultimately lost her job over their relationship. Today, Luis runs a successful nonprofit and tattoo shop, using his past to help others avoid the same mistakes and prove that even a life sentence doesn’t have to be the end of the story. _____________________________________________ #PrisonSurvival #KansasPrison #PrisonLife #TrueCrime #LifeInPrison #PrisonStories #SurvivingPrison #incarceration _____________________________________________ Thank you to WARBY PARKER for sponsoring this episode: Our listeners get 15% off plus free shipping when they buy two or more pairs of prescription glasses at https://warbyparker.com/LOCKEDIN — using our link helps support the show. #WarbyParker #ad _____________________________________________ Connect with Luis Gutierrez: http://www.redemptionanimalrescueks.com _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 First Days in Prison & Early Survival 01:11 Life After Prison: Redemption Inc, Second Chances & Animal Rescue 04:46 Childhood, Family, and the Roots of Trauma 09:30 Moving States, Gangs, and Juvenile Arrests 13:30 The Turning Point: Tragedy, Charges, and Sentencing 20:11 First Time in Prison: Violence, Fear, and Reality Setting In 28:42 Prison Politics, Gang Life, and How to Stay Alive 39:39 Solitary Confinement, Prison Mentors, and Learning to Adapt 48:47 Life in Segregation: Art, Mental Survival, and Trauma 59:39 Drugs in Prison, Relationships, and a Shift in Mindset 01:12:10 Prison Dog Programs, Redemption, and Meeting Melissa 01:23:53 Preparing for Freedom, Relapse Risks, and Setbacks 01:29:06 Facing the Parole Board and Fighting for a Second Chance 01:39:01 Life After Prison: Community Work, Business, and Giving Back 01:47:02 Family, Marriage, and Rebuilding Trust After Prison 01:51:01 Advice for At-Risk Youth and the Power of Redemption Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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He was a pretty big guy I said but I'm gonna go smash it I'm gonna show him that I can do this on my own I went to a cell house And I snuck into his cell We lived in completely different cell houses And when I turned the corner to where his run was Remember, I'm 16.

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Luis Gutierrez was pulled into gangs at a young age, made a decision that cost his best friend's life, turned down an 11-year plea deal, and was sentenced to life in prison. This episode takes you inside Kansas's most dangerous maximum security prisons and the redemption that gave him a second chance. Luis, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming from Kansas, right? Yes, sir. That's incredible. It's warmer there, hopefully. No, it's pretty cold there too. Oh, it is a go. What's going on with the world? You think Kansas, you think,

in kind of like desert and... Oh, no, we get lots of snow, man. Really? Lots of snow, yeah. Yeah, it snowed a lot here yesterday. The last two days, actually. Heavy winter here in Connecticut. Last winter, we barely got anything. Yeah, no, we drove through it. Definitely tell the audience about the animal facility you guys are running in the tattoo shop. It's really cool. And that's your logo on your shirt, too. Yes, sir. We're called redemption. Inc. We're based out of Hutchinson, Kansas. We have a tattoo shop with a bunch of amazing artist and a piercer there. We also have an animal rescue. We started an animal rescue. They're called Redemption Animal Rescue, and it's slowly starting to grow, and we've rescued. Hopefully I'm right on this,

but it's close to 200 dogs since we just opened it. And all the dogs we rescue are mostly from like from shelters that are a day of euthanasia or hours away from being euthanized. My wife just, it breaks their heart, you know, to see them get put down. So the dogs we rescue are literally their last moments of life. Do you get guys or women that come out of prison that want to adopt? I think so. My wife mostly handles all the adoptions and stuff. And usually what they call me in for, when I was in prison, I was in a,

dog program where we prepared dogs to be service dogs. And I was real good at training dogs. I got real, real good at it. So I understand dogs quite a bit. So anytime they get a dog, they say it has behavioral issues, they'll be like, hey, there's this Rottweiler or there's this full-grown mastiff that they say, hey, it's, man, will you come see if that's true? That's great.

Not always. It's scary sometimes, but. And we'll get into it more in this episode, but tell the audience real quick how or who your wife is how you had met her just so the audience has some context all right my wife uh i met her when when i was locked up she worked at the prison as well uh she was up there high in the the chain of command she worked at the in the warden's office so she was like in charge of transfers gang transfers um programs and stuff and uh we met we met in this dog program where we were preparing dogs to be service dogs that's how we met.

That's incredible. I'll tell you these really cool stories. Oh, we're looking forward to it. Now, where'd you grow up, Luis? I partly grew up in San Jose, California. That's where I was born. And a little bit later down the road, my father worked for General Motors, and they got transferred to Kansas City, Missouri.

And we ended up moving up here to Kansas City, Missouri, like in the early 80s. And I got in some trouble, and I was just going back. and forth. And so I would always find ways to get back to California. I mean, that's where all my friends were and that's where all our family was. So I'd run away from here from Kansas just to get back home and I'd steal cars, you know, just do whatever to get back home and be with my friends at the time. Were your parents together? Did they stay together? Yes, they were together at the time. What did your mom do for work? She didn't. She was a stay-at-home mom. My mom was from Mexico. mom forgive me you know but my dad pretty much kidnapped my mom when she was 14 years or younger than that

and my dad was an older man and he kidnapped my mom and she basically was forced to be a stay-at-home mom she couldn't learn the language she couldn't you know work go to school or anything so I remember my mom used to steal her homework to do her homework for us because she wanted to do that so bad. You know, one of the things that makes me really proud about my mother is, um, although my mom wasn't from this country, you know, she was brought here illegally and stuff. After my father passed away, you know, my mother went and got her GED and stuff and, and, uh, she became an American citizen, you know, and she worked hard for that. And, you know, she, she worked for a mattress company for over 30 years and now she has homes in Kansas and over there in Hutchinson, too.

Hutchinson and Kansas are about three, four hours apart, but she owns home in both places so that she can come visit us. Was your dad abusive? Oh, yeah. Yeah, my dad was an alcoholic and just, you know, just wasn't someone you would be very fond of, I guess. How old were you when you discovered that? I discovered that when I was locked up because we grew up throughout our whole life.

You know, we knew my dad messed around and had other girlfriends, and stuff. And we never really took it so serious until much older. I started realizing like, oh, man, you really disrespected my mom, you know? And just all the stuff that we grew up, it really hit home, I think, as I matured. And who was we? Did you have siblings? My brothers and sisters, yeah.

I have six brothers and sisters. And one of the things that I, one of my brothers, I'll get into this story with you here as we go, but one of my little brothers was murdered, and my first day out of, my first day out of prison after serving a life sentence was to his funeral. So the first day I got out was literally to go out to his funeral. Do you have any happy moments from your childhood? Being with my friends and family, you know, I did.

We used to be pretty close, you know, and then just everything got messed up. Do you think you would have been better off just staying in California from the start and never coming? No. No, because I would have just been in the same. I visit friends now that I grew up with in California. And all my friends are, except for a couple, they're either addicts or they've all been through the prison system. We all grew up in the gang culture there.

I grew up in that stuff my whole life. Now, in Kansas, were there any gangs or street life here? Oh, yeah. What was that like? I tell you what, when I came here to Kansas, it was in Kansas City, Kansas, it Windock County. And it was even crazier than California because for some reason right there in Kansas City,

it was a big convergence of gangs from everywhere. Texas, California, New York, gangs were coming from everywhere. When I came here to Kansas, that's the first time I ever heard about a GD or any stuff like that. But everybody at that time, that was like during

when that movie, Boys in the Hood just came out and gangs were really starting to really take a hold of, especially in Kansas City, there were so many murders there. I mean, it was just crazy. All the gangs were trying to establish dominance there.

And I came in right around that time. And how old were you at that point? I was like 14. So before moving to Kansas, Did you have any activity in the streets at all? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like I said, I grew up in the gangs in California.

I'm from Northern California. I would have been a Northennial. I was already on the verge of it. I had my tattoos, but I ended up getting locked up so young. And what happened, I got in trouble in California, allegedly for a shooting. And my mom said, I got to get you out here. You need to get out. You're going to end up in prison like your friends and your uncles and everybody.

In this family, we got to get you out. out of here. So I got sent back to Kansas. And when I got here to Kansas, that's when all that gang stuff that I was just telling me about earlier, it was in the middle of it. And I was supposed to be put on at the time, but I ended up coming to Kansas over that shooting. So I'd never got put on. But I still have all my friends. And that's what I represented. That's what my tattoo said. And when I got here to Kansas, I was only here about almost a year. And, you know, year, not even a year, man. And then I had a fight with a friend one night. We were on our way to a party, and I ended up killing my friend. That's why I went to prison. I was offered an 11-year

plea bargain, and I was going to take it. But when we got to the courtroom, and I don't remember, because it's been so long, if it was my preliminary hearing or if it was my sentencing, and I I got judicated from a juvenile to an adult, but I seen my victim's family with, you know, he was my friend. But I seen his family there in the courtroom and I seen all the pain, all the anger, like the betrayal, everything that I'd caused. You know, I'd just seeing his family there. I couldn't take that plea, man.

The last thing, you know, I was so embarrassed at that point sitting in the courtroom. I was so embarrassed. The last place I wanted to be was in that courtroom. You know, because who kills their friend? And I remember just looking around, just being so

embarrassed, man, just like, what the hell did I just do? You know, and although I knew I did it, and I was feeling bad when I seen his family is when it actually hit, you know? And the last place I wanted to be was in that courtroom. I just wanted to crawl up in a hole somewhere and hide from the world.

again, who kills their friend? So I spoke to my attorney at that time, and I just told him I can't take this plea. And I ended up playing no contest to a natural life. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families,

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Marvel television's daredevil Born again now streaming only on Disney Plus sentence Why did they give you such a low sentence Was this a self-defense case No no it was just It was because it was gang related

I was a gang member It was considered a felony murder But I was a juvenile I was 16 at the time and that's the plea I was offered, and I just, I couldn't do it. Now, were there Nortayno's in Kansas, too? At that time, no. So did you have to join a different gang other than?

No, no. It's just you were individually on your own. Yeah, and we brought some friends from California over here at that time, too. That's so young. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, they were pretty organized over there in California. But everything happened so fast when I got, like I said, I got in trouble.

well, they were looking for me over a shooting over there, and my mom was trying to get me out of it. She was trying to get me out of it before it was too late, and I ended up like everyone else, you know, joining the gangs. I'd already been through juvenile system in California. Whatever happened to that case, the shooting case? I think when they found out I had a life sentence here in Kansas and that I probably wasn't going to get out.

They just never brought it up anymore. How old were you the first time you went to a juvenile facility in California? I think I was like 12. And what was that over? It was, I think we were at, it was a gang fight. We had a big gang fight. And I ended up going to juvenile hall. And I mean, it was all, all my friends were in there with me.

And it just, honestly, it's going to sound crazy. But it was just like being at home. What do you think attracted you to gang life? Everyone I knew. Everyone I knew. And, you know, now that I look back on it, my, you know, I guess we just didn't respond. Our dad just never did, there was never any punishments or anything. He just encouraged a lot of that stuff too.

My dad was in the mix of all that stuff too. And so there wasn't any discipline or my dad was a real bad alcoholic, you know. And it just, that life just attracted me, man. All my friends, everyone, I always wanted to be tough and wanted to, you know, just that's what attracted me. Did you participate in drugs or alcohol? A little bit. A little bit of drinking and stuff. I smoked weed.

But other than that, I think one time, a couple times, we tried acid. You know, growing up, we'd be walking downtown, tripping on acid and stuff. But I think that was like twice. And then I got locked up so young. You know, I don't know if this is going a little bit too ahead. But when I got locked up, I was really young and I was scared. So I asked, you know, because immediately, you know, when I was in the county jail, I was asking everybody, what do I do when I get to prison? Who do I go to? And they're like, you're going to be all right. Just go to your people. You know, I'm Mexican. So everyone was like, just go to Mexicans. And said, they'll make, they'll make sure you're okay. You know, and so as soon as I get to prison, you know, I'm looking for anyone who looks Mexican. Well, when I get to Mexican in the Kansas prison system, there was only like 1,200 people at this prison that I was in. And out of those 1,200, only 40 of them were Mexicans, including me.

You know, so we were a very small group. But I'm telling you what, there were some riding crazy motherfuckers, man. You know, and whatever it took for me to be safe, you know, I was scared. You know, you walk in, I'm just this little pimple-faced kid, and all these men are grown, big buff dudes. And I was very scared. So I went in and I immediately asked what the rules were. And, you know, the first thing they tell you is, you know, no gambling, you know, no borrowing. He said, and don't do any drugs that'll make you suck a dick.

And I remember going like, okay, you know, and I didn't want to ask the question. I didn't want to feel dumb, but I was trying to figure out what that was. I still didn't know that. In the mornings, I used to work out with the, like, and morning was for the people that didn't have jobs yet, or that hadn't been in trouble or that hadn't been in trouble. So I used to work out with this crazy big dude in the mornings. And he never disrespected me, never said anything crazy. Every once in a while, he'd be like, you want to smoke this joint with me?

And I was like, yeah. So we'd smoke and work out. And one day my people came and told me, and what I mean by people are the Mexicans. They said, quit messing with that guy. He's a weirdo. And I'm trying to figure out, like, where are these guys talking? about you know he's a weirdo so i'm 16 about to turn 17 and i'm trying to still trying to process all this and uh so i just i remember thinking you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna figure this out for

myself if he's a child molester here's my chance like to really really i'd already establish myself and i'll tell you that here in a second but i remember i i said i'm gonna go smash this dude he was a pretty big guy i said but i'm gonna go smash it i'm gonna show him that i can do this on my own and I went to a cellhouse and I snuck into his cell. We lived in completely different cell houses. And when I turned the corner to where his run was, remember, I'm 16, I had very little experiences in life, you know, and even with females or anything, very little. So when I turned the corner, I seen this guy that they told me about.

And he was going down on another guy through the bars. And I stopped. I was like, what the, because the first time I'd ever seen a blow job, never had one, never seen, the first time I'd seen it was that guy, given that other guy one. And it just, it just fucked me up, man. And immediately I got angry because I started, I said, here's my chance. Here's my chance he's doing it.

I can just go from behind, smash his head into the bars. Because remember, I'm just a 16-year-old kid. I'm not, this is a grown man and I was thinking I have to win I can't lose but how do I do this? Well, here was my chance and to this day I don't know why I did it maybe it was just being young and stupid

but on my way running towards him I yelled motherfucker I smoked weed with you you know and he stopped I'll never forget this he heard me and he stopped and he popped off that guy's winner

and it was the grossest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I stopped and I turned around and I ran the other way and I went and I told my friends what happened and I'll tell you what they got in my ass so bad they started yelling at me

just cussing me out and like, you know, pretty much belittling me and I couldn't understand it you know and they said in the first place we told you not to go mess with this guy he said you're just a kid

if he would have done something gee, we would have been forced to kill him. And we got all kinds of stuff going on right now, bringing stuff in and whatever else they had going on. They said, you didn't listen to what we said. So immediately I got scared. I thought, oh, man, I messed up. I'm going to get beat up.

I didn't follow orders. And then the second thing was I ran from a fight. I didn't stay there and fight. And it wasn't because I was scared. It was just, I was so grossed out. I've never seen anything like that before. You know, so I learned two very valuable lessons right there that that guy was doing that to the other guy because he got in dope debt. He was on meth.

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I don't deserve this because I took my friend. life. Where does that come from? If you've seen the look on my victim's family's face, just the hurt, the anger, and I don't know, I can't explain it in a whole lot of words, but

just seeing their face and knowing I caused that. And it wasn't because I was some kind of noble person or anything. I just, that day, even my mom, you know, when she found out I did this, just to see the hurt in my mom's face too, you know, and it just all came down on me that I caused all of this.

I did all this, you know, and here I am. It just felt really bad to, I guess it just felt really bad as like to take this plea or to take this time over something I had done and see how bad people were hurting for what I did. Were you hoping for a life sentence or were you hoping for less? No, I don't, honestly, I was so young. I don't even know what I was. thinking. I just know when I did this life sentence, my attorney had told me if you, if you, you got two options that you can take this plea or you can do this life sentence and this life sentence in the state of Kansas. If you're a juvenile, you serve 15 years and then you start seeing a parole board. It doesn't mean you're going to get out. But you do 15 years. That's what's

considered a life sentence in Kansas. And then you start seeing a parole board. So looking back on it, now, had you known that you were going to get life at the time, would you have taken the plea deal? I don't know. I've never thought about that. I guess now as an adult, when I look back on it, I don't regret it because I learned a lot. And I know I needed prison because I was just so out of control, you know, and no one could tell me what to do. Even as a little kid, I was just really out of control. I looked up to gang members and, you know, I was wanting to be. that's all I wanted in life was to be, you know, made. And as an adult, when I look back on it, I know I needed it.

Now, as a juvenile, I pled guilty just because I seen what I'd done. But it wasn't, I don't know if that means nobility or just if you've just seen my victim's family's faces, it was just, it was messed up to know that I caused that. Did getting sentenced to life take away that feeling or does it always stick with you? No. No, I didn't take away that feeling at all. Like I told, like I said, I was so embarrassed over what I'd done. I felt so guilty, you know, and at that moment, I just wanted to hide from the world. I just, I wanted to take my, what do you call it, take my licks and just go and see what happened next.

So you're 16 years old, you're at the sentencing hearing, and the judge sentences you to life. What's the first thing that goes through your mind? I got scared. I was scared because, you know, you hear all the stories about prison. And in my head, I'm just thinking like, all right, how am I going to do this? What am I going to do? You know, I'm just a little kid, and I'm going to find out I'm not as bad as I really think I am. You know, that's literally what I was thinking as a kid, just scared.

just scared. What was the conversation with your mother like over this? She was so hurt. She couldn't believe it. My mom told me from the very beginning, she said, I'm not going to leave your side, son. I'm going to be here with him. She just kept telling me, please be safe.

And she didn't know what was going to happen next either. She knew I was going to prison, and she was scared for me, too. But our conversations were, she just kept telling me, please be careful, son. Be careful in there. please, whatever you need to do, just do it, you know, to be safe. Do you think she stuck in the picture or stayed with your father because of the kids because of you?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she stayed with my dad because of, you know, all of us kids. And plus, she didn't know anyone at that time. Like, I told you, my mom couldn't work. She wasn't allowed to work or to do anything. What was his reaction to your prison sentence? I don't know.

I don't, I mean, he didn't, the times that they came to visit me, most of the times he was drunk, you know, most of the, most of the time he would just go to the visitation room and go to sleep while my mother and my brothers and sisters visited me. So where, what prison do they send you in Kansas? I went to the, to the, to the, to the Max facility. It was a Lansing Correctional Facility. That's one of the craziest prisons there is there. I'll tell you what our very first day we had a big gang fight in the kitchen when I got there and everyone

I introduced myself and stuff and they were like so you you down with us the Mexicans I told you we were a very very small number and I was like yeah hell yeah I'll do whatever I'm here with you guys

and I said well you better stay here in the child hall you know, because it's going to go down. And the Mexicans sat in the corner of the chow hall in the back corner. And I remember them telling just everyone to sit back, get in the back. And next to us was the white table. And then all that other side was the black tables. And there was more white tables on that side.

But on the Mexican tables, we just started getting behind each other. And normally what the Mexicans did at that time, time we had four tables and whenever those tables were full another Mexican would come through you just get up shake his hand and you move out of the way so he can have a place to eat well this time they just tell everyone stand in the back as soon as you're done get in the back get in the back get in the back till they got all the numbers there and I'm looking around trying to figure out everything that's going on and I can see guys behind me just passing each other knives getting gloves and stuff and socks with locks.

In Kansas, at least at Lansing Correctional Facility, what happens, anytime there's a big fight like that, and it's either in the child hall or it's in the gyms, as soon as something happens, they lock the doors. They just lock everything in so they can secure the situation, I guess. But I remember there was this big black dude, and he was walking back and forth, and I'm watching him, but he's walking like this.

And he's hyping his guys up. They're walking back and forth. And then just all of a sudden, it was just a huge, just a huge group of guys that ran towards our corner. And it was on. It was on.

And I remember seeing guys faces smashed. I remember seeing some teeth on the floor. There was blood. There was a, they were just grabbing guys and throwing them into the circle where we were at. And I'm fighting for my, I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

just fighting for my life, scared to death. And I can remember, they call them the goon squad in Kansas, the SWAT team. And they're all, they got blue, they got black suits on. And that's another thing they call them the black suits too. But I can remember that we're on this side. The guys were fighting there in the middle and the goon squads on the outside trying to get in. And it was just the craziest thing I'd ever seen as a kid. kid. And I remember just thinking like, oh, my God, I'm going to die. I'm going to die here.

And you're just swinging and kicking and just doing everything you can. After what seemed like forever, I remember them cuffing us up, a zip tie. They zip tied us. And we ended up in SAG. And by then they had sprayed us all with their mace or pepper spray, whatever it was. But that's the first time I got a taste of that, literally my first day in. And we get to Sague and there's always a porter out there. There's always one of every race they put out there. He put a white porter, a black porter, and a Mexican porter. And the Mexican porter came through and, you know, he was delivering stuff to all the Mexicans and stuff.

And he came to my cell. He said, damn, little homie. He said, man, you did good, man. He said, everybody's saying you did good. And I'm just, I remember thinking like, man, I'm being accepted. And I was like happy because, you know, the last thing you don't want to be as accepted. You know, I'm going to back up a little bit. I remember seeing this kid on the bus on the way up to the prison.

And I remember him just being so scared. And when you're walking in with your bedrole, he was walking in with his bedrole and the predators know already. And they're just looking at him. And, you know, a lot of people sometimes feel sorry for me. They're like, man, you did all that time. And I said, don't feel sorry for me. Like, I did okay. I always ask people this question.

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versus taco truck salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habiniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. In prison, what do you think would be the worst thing to be? Well, knowing from my experience, I think the worst thing to be is someone that shows weakness or is scared or gives that effect because there are sex offenders or cops that assert dominance in the beginning and no one messes with them. I tell you what, this is just my own personal opinion. The worst thing to be in prison is a little white guy that's not clicked up or accepted.

That's the worst thing in the world that anyone ever wants to be. I've seen those guys get brutalized, victimized, so bad, man. Some of them weren't even sex offenders. They were just weak, like you said. And that's what happened to me. And I felt so bad for them. And you can't get involved. Yeah, I remember one time there was this little white guy named Squirt.

He wasn't a child molester. He wasn't a snitch. He never told on nobody for all the things they did to him. But they would brutalize this kid, man. And I felt bad for him one. time and I remember one of my friends had told me said what the hell do you feel bad for that fool for if he's not going to fight for his ass why would you fight for it you know and I was just all right cool whatever you know and you just move on but that's always to me that's always been

the worst thing you could be is a little white guy that's not clicked up or accepted by anyone because I've seen them get victimized the worst what would have happened if you would help a guy like that to you ever the first thing everyone would think is like you're fucking him you're gay, you're doing something with him. That'd be the first thing. You know, as I got older and as I did more time, I did start helping out guys like that. You know, I ended up,

this is getting a little ahead of myself, but when after I met Melissa, she helped me get into some classes. And I love these classes so much. I ended up being like a mentor in the classes and I started teaching a lot of, like, cognitive thinking, anger management. They had this program called Thinking for a Change, and I really took to these programs.

So I got to talk to a lot of guys. And at this point, nobody looked at me like that anymore because they knew I was doing stuff to help people. So I try to help a lot of the little white guys that that I would see get victimized like that. That first night on the bunk after that riot that you were describing, what's going through your mind? Are you happy you're there? No, I'm scared to death, honestly, still, because I'm just standing. thinking, in my head, I'm thinking, like, I know there's repercussions. I know this ain't over. You know, guys in SEG are still yelling at each other, you know, because we all got put in the same

segregation unit. So I'm just thinking like, oh, man, you know, I need to get a knife. I need to get some kind of weapon. I'm still just a little kid, you know, and what I learned there, though, was that I think we were there for like 45 days. In SEG? In SEG. Wow, so you hadn't even made it to a unit yet? I was there for like 45 days, and it's crazy how 45 days made a difference where everyone kind of chilled out.

They weren't trying to murder each other no more. They just, once we all got out of SEG, everyone went their ways and just went about, you know, doing their thing. But that day I was scared. I was like, man, it's not over. I'm going to, like, what if this time they get me? I don't want to lose my teeth. I've seen teeth on the floor.

There's a lot of blood, you know, And everyone was a grown people. They were grown men. And I was just a little kid, so I was still scared. What did help was because I had proved myself, a lot of the guys started bringing me care packages. They brought me stamp so I could write my family, weed, tobacco, coffee, hygiene.

So I remember just the whole 45 days I was pretty much stoned while I was there in Sag. Those first 45 days on a life sentence, how does that feel time-wise? I know my first three months felt like three years. It just, man, I'll tell you this story that. Because when you go out to wreck, when you're in SEG, they put you out in these dog cages. You're outside and, you know, you're in the hole. You're in 24-hour lockdown.

But every other day, you get to go out to SEG cages, and they're just like dog runs. and when we get out there, I was like, I was standing next to a couple of Mexican dudes. There were a couple white guys on this side, and they said, I'd said something like, damn, man, hope this doesn't mess up my parole, like when I go see it in 50.

And one of the guys, I can't remember which one, was just like, looked at me, he said, are you fucking stupid? He said, you're a fucking loser, just like we are. You all got life in here. You think you're going to get out? You think you're going to make your parole board? and then it hit me like, damn, I'm never going to get out probably.

And especially, you know, living this life, I'm never going to get out. So you start, I remember I started acclimating to that. Like, I need to get used to this. This is my life now. I need to survive this. I need to figure out a way to survive this. When you get back out of SEG, tell us, walk us through what the environment was like the living conditions, how the units are laid out, everything like that. so the audience pictures it.

I was in a max unit because I had a life sentence, and I'd gotten into that fight. I was in a, it was in Lansing Correctional. Oh, no, they transferred me to Hutchinson. Oh, they switch you to a new facility. Yeah. Oh, so you didn't even make it out on the population. Anytime there's fights or big riots like that,

what they do is they transfer people. They'll come out with a bus in like two, three in the morning and just ship you out and whatever property you get comes a week or so later. And I ended up in another facility. called Hutchinson Correctional Facility. I live in Hutchinson, Kansas now, and literally this prison that I got sent to is only like maybe 10 blocks

from my tattoo shop right now. Is that weird for you? No, no, it's, I drive by, I did a bunch of posts and stuff, like when I drive by it, it's funny, I have a little granddaughter now, right? But I used to flip the prison off every day. I drove by, just my own little thing,

just flip it off. And I had to stop doing that because she mimics everything I do. So now when we drive by it, she'll be like, stupid prison. It's just our little thing. And she says, everyone has dirty fingernails in there, huh, Papa? I was like, yeah, everyone has crusty fingernails. I drive by the prison that I was in, too.

Yeah. Because it's right down the road. Oh, wow. It's weird, you know, especially when it's at night and you see everything lit up and you kind of brings you back to what you would be doing in that moment. Yeah, I always think about, like, right, like depending on what time of the day I'm driving, I'll be like, well, they're on afternoon. or it's count time, you know, that's what I, every time I drive by it, because it's like I said,

it's not far from my shop. But I got transferred there to Hutch, and Hutch at that time was considered more of a restrictive prison. Like it, they didn't play all the stuff. Lansing's the most craziest prison there is in Kansas. And it's like out of control. It's very known for all the violence and the craziness. And Hutch is more, uh, it's like a glad. It's like a gladysiness. It's like a gladiator school, but they have it more controlled. It's more locked down. You're not out as much. There's no skating, no running around. There's, you know, so I get there to Hutch and I remember thinking like, oh, man, this sucks. There's no cable. There's not, it was just whatever, before they took antenna away, I don't know if they did that here or not, but over there in Kansas, there's no more,

like, they used to have just where you can put your TV on with the antennas and then get ABC, NBC, NBC, CBS, just the regular air channels. There was only those channels and there was a prison channel where the warden would get on there and give updates for the week and stuff. And it was just doing time, man. It was just, that's it. It sucked, man.

And I remember thinking like, God, I got a life sentence of this. So there, you know, whenever you do get out, everyone's always just looking to hustle, to commit crimes, do all kinds. You know, you've seen a, there was a lot of fights there, a lot of, it was more younger people. There was a lot of young people there. Like your age young? Yeah.

I think they kept it, they call it the reformatory. And they kept it like from juvenile, like people that have been judicated from that age to about 25, like around that age. And then Lansing, it was just for the older, older heads. Yeah, I don't know if I necessarily agree with putting a 16-year-old or 17-year-old, let's say like a 40 or 50-year-old, regardless of their bull serving life. Yeah, they did that. Two entirely different mindsets. Yeah, two entirely different mindsets for sure.

But when I got to Hutch, it was a lot crazier. It was, man, there was just so many fights there because everyone was young and everyone was, you know, wanting to prove themselves and stuff. And at that time, we were pretty, there was only about 40, 45 Mexicans there too, so everyone stuck together. And this was the first time I'd ever seen. I'm from Northern California. And although I never got put on, actually, because I got locked up, you know, too young. You know, and then I wasn't in California anymore. I was over here in Kansas when I got locked up.

But I still had my friends and everyone, I was supposed to be a part of it, but they all got put on. And I just, I was here in prison in Kansas by that time. But it was so crazy because when I got here to Kansas and I was there in Hutch, they had, if you spoke Spanish, you just rode together. It was mostly Mexicans, but, and Native, two Native Americans rode in our car. So it was just like, I'd never been friends with a Sudangelo before. And here we were together. We rode together, we fought together, and they were supposed to be the enemy.

You know, and it was just, at first it was weird, but I ended up, like, we ended up making some really strong friendships, you know. And it's not like that anymore. In Kansas, it's, there's so many Mexicans locked up, man. And they have prisons now. And I'll tell you this, that's how I met Melissa, but they have prisons that are all blue rag. They're all sullenio prisons. They're all red rag, Nortennial prisons and stuff. You know, so it's just like Crips and Sudangios in one prisons, blood and Nortezinos and other prisons.

And they can't even be out in the same yards. What do you mean by put on just for the audience to understand? To be put onto the gang, to be actually a made member of it. You know, I was just a kid and we were all, you know, earning our way into the gang. You know, it was crazy. There was this church. and they used to get guys out of prison early and this was in California

and so this pastor used to pick us up trying to get us out of the gangs but he'd be getting these guys out of prison they were all older, we call them Vetterano's veterans and we would look up to these guys and these guys were just sending us on missions to go do stuff and we would gladly did it because we're proving ourselves

to made men and stuff you know, and so that's what we were looking forward to. And then when I was supposed to get put on, I ended up, that's when my mom sent me here to Kansas because of that shooting over there. And shortly, I think it was like seven months is when I caught my murder case here in Kansas. What was it like to evolve physically and mentally while serving that prison sentence? You know, you go from 16, then to 18, then to say 21, your body's changing, your mind's changing. Yeah, I used to work out a lot.

You can't probably tell it anymore, but I used to, I worked out a lot. When I first went in, they used to call me the pimple-faced kid. I had a bunch of pimples. My go-tee hadn't connected yet. And slowly, you know, I started building muscle. I was always a pretty big kid. You know, by the time I was in prison, I think I was already six-foot. A lot of the Mexicans used to joke her.

I would say I was a giant Mexican, you know, especially since I was so young. And I'm just, I only grew one more inch after that. So I'm only 6'1, but, you know, just, I remember just working out. And then trying to, I really wasn't, most of the time I forgot about most of my youth, because most of the time I spent, I did 25 years, seven months straight. All right. Out of the 25 years, seven months, I went to segregation 22 times. Out of those 22 times, two times I went for long-term SEG, like one time I did three years and eight months in solitary.

And I learned a lot there. You know, I learned a whole lot about myself. I learn now that, you know, I always joke around, call it HDTV that I have. But my wife said HD-HD or whatever they call that. ADHD. Yeah, that stuff. I haven't been diagnosed with it, but she swears up and down, I have it, you know,

and what helped me get through that in prison, because even in solitary, I'd go crazy. I'd just be pacing. I could, I'm not even lying to you in. I could pace 12 to 14 hours straight nonstop. It was four steps that way, four steps this way, 14 to 16 hours straight, nonstop, just pacing, pacing, pacing,

visualizing stuff, trying not to go crazy and say, Another thing that would help me, you can't have any property in there or anything. So they give you little golf pencils that don't have any erasers on them. I'll tell you this crazy story. I was in a corner. They kind of went in a triangle like this. But I was like second from the end. And then across from me was a guy from the Aryan Brotherhood.

And he was an amazing artist too. And then we had another little, like everyone used to, joke around and say, if you ever want to find any Mexicans, they're all in Seg. We were, it's like little Mexico in there because we were always going to the hole for fighting. So there was a crazy little Mexican here, Chico Loco, man, but he was funny as hell, but this Aryan Brotherhood member, he was an amazing artist, and he helped me become a better artist. What we would do is Chico would get a piece of paper, like a Form 9, that's a, you know, a Form 9 is something you can fill out to request, you know, if you wanted laundry or if you

needed a visitation or anything. It was just a request for him. So he'd take that Form 9, folded in half, and then he would scribble something on him. And then he'd say, all right, you guys got two hours to draw something on here. He said, whoever draws the best keeps both drawings. And Scott would always beat me. He was a man, he was a badass artist, bro, but I was like, man, I'm tired of losing my artwork to this fool because there's a here's why in the cell next to him there was this very famous i think he's a serial killer in kansas his name was richard grissom and this dude had the gift of gab they had him in seg because he could talk any staff member into bringing drugs cell phones um it got to a point where they had to one staff member could never speak to him he always had to

have a like a sergeant, a master sergeant, and an officer. There always had to be doubles to speak to this guy because they were so scared of him because he could just smooth talk people into anything. He was always, they call him pulling guards. He was always pulling guards, you know, get him to have sex with him, to bring him drugs and stuff. Well, what Richard would do is he had a big following. He used to get stacks of mail every day.

And as beamhole, they'd just be stacks of mail they'd bring to him. fans and stuff. So he started to stay, although I didn't know what the internet was, he had someone out there that would sell his artwork. Well, he would buy our artwork from us. What do you want from that? He said, I'll tell you what,

you guys give me your drawings every day for a week. I'll give you guys an ounce of weed. We're like, hell yeah. He said, but you can't sign them. I'm like, all right, that's why. I don't care. We're in Seg. We're not making any money.

You know, so he'd give us an ounce of weed. Well, with that ounce of weed, you could trade for a commissary and still get stoned. And, you know, you have plenty of all the stuff you needed. So we were happy, you know. But Scott and I would, that's what we would do. We would, on the piece of paper, we'd do our drawings. And then Chico would judge them and look at him, see which one was the best.

And I started winning. And after, you know, I just paced back. And remember when I would tell you I would pace in my head, I'd be visualizing on what to draw next. And there was no Google, there was no Pinterest, there was no reference material. It was just like, sometimes she could be like, hey, today I want you guys to draw a witch in a cauldron. And in my head, I had to visualize that what a witch on top of a cauldron would look like. You know, and then I'd start sketching it.

Just start sketching it and trying to make something. And there's no erasers on this pencil. So, you know, that's how I got better at my art. unfortunately we were in say i think that's when i was doing my three years and eight months in and say the guy that was across from me the aryan brotherhood um he had gotten out and he came back on a parole violation and they always put you back to where you left from so he came right back to sag and when he came to say it was i think it was i think it was i think it was only like three or four days later he hung himself right there right in front of me man and i mean you can't do nothing we're

behind, you know, there's steel doors. There's only a little square window. And there's a slit about this big at the bottom of it. But I remember just being sick to my stomach, you know, just seeing him because he was a good dude, you know. I felt bad, you know, and he killed himself from what I heard when he got out. And he had to come back. His girl didn't want to be with him anymore.

And I, I don't. I don't know how much time he had to serve or what, but he just killed himself. And that mess with me mentally, you know, and I remember thinking to myself, like, what am I doing, man? Why do I keep fucking up? I'm sitting here in prison, and I can't even make it in population. I'm sitting here in solitary. It's so bad that I can't even make it. Prison is the easiest place in the world to do it.

You don't have to do shit but sleep. maybe get a little job here or there, you know, but I couldn't even, I couldn't even do that. I'm in saying. I was like, what's wrong with me? Sometimes out of your back window you could look and see the people out in population walking the track or working out, and I was like, damn, man, what's wrong with me? And I just, you know, that was the beginning of me trying to change stuff about myself. I remember I think I was like 25, 26, and I remember thinking like, I need to do something.

different. I got a skill. Every time I come out of SEG, I mean, as soon as I get out of SEG, people are coming to me with commissary bags because they want tattoos. You know, so I got a skill. I just need to stay out in population to be able to utilize the skill, you know, and that's when stuff started kind of clicking in my head. And I remember that's part of me growing up. I needed segregation. I really did. I needed to serve this life sentence in order to grow. What did you have to do to got three years in solitary? That one there, I was implicated in the arson there at the prison over, where there's supposed to be a riot over a new, they call it incentive levels.

And I'm under this thing they called the O law, and now they have a thing called, which is undeterminate sentence. And now they have a thing called determinate sentence. That's where when you get sentenced, they give you a certain amount of months. judge can sentence you're 40 months and I think in Kansas you serve 85% of that if you don't get in trouble and the rest you do on paper when you get out

and but I was under the O law so mine was undetermined I was an off-grid sentence so they were telling me that I was going to have to be subjected to the same punishments as a new law people but there's no benefit to me and so a bunch of the O law guys got pissed off

and we're supposed to riot And, you know, and I was like, all right, yeah, and I'll start with the kitchen. That's where I work. And that was that. That's the only place that went up was the kitchen. So would you try to light the kitchen on fire? Allegedly, yes. Didn't try.

We did. I mean, they did. Wow. Yeah. And I didn't get convicted of that. Oh, they actually charged you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And we didn't get convicted of it. There was three of us. and but just because you didn't get convicted of it, they still kept us in SEG. It's called other security risk. So I stayed there in SEG three years and eight months, and that was...

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How do you think that time in Seg? affected you as of today? Are there things that happen in your life that give you flashbacks or that have affected you mentally? Man, you can ask my wife, man, like, I have nightmares all the time of me going back to prison. There are always, all my nightmares are of me going back to prison or something to do with going back to prison. I have an obsession with fishing right now. Like, that's all I do is fish. I can show you some awesome pictures of all the fish I caught. I love being out. I hate being confined.

So I, you know, anytime, anytime I get to be out, I get to be out in nature. It's this undescribable feeling of freedom. If you catch the fish, you're making good decisions. You know, in order to be a good fisherman, you have to know what you're doing and you have to make good decisions. And I'm sorry, man, I just... No, you're good.

I'm just thinking, when I'm out there fishing, I always think about lockdown. You know, all those years, you know, when I'd be sitting there holding the bars, just going like, the fuck was I thinking. Why do I always do this to myself? Why do I do this? You know, and I went to say 22 times, and I always asked myself that, but I kept messing up. I just kept messing up.

And it was always to prove myself to everyone else. You know, I always wanted to be there for my people, my car, you know, and I always ended up and say, you know, and so I always think about that. So the nightmares I have, this is not to get weird or nothing, but one day I had a dream that I was on the bus going back to prison. And in my dream, I'm thinking like, man. I need to figure out a way to call Melissa. I need to let her know.

I'm headed back to prison. And because I'm old law, I don't know how long my parole violation is going to be. They do 90-day parole violations in Kansas, but if you're old law, it's, there's no, you can, I can go back for the rest of my life. So in my dream, I'm like, I need to call Melissa. I don't know how long I'm going to be here. I need to tell her, you know, what to do with the tattoo shop and, you know, or, you know, all the things I need to tell her.

When I get to prison, I remember this is one of my, you know, I always tell everyone, everyone says, what's one of your biggest fears? And I tell them one of my biggest fears is having to walk, if I get a parole violation, having to walk down the run with my bedroll again and having everybody go, we knew you were full of shit.

All the staff that fought for me, everyone that helped me get out of prison, look at me like, fucking loser. That's one of my biggest, fears walking down back on a pro violation with a bed roll a bed roll is they give you a blanket a sheet one pair of underwear a little bob barker toothbrush and a little soap and that's your bed roll and that's what you're walking back with you know and that's one of my biggest fears but in my dream I'm walking with my bed roll and they put me in a cell and uh and my dream a mexian guy comes up and

gives me a little package of weed. And I remember with this package of weed, I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to get some stamps. I'm going to get some phone minutes so I can call Melissa. And I put my little mirror out to look, and I look this way, and this is how you know it's a dream, right? But in my head, it felt very real. There are all the gangs over here, the blacks, the whites, and the Mexicans are all on this side. And I put my mirror this way, and on this side, it's all the black suits, the SWAT team. and they start coming at me

because they all want my little package of weed. And when I wake up for my dream, our room is black, but I reach over and I grab Melissa's boob. And it wasn't anything sexual or nothing. It was just like, whew, it's just a dream.

It's just a dream. Relax. It's just a dream. So I have that all the time. How easy is it in a facility like that to get a new charge, not by even your own doing, just the reality of having to survive. I mean, you hear these stories of guys that have to commit a murder or anything serious, you know? All the time.

In Kansas right now in the Kansas prisons, I know I tattoo on a lot of staff. A lot of the guards come get tattooed by me. They used to chase me for it. I did 25 years, seven months, and I never got busted tattooing, bro. Never. One of my friends is, when you get out, you're going to be a successful businessman. I'm like, business, what the hell do I know about business? They were like, if you put enough effort into running a business as you do

into not getting caught tattooing, bro, he said, there's no way you're going to fail. And I didn't understand that until I got out. But it's so easy, man. Like, when you get in there, you know, in Kansas running out, they have a no-hands policy. What that means is there's no more fighting. You have to stab someone. You have to. that's what the gangs

that's the rule you know and that's for every gang and especially the Mexican gangs so you know if you stab someone you're going to get a new charge you know and I think just depending on the severity of it I think like the minimum for it is like five years

that's with a plea bargain if you get the plea bargain but you're going to catch some time you know so and it's a crazy place man why do you think these gangs create that culture I mean, couldn't there just be a world where they go in there and everyone lives peacefully? That would be nice, but everyone, I think Kansas is at a point right now where they're trying to establish themselves in the prison system.

This is from all the talks that I get. And it's been like that for the last 10 years. Like the gangs are really growing in there. Every prison you go to, they're just dominated by gangs. anytime there's gangs, there's drugs. If there's drugs, if you got the drugs and everybody's following what you do, so everybody wants a part of it. And that's where all the money is at. Now that period of time you were talking about where your mind started to shift after you did those years in solitary, how old were you? About 25. I'm about 25 years old. And about what, seven years

or eight years in your sentence, a little bit more? Yeah, but it didn't really, like, I still had one foot in, one foot out. I still wasn't all the way out of it yet. I was married while I was in prison, not to Melissa. I had a different wife. We had a friend. He was bringing drugs in. And one day he said, hey, bro, do you want to help me bring some shit in? And I was like, I don't know, man. He said, how you, you know, like, what do I have to do? He said, look, I'm going to hook you up with this chick. She's going to come visit. She's going to bring stuff in. He said, you'll get. You'll get out of prison. He said, you'll get to go out there and eat some food, play some card games. He said, you might even get to smell some pussy, whatever, you know, and he said, and I was like,

that's better than being in my cell. I was like, yeah, that's fine. So I go out and this is what we start doing. That friend went home a few months later, almost a year later, he went home, and I didn't see this person for a while anymore. and I forget what the stretch was. They might have been three, four months later. They called me out to visitation, and I'm like, hey, it was coming to visit me. I know it wasn't my mom at that time.

She was, I think they were out of state. And I go out there, and it was her. It was that girl. And she said, hey, want to continue to do this? She said, we don't have a middleman. We're not the middleman anymore. She said, it'll just be us. I was like, hell.

Oh, yeah, let's do it. And remember I told you they started this incentive level in the state of Kansas. Well, what they did was if you made it to level one, that means you lost all your privileges. And the only visitations you can get were from immediate family or a spouse. So she said, look, you're always getting in trouble. You're always in SAG. And we can't do this if you're always in SEG. She said, unless we get married.

She said, if we get married, then I'll be your spouse. and it doesn't matter where you go, I can still come visit you, and we can still move shit. So I was like, all right, so we ended up getting married. It wasn't out of love or anything like that. Just bringing shit, bringing drugs.

Did she ever get caught? Never got caught. What kind of drugs were there? It was mostly, it was just weed. Until the very, I think, towards the end, I started getting feelings for her. She was there every weekend, every weekend. And every weekend she was there.

And she met this girl, and they started going out partying a lot. So one day she brought me some ice in. And I was like, what am I supposed to do with this? You know, like, this shit's crazy right here. And I said, this carries a lot of time. She said, but it's going to make a lot of money. She said, just see what you can do with it. And when I got it in, I remember I went to one of the guys.

And I said, man, you think you can get rid of this? He said, bro, he said, yeah. He said, but he said, literally this is what he told me. He held it up. He said, this shit's the devil. And I was like, what do you mean for? He said, man, this is going to bring all kinds of craziness here, bro. He said, we're going to have to chase it.

We're going to have to chase our money. He said, we're probably going to have to get our hands dirty. And I didn't truly understand how junkies were until that came into the system. the meth because these guys didn't care man they didn't care if they got themselves in debt if they got stabbed up beat up for it they just wanted to get high and they would go rack up two three thousand dollar dope debt set there's no way they can pay then you have to do something to them you know and what i told my friend was look i just need this amount of money the rest is yours you do whatever you want with it but i need this amount so i could give to her

Well, we did that a couple times, and literally that's what happened. People were getting beat up, stabbed, going to PC, and the money that we did make, I remember just thinking like, man, this is so stressful chasing this. You know, and then that brought the black suits. Like, they didn't like that stuff because all the craziness it causes, you know, they didn't mind the weed. They didn't mind that stuff. The weed didn't really cause that kind of.

an issue. But any time there was hardcore drugs like that, you know, people are getting hurt. You know, people are getting extorted. Lots of people are trying to go to protective custody. And, you know, that brings eyes and stuff. So at that time, the money that I did get to her, I didn't know. I was funding her and her other relationship she had out there. So in my head, for some reason, I thought, like, she betrayed me. She betrayed me, you know. And, you know, I was hurt by it. but I was like, man, I'm sitting here. I funded her, you know, other relationship. You know, they're going out, having a good old time.

I'm in here stressing. I mean, all this chaos is going on in here because of it. And that was a blessing in disguise. That's what made us not be together no more. And all that ended. Like I didn't accept her back to come visit me or anything. I just didn't want nothing to do with it no more. How does the flow of money work?

If she brings in drugs and then you sell it, are they giving you cash back then? Some cash or like having people's family send money. But in Kansas, there's this thing called private industries. I think they said they're like number one in the country. I had a job where I was a welder, like towards the, I got a really cool story for you to here. But I had a job I was a welder. I was making 11.01 an hour. Oh, wow.

That's great. You pay taxes. You pay a crime victims fund. And then they have this thing called mandatory savings. Like there's a certain part of your check you cannot spend. It goes into a mandatory savings. So when you get out, you'll have some money. But when you pay taxes, we have to file taxes.

And then there is a crime victims fund, too, that you pay into it. That helps victims of crimes, you know, whatever crimes. But there's a lot of jobs like that. There's some jobs. There's guys in there making $19, $20. an hour and you can work overtime and, you know, in prison when I had that job. You know, there's a lot of people with a lot of money. There's a lot of money in those prisons.

They have three shifts that go on seven days a week. They're just pumping out products, you know, and I worked at this place called Seek King, and I started out as an orderly. I didn't have any job skills. I didn't know anything. And so I started out, like they call it a porter and orderly. So I was just sweeping floors. And one day I seen this guy come in and I seen people flocking towards him and I said,

who is this guy? They said, that's the owner. And I was like, oh, all right. So I go up there and I said, hey, my name is Louis Gutierrez. Thank you so much for this job. Because I was at that time when you first start out, they start you off like at five bucks an hour while you're, what do you call that when you first get into a job. You're like not training. You're on like a probationary period.

but I was like five bucks an hour like this is insane for just sweeping floors and you know I was super grateful for it I'd never made that kind of money so and here let me back up a little bit there was I'd been in so much trouble there was one staff member said hey look aren't you tired of it aren't you tired of messing up said look if I can get you this job will you promise to at least give it a chance to stay out of trouble and I thought all right but that means I have to quit tattooing. That means I can't do anything no more. And they'd been chasing me for years trying to bust me tattooing. They would send entire SWAT teams. They would dedicate eight-hour shifts to try to bust me tattooing. I'd still get away with it. But I told this counselor, I said,

all right, ma'am, I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do it. So I'll fast forward now to when I seen this guy, the owner of that place, and I went and shook his hand, I said, hey, I'm Louis Gutierrez. And shook his hand and said, I know who you are. And I said, well, I just really want to thank you. And I said, and I told him, I promise you, within six months, I promise you, I'm going to be your best employee. And he looked me right in the eyes. He said, I hope so. He said, I really hope so.

And I said, no, I will. You'll see. And within six months, man, I was his number one employee in there. I started out as a janitor, then I moved. This is going to sound bad. But I started out as a sower. Like, I was on a sewing machine. We were sewing seats covers for writing.

lawnmowers and electric wheelchairs. But everybody was like, damn, he's fast. That's my HDTV kicking it. I'm sitting there sewing real fast. And everyone's like, man, how do you do it so fast, bro? And I used to joke around. I say, man, I'm an old Chinese lady inside. I said, that's what I am. I can do this. And so that was my little joke. But from there, they moved me to a CNC fabric machine. And I started learning. That's the first time I'd ever see. a computer. I've never seen a computer before. And one day it broke down. And when it broke down, for some reason I lied to my boss and told him, I can fix this. And he said, all right, because we're supposed to be paying the guy 250 bucks an hour to do this, to go, they were going to fly

him in to fix this machine. And I took this thing apart. I had the cutter head tore apart. And I remember looking, going like, oh my God, what do I do? next. There's no Google. There is none of that stuff. I didn't even know about YouTube or internet, any of that. But I remember just praying and saying, please, God, let me put this back together. And somehow, I put it back together and it worked. And they thought I knew what I was doing. And so that got me promoted to doing maintenance work around the machines there. So that's what I was doing maintenance. And then they got me into the welding. A bunch of my friends lied to them and told them that I knew how to weld and I was a metal fabricator and I wanted to work with with them.

Those were all, all my friends were working over there. They were all the tough guys and all my friends, you know. And I wanted to be in the metal shop. And so they got me in the metal shop and that's where I really took off. I started really learning. I really got into it. At that time was when, you know, I was no longer with my ex and all the hurt feelings, everything I was going through was just under my welder's helmet.

No one had to see me go through what I had to go through. I could just lock in what I was doing. And I really started really changing there. And I think I was about 32, about 32 years old. And I really started getting my act together. I was like, I think I said if I, if I play my cards right, I think I can get out of here. I said, I think I can get out of here. I have enough money saved up to where I can do whatever.

I want to do in life. I just need to play my cards right and I need to figure all this out. I'm going to do this now. And I needed that. As the Krispy Chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me and baby I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet. No, crispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711.

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Comfort in. It's calling your name. Save on the... stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song book direct at Joycehiltails.com. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistants assistants to switch you to MintMobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for

three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. That's time right there to do that. But I got that at that private industry, and I was able to save some money up to do that. Were you able to separate yourself from the violence aspect of it? What they did was once they started that company is they had a private industry dorm.

They built a dorm and this dorm, it was called D3. and it had its outside courtyard. So you didn't have to go out to it. Like, I spent, I took whatever hours they gave me. I mean, I wasn't even having to go out to the yard that much anymore. I didn't have to go to Chahawal. I was making all the money so I could just get it off commissary, everything. So my, my, we didn't have to interact with regular population that much because we had our own dorm.

And it was all private industry workers. Everyone had something to lose there. Everyone was making money. So a lot of the things that most of those guys got into was just smoking, you know, tobacco is illegal in Kansas, but most of those guys like to smoke cigarettes or get high. That's the only thing. You didn't see any violence or anything down there in those storms. Tell us where Melissa comes along in this story.

All right. I'd always been involved in dog programs, all right? and Melissa, Melissa worked in the warden's office, and she'll probably kill me for not getting her title, right? But she was in charge of all the transfers, gang transfers. If she knew you were gang, she would get you transferred to whatever prison you needed to go to. She did all that stuff. But we also volunteered in this dog program,

and this dog program was where we prepared dogs to be service dogs. And I tell you what, for the first time in my life, That was when I really started feeling human because I started caring for a life. You know, and bro, I'm telling you, nobody, like, you could love a dog. And I've seen some of the biggest, baddest, hardcore killers get on their hands and knees and talk to their most high-pitched voices and love on the dogs and no one would ever question it, no one whatever, think they're soft or they're weak or anything, you know? And the dogs were amazing, bro.

It was super awesome. So I learned how to do this dog. I learned how to train dogs. And I was really good at it. Again, just like everything I do, I put a thousand percent into it. I wanted to learn this. And I'm a pretty good dog trainer, bro. I love, you know, and I knew when I got out, dogs were going to be a part of my life.

I didn't know it was going to be like this. But that's where Melissa and I met. She was volunteering in this dog program, and so was I. And, well, thank you. called me down there. They said, hey, the dog program needs, need someone to come airbrush some stuff on their walls, some murals and stuff. So I was like, all right. I said, what do they need me to do? And they said, well, they want, for the dog bass, they want this thing called the Paw Spa. You know, they want a dog. I've never do anything cute like that before, right? But I was like,

all right, I can do that. And I remember, I started painting that. And I seen Melissa come in one day. And this whole place was just full of gang members, bro. There was cribs, blus, Nortennials, Soudangios, everybody was in this place. And I seen this guy come up and smash an egg on Melissa's head. And I thought, there's cameras. And I thought, oh, my God, we're going to say,

we're all going to jail. Here come the black suits are going to come crashing in through the door any minute. And nothing happened. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? And everyone was like, bro, you need to chill. Everything's chill here. You know, the warden runs this, and the warden, you know, this is his baby. And, you know, this is a cool program.

And everybody's just, it's a different vibe here. And I was like, what the hell? So what happened was, what Melissa was head of was the inmates did arts and crafts. And then Melissa and our other friend would go sell them, like outside of the prison. and then they split the proceeds and either the prison kept 20 or 30 percent and the inmate got the rest. Well, what the prison did with that 20, 30 percent

is that's how they bought leashes, dog food, just dog beds, whatever the dogs needed. That's what they got with that. Well, I think I had like $2,000 in my account and Melissa was like, hey, she called me into her office. She said, hey, where do you want? Where do you want me to send this? You know, because this is getting to be too much money.

And I said, that's for the dogs. And she's like, no, no. She said, we need to send this somewhere where do you want it on your account? Do you have an address where it needs to go? And I was like, no, it goes to the dogs. Well, what Melissa didn't know at that time was that I was working a private industry job, making all that money. Plus, I had been tattooing on the side.

So, I mean, I'm making money, bro. I'm living good in there. So she didn't understand. She just looked at me. She says, what's your agenda? What do you want here? She said, nobody just gives up this kind of money, you know, without something. And I said, no, it's for the dog.

She says, no. She says, what do you want? And I said, I said, all right. I said, I do have an agenda. I have a life sentence. But because I have a life sentence, I can't get into programs like cognitive thinking, thinking for a change, anger management. And the reason they don't let you until those programs,

when you have a life sentence is because those programs are for people, I think, with a year or I think two years or less, they're reintegrating them. They're called reintegration programs. But if you got a life sentence, there's no need for you. And there's so you're not allowed to go to those programs. But in order for me to get out, I had to take those programs. And I had already seen the parole board twice now. I seen the parole board. the first time I seen the parole board, they passed me for five years. They gave me a five-year deferral. So I did 15 years, and they said, I will see you in five. And I thought, God, man, that's going to be 20 years.

I was like, all right. So I did that. Then I seen the parole board again. And then they were like, although that's not good. You know, you're doing okay now, but we'll see you in three more. And I'm like, God, Lee, that's 23 years. And they said, but we want you to do some programs. well I couldn't get into the programs

so when I asked Melissa can you get me into these programs she says that's all you want I said yeah that's all I want just get me into these programs so she said all right so she went did whatever she did and she got me into these programs and I got the first one I did was

anger management and cognitive thinking and I tell you what man I became a boot licker like I was number one student you know because this was my finally, I seen light at the end of the tunnel. And I did so good in these programs that the counselors there asked me if I wanted to, if I wanted to be like a mentor, a tutor. So I was like, heck yeah, heck yeah, I want to do this. And I really, really got into it. Well, Melissa and I still

hadn't been together. Nothing like that. We weren't anything like that. But as the months passed by, we would talk more and more and more and, and I'm not going to lie, I liked her. I started liking her and she's, we had some inappropriate conversations, nothing crazy. So one day I decided to profess my love to her and I thought, I wrote her a letter and I thought, man, if I give her this and she doesn't accept it, I lose everything, I'm going to say, I'm going to lose my job, my class isn't, but something inside man was just like, fuck I could just give it to her. I handed it to her and I just whispered, there's something there for you. She didn't hear it. She just thought I was, I handed it to her with a bag of trash. So she threw it, the trash and the

note fell. An officer later on that night found that letter. And the very next day, they came and took me to say, I lost everything. And I remember. they started interrogating us. And we shared the story with Maddie Ice, right? But Melissa started getting, Melissa was an amazing person. The reason I felt this way for, because I seen her help everyone. She didn't care if you were black, white, Mexican, native, Asian. She helped everyone.

She helped people get visits that weren't able to visit their kids before because that administration wouldn't allow it because Melissa had the, you know, I don't know, the power or whatever, the authority to do it. She would help all the inmates out that deserved it, man. And I'd never seen anyone like that before. Just a kind person. Like, in prison, all the females that I seen were either cold. They weren't, you know, when you think of a woman, you think gentle, you think kind, loving, caring.

Most of them, all the females there were not like that at all. But she was like that with everyone. She was just loving and caring, always wanted to help everyone. everyone out. And I started falling for her and stuff. And like I said, we had some conversations, but that's all. I never got any. I never, you know, we never kissed or any of that crazy stuff as much as I had wanted to, you know, but when that letter got busted, oh, here, let me go back a little bit. There was this guy that needed a visitation with his kids and they'd been fighting for it and Melissa approved it. Well, for some reason, she couldn't give him his results.

So Melissa handed me. She said, hey, put this on Lazy's bed. She said, tell him it's a surprise. I was like, all right. She said, I approved his kids for visit, his daughter for visit. So he's going to be able to see his kid finally. They've been fighting for months and months to get this, you know. So they got me on camera.

They got me on camera. Melissa handed me this folder envelope, a little envelope, and me putting it on his bed. And because she didn't go through the proper channels, she ended up losing her job because of that. And then I got transferred out. When I remember thinking like, this was 23 years into my prison. And I remember thinking like, I fucked up.

I'm never going to get out now. I'm going to die in here. So I wrote my mom and I said, Mom, find this girl for me. I said, find this girl for me and see if she's okay. well she found her for me and she was okay and she wanted to keep in touch with me and i couldn't believe it now what felt like my life was over what felt like like i was never going to get out i was like well i have her now let me you know i started a right in it i went to i was

in sag for 45 days and they transferred me back to lansing correctional facility check this out the prison where I was at like I told you I ran with the Nortennios you know even though I wasn't all the way and that's who all my tattoos everything was from I was in an all-suitangial prison and I was this is why I believe in God more than anything and I'm not a big religious person or anything like that but just my own personal I'm the only person from the north that survived that prison everyone else you couldn't even make it off the bus they got stabbed No one made it, nor Norethagnan ever makes it onto the main line. They can't even, as soon as they get off the bus on a transfer, they'll stab them up.

They'll take them out, bro. And for some reason, God kept me alive. I'm the only one. I would go to Common Fair and I would look across. I'd be the only one sitting there and they were all right there. And at any moment, I'm not trying to say that those guys could have killed me at any moment, bro. And for some reason, they didn't. And it wasn't because I'm a badass.

or anything like that, man. I think it was just God keeping me alive for a reason. And they transferred me to Lansing after this stuff with Melissa happened. And when I got there, it literally put me on legendary status. As soon as I get to Lansing, everyone was, how the fuck did you survive that shit, bro? Lansing was an Orteno prison red rack.

And they were like, how the hell did you survive that shit? And I remember guys lifting up my shirt to see if I had stab wounds or anything. And I didn't want to bring the God conversation up to no one. Because like I said, I'm not super religious or anything. But I do believe with all my heart. But I remember just telling, man, God kept me alive. And everyone was like, damn, that's crazy. You survive that.

Nobody else does, bro. But I did. I walked that yard for five years. And I refute, I remember, check this out. One time I spilled some hot coffee in the program, right? I spilled some hot, somehow hot coffee got spilled on my shirt. And I took off my shirt because it was burning. and Melissa seen it.

And she's seen my tattoos. And she was like, what the hell? She says, what are you doing here? And she ran to the office and pulled up my file. And she said, because on our files, has all our tattoos. For some reason, my tattoos weren't on that file. That's why I didn't make it out. She says, oh, my God.

She said, do you want me to transfer you out? Do I need to, and I was like, hell no, I'm going to die on my shield. At this point, I started having feelings for her. And I was like, fuck, no, I'm going to die here. Like, I'm not leaving you. I'd rather die and be here with you than, and I'm not checking in. I'm not going to PC. That's my institutionalized mentality right there.

And I'm not going to, I was scared every day for my life, but I was willing to fight for my life. I wasn't going to protective custody. I grew up in an era where going to protective custody was the worst thing you could do. It was the worst thing you could do, man. and I didn't want to do that. So I walked that yard for five years, and thank God they didn't do anything to me for whatever reason when they easily could have. But when I got transferred to Lansing, you know, I finally got back in touch with her. And we sent you a picture of me and her.

She got to come see me one time before they found out that she worked for the facility. And then they didn't let the second visit come through. but that picture that you've seen, that that's me and her in the visitation. And that's the first time I got to see her. That's the first time I got to hold her. I got to kiss her. And I was just like, it gave me, when I told her, I said, I don't know if I'm ever going to get out.

You know, she said, it doesn't matter. Don't think about that. She says, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. She said, but I'm here with you now. She said, I'm not going nowhere. And it just gave me a whole. new. Like, all right, I fell down low. Like, I lost my job. I lost all the support I had. I lost

everything. But I've been in worse situations than this. I can figure it out. I will figure it out somehow, some way. So at Lansing, correctional facility where I was at was only 20 minutes from my house, from my mom's house. So I would get visits twice a week there. My mom would come to visit me with my little brothers every week, twice a week, just to feed me. Sometimes it was only 30-minute visitations, but I got to see my mom twice a week. They would feed me, you know, so I kept that outside contact. And one day, I told my mom, I said, Mom, I'm going to get myself transferred to El Dorado Correctional Facility, which was about three hours away. And she said, why? And I even told all my friends, like, I'm going to get transferred to Eldorado. They said, you're tripping, bro. All right.

the cops are racist there and you're what the hell you're going there for they're that's a crazy prison you know that's where they have the max the super max lock down there at the facility and they said man they're they're super petty there why do you want to go there i said elderado is the only prison that i haven't fucked up in everywhere else i've messed up why would anyone even want to because i have a life sentence i needed support i needed staff you know to to speak up for me and none of the prisons were where I'd been so far, I'd fucked up so bad. Who would put their name on the line for me? So I said, in my head, I was like,

I need to go somewhere, a fresh new start where no one knows me, and I can prove myself. So I said, I'm going to Eldorado, and everyone's like, bro, you're tripping, man. You ain't going home. You're going to go to lockdown from that place, man. You're going to go to lockdown. And my mom, she said, I'm not going to be able to come visit you, son.

She said, that's too far, you know, like, I may be able to go a couple times a year, but I said, mom, but if I want a chance to go home, this is where I need to be. So I got myself transferred. I even remember when I told the counselor, he looked at me like, you're going to lose your visitations. And he said, are you sure you want to? That's where I want to go.

I went to El Dorado. I got in all those programs. And I remember I seen the parole board again, and they hit me again for another three years. And I'm like, fuck. So I started writing letters. I was going to bring those letters to you, but I forgot to pack them up. I think there was 11 letters in there, all denials. Everyone just denying me.

I'm begging and pleading, please, what do I need to do to earn a chance to make this parole board or at least go to work or lease? Something. I just kept getting denial after denial after denial. So one day I get a letter from the secretary of corrections. The Secretary of Corrections is the big dog. He's the top over all the prisons, over all the wardens. The only one above him is the governor. But I get a letter from the Secretary of Corrections, and I'll never forget it.

It said, there are no favorable indications you will ever be released. Quit writing me letters about your freedom. That night, I called Melissa, and I tried to break up with her. I said, I'm never going to get out. And I read her the letter, and I said, I can't do this. This being with you is going to be torture. you know, I just, I don't want to do that. I'm never going to get out.

I'm never going to be able to take you out on the date. I'm never going to, I'm going to die in here. I fucked up. I just messed up so much. I'm not going to where. And she said, well, why don't you go to sleep? And then in the morning, when you wake up, if you still feel that way, we'll figure it out. If you don't want to be with me, that's fine.

We'll figure it out. So I hung up the phone with her. And what she didn't know at the time was, I told myself, fuck this shit. If I stay alive, they win because I'm tortured. Because now everything that I want to do with her,

she's never going to do with me. It's going to be with someone else. If I kill myself, I win. So I went and got a pill. It's called a Thorazine pill. And they gave that to all the crazies in there. You see guys doing the Thorzine shuffle.

They're just, they got big beards. They stink. they're just like walking like zombies and my plan was to take one of those pills and as soon as I was like feeling groggy to pass out just to slice my wrist and just end it that was my plan for that night well that night I battled with myself just like you fucking pussy just do it I was so scared I couldn't do it but I just can't do it do it quit being a pussy quit being a bitch quit being a bitch And I don't know, I must have mentally exhausted myself.

But I fell asleep. I passed out because of that pill. And then I woke up the next day. And when I woke up the next day, I woke up with an anger. But it wasn't like an anger when I wanted to kill people or anything. It was just like, man, fuck this motherfucker. Who the hell does he think he is telling me? I can't write them letters about my future.

Like, I got a life sentence. What do I got to lose? So my next mission now was I didn't have a private industry job anymore or anything So I started painting and doing personalized greeting cards for people and all I wanted was stamps I said I don't want no commissary I don't want shit I just want stamps and I got into you know I kept teaching this self-help classes I taught of even though I didn't have any kids I taught a fatherhood class on how to be a more effective father how you could be a more effective father.

I got into the cognitive thinking classes again and just to redo everything over again. I started writing letters every day. I would send stacks of letters to anyone who had anything to do with my freedom. Again, denial, denial, deny, deny. I was begging for minimum custody so I can go to a minimum facility

and perhaps go to work release or something. Denied, denied, denied. And I did it all the, to myself. Because of my past behaviors in prison, all the crap I'd done in prison, they weren't wanting to take a chance with me. So this is, this is, you know, like, I think it was four months, five months into writing all these letters and kept getting all these denials.

They called me up to the IPO office. And Melissa, by this time, she's like, she's helping me keep focused and keep mental. She told me, when I called her the next day and told her how I felt, she said, I'm not going to where. I promise, I'm going to, whatever this is, I'm going to write it out with you. That's why I don't care whatever she wants, bro. I don't care. She wants my last breath. She wants every penny I got.

She can have it. When they told me I was going to die there, she said, I'm not going to where. And she proved it to me. She proved it to me by not leaving me when I was. at my lowest. There was nothing there for her. There was no incentive for her to stay except for true love. That's it. It was just love. So they call me to the IPO office. That's an inmate parole office. The only time they call you to the IPO is if you're getting ready to get out and that's where they approve your parole plans to make sure that wherever you're going to is not a drug house or

ganghouse to make sure that, you know, all the stuff when you get paroled, you have to fill out paperwork. And so they call me to the IPO and I'm thinking,

well, they're not calling me there for, or they call you there to give you more time, new charges, more time. Sometimes what happens there in the Kansas prison system, if while you're on parole

and while you're in prison waiting on parole hearing and you get in trouble, they'll absolutely, add on more time to your parole hearing. Well, if they passed you for three years, they'll be like, we'll see you on five more instead. Or 10, they have 10-year passes or the max. So I'm thinking like, oh, my God, I know I'm not getting.

Just three months earlier, I got this letter from the Secretary of Corrections telling me I'm never going to get out. So I'm on my way up there, I'm thinking like, why do I always do this to myself? He told me not to write them letters, and what do I do? I'm sending stacks of letters. And I just got angry again. And I remember just thinking, like, I don't care, man. I'm going to do suicide by cop.

Like, whoever's in there, I'm just going to beat them. And the black suits are going to have to come in here. And, like, one thing about Kansas is they'll tell you, if you jump on a guard, like, you can beat them up, do whatever you want. But when they come to get you, they cuff you up behind your legs, you know, hog tie you. And this is just their common knowledge. On your way to segregation, your head's going to meet every pillar,

every stairs you're going to be dropped because you resisted. You know, they're going to hurt you. They're going to teach you a lesson. So I was hoping that if I beat someone up bad enough, that they would end up killing me because they've been under investigation for a lot of situations like that. When I walk into that IPO,

the first thing I seen was a woman. And I looked around, and I'm looking for a guy because I've never hit a woman. I've never even thought about hitting a woman. and I'm just looking at her and going like, I can't beat her up. And she's looking at me, she says, I don't know what you did.

Here, she handed me a paper, and it says, the parole board reverse their decision, you're going to work release. And bro, I snatched that out of her hand, and I looked at it, and I knew when I stand to look at my tattoo shop now, I seen all that at that moment

that it was going to happen people ask me why I spent so much of my money on the dogs why I do so much for my community I was supposed to die there and I got a second chance and that's what my life has been committed to I'm so grateful

when I read that paper I was supposed to die and I got a second chance. And I did, up to that point, I don't know what I'd done to deserve that. I'd been to fuck up all my life. I killed my friend. You know, I hurt my family. I heard a lot of people while I was locked up.

I did a lot of fucked up shit. And here I was going to get a chance to prove myself. And that's what I've lived up to right now. Right now, I live in an amazing community who supports me. I've been in business nine years now, and I haven't went one day without work. They come from all over the country to get tattooed by me. We help run an animal rescue, which we save hundreds of dogs. I have an amazing family.

I have a pretty nice property now that I live on. I have donkeys. I have miniature goats. I have lots of dogs, cats. I have grandkids. And I'm just very grateful now. And I'll do whatever it takes for my family and for this freedom that I got now. So does work release mean you got parole or how does that process work?

Work release is they have a facility in the city of Wichita. And it's there's no bars. There's no bar wire or nothing. It's just a building. And you're still locked up, but you get to go work. out in the community. Every day you get to get a job out there. I'll show you some pictures later. I went to a body shop, the first body shop I went to. My goal was to be an airbrush artist at a body shop. And the first place I went to, this is funny. The first place I went to, it was a crazy,

like Sanford and Son, junkyard. And I got paid five bucks an hour. And I worked seven days a week pretty much, but I only got paid for the five. I was on salary. But I was the hardest worker that guy's ever had, man. I was just so grateful to be there, you know, and I ended up going to another body shop. I got transferred, and they started paying me like $10 an hour. And I'll show you some of the pictures of some of the, I was airbrushed on low riders and hot rods. And that was a, that was a crazy experience. I got to see a bunch of beautiful cars. I started having guys from all over the country bringing me their cars. But I hated that job. Hated it. When I had to paint some of those cars, you're inside of a paint booth. You got a mask on and no one can come in and

contaminate the room. So it was just like being locked up again. Hated it, man. I just, although the cars and the paint jobs were beautiful, it was just like I was locked up. How long were you on work release for before? One year. One year. And then you get granted parole? Yeah, it was actually a little bit more than a year. This is what's crazy, ma'am, in the situation. I see the parole board, and usually when you get to work release is because the parole board wants you to get out. Like, they want you to reintegrate slowly into society.

I get to work release, and I see the parole board, and for some reason they didn't give me my results. months and months passed by, and I kept asking the counselor like, hey, what's going on? They're like, we don't know. We've never seen this before. We don't know why they're taking so long on your results.

Well, I remember one time at my boss, at my job, at work release, I kept going outside and I keep looking and I come back in. And he says, Louis, come here. He says, are you on drugs? And I was like, no. What makes you think that? He said, well, you're acting like you're on meth or something. He said, you keep coming outside and looking down the streets and stuff.

And I started laughing. I said, no, what happens is, man, I said, I think they're going to take me back to prison. And he said, what makes you think that? I said, well, I explained to them, you know, usually they don't wait this long to give you results. If you wait for over a month, they take you back to prison. And it had been close to four months. and I'm sitting there, I'm always looking for the white van. The white van is from the facility.

If the white van comes to your job to get you, that means you're going back to prison. So every day I'm walking out, looking for this white van, thinking I'm going back to prison. And I remember my boss going like, you poor bastard. He said, they're still not done messing with you, are they? I was like, I guess not. Well, in this four months that I'm waiting about a week and a half

before they actually gave my results, my little brother was murdered. He was 19 years old. He came, started coming to visit me since he was just a little baby. And, you know, that was one of the most difficult things. He got killed, and my first day after serving a life sentence was to his funeral. And I read the eulogy for him that day, but I promised my mom. I said, Mom, I'm going to make sure this isn't going to be in pain.

I'm going to make you proud with everything I'm about to do. My mom had already suffered enough. She's seen it from both sides. I remember when I got out and seen that. When I walked into the house and I seen all the hurt on my family, my mom, my sisters, my brothers, I seen the pain in their face. I remembered my victim and the pain I caused their family. Those exact same faces I told you about earlier.

when at my sentencing were the exact same faces I've seen in my living room. And I knew for sure what I was going to do with my life. That I'm never going back to that craziness. I'm going to, I'm going to leave a different legacy, you know. And it's not going to be that of a murder anymore. There's going to be a lot more to this story. What happened to your dad? My dad died while I was in prison.

I was in solitary, actually. It was 1997. Did he feel like you ever got the closure you needed with him? No, no. We, um, he was, my dad was a bad alcoholic. We just, we got along good, you know, and I really didn't really start realizing everything, you know, that my dad had caused in our family until much later in life after he had passed already. But, you know,

Of course, I wanted, you know, there's a lot of questions I wanted to ask and stuff, but I just vowed to never be that kind of person. Now, do you end up marrying Melissa? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We got married in my living room with our kids and our dogs. And did you have kids with her? No, she had two kids from a previous marriage. And they've accepted me.

You know, we have an awesome stepdaughter. We don't even say step no more. You know, her name is Maddie and Emily. But Maddie's so, so helpful to our business and to our family. She's staying home with all of our pets, taking care of them all. We're out here doing this. And she pretty much runs our business. You know, she's there every day with us working hard.

And she, both of the girls are super awesome. Now I have two grandkids and I'm the Papa they know, you know. And it's pretty awesome, man. Do you think there was a part in Melissa that wanted to leave that job and she just needed an out, I guess, to find her life's purpose? No, I think I think she liked her job, man. I really did. She helped a lot of people, you know, even besides our part, the part with, you know, she and I, she helped a lot of people. She helped a lot of people, you know, reunite with their families.

She helped a lot of people get into programs that they needed. You know, I tell people all the time, everything in prison, especially there in Kansas, that you need to rehabilitate is there. You can be a rehabilitated person. You can find it all in prison. It's just that the majority of the guys don't go to prison looking for rehabilitation. You know, the gangs overrun it. And, you know, when you get in, you get into what's safe and what's safe, which kind of sounds crazy, but it's clicking up. So was there any resentment on her part?

for losing her job? From all the talks we've had, I don't think so, especially not now. At first, I think there may have been, but then she tells me, she said, you know, I thought we were just going to be like a regular couple. You know, you were going to be a welder, and I was going to find something, and we're going to be nine to five people. She said, I didn't expect this. You know, and we got a successful business. You know, we fund everything all.

of our, you know, our dogs, our everything that we do, you know, tattooing has been amazing to me. It's been a part of my life since I was nine and now it provides everything that I want for my family. My community, it's helped my community. You know, I always tell everyone, people always say, man, do you go to church? I'm like, no. I said, my church is my tattoo table. You know, that's where I get to meet people. I get to, people call me a therapist, you know, and we have, awesome conversations. There was a documentary that I'm a part of. They film me in prison and they film me outside of it. So a lot of times we'll show them the documentary and they're just like, man, this is crazy. Your life is so insane. I'm going to show you something else before we leave.

That's pretty crazy. Are you still on parole now? Yeah. How long does that last for? They're actually, I just got a message from my PO that they're probably going to release me. I'm putting in, we put in all the paperwork. So, hopefully we get your good vibes too, and everyone's good vibes that I get released from this. If so, I've been, I've been under supervision since I was about 12, and I'm 51 right now. So I'm looking forward to that. If it doesn't, that's fine. You know, I'm still, I'm out here free.

I'm getting to do what I want. I get to go fishing when I want. I get to go, you know, tattoo every day legally. I think once that's over, you'll be. feel a new level of freedom. I certainly hope so. Now, if you could go to California right now and pull one kid off the street that was in your shoes, what would you say to him? There is a possibility for a new life. Let me prove it to you. I'll show you the way if you want out of this. There's always a way, man. Sometimes we need to find it. Thankfully, I found it with

Melissa. You know, she helped guide me through everything I needed. I came out with an institutional mentalize mentality. Parts of me are still institutionalized. And I think what's very important for anyone that gets out of prison is we need to find, or in any situation, if we're, if we have that alpha male mentality, you need to find someone that you're willing to submit to. I don't mean submit like in a weak way, but someone you're, you're willing to be accountable to. like there's not very many people I'm going to let punk talk me the way my wife punk talks me sometimes you know but I know it's for my good she doesn't talk crazy to me because she wants to hurt me it's because she doesn't want to lose me she doesn't want us to

lose everything we've built you know and now that I'm starting to learn social media I'm starting to realize, and hopefully this doesn't sound conceited or arrogant, because I don't mean it in that way at all, but I'm starting to realize how important we are to our community. You know, the community where I live in, it's so crazy how our business helps them out so much. You know, not just, you know, the motivational talks or just the rescue. I mean, just everything that we're able to provide. We help out with Oxford houses. I don't know if you know what Oxford houses.

I've heard of them, yeah. We help out with that a lot. We contribute a lot to Oxford houses. There's this program in prison called Brothers in Blue. It helps people get a lot of the skills that they need to be a successful person out here in society. We like to contribute a lot to that too. A lot of guys that get out of prison, we help them out, help get them jobs. We help get them, you know, clothing, just anything they need razors to shave for appointments,

rides to interviews, just whatever it takes to help guys out. That's what my life is now. You know, we help a lot of animals out, but we like to help people out as well. And I didn't realize how important we were to our community, but having Melissa in my life helps keep me grounded. You know, without her, I don't know if I'd have the patience to know. know how to do that. Well, Louise, I appreciate you coming on the show today and make the trip out here from Kansas. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, you did such a great job today on this interview.

Thank you. And I wish you and your family the best in the future and getting off parole. Thank you. I hope so, too. I'll tell you what. Hopefully, I don't know if you're into fishing or not. I'm a big-time fisherman. I love fishing. If you ever get some free time, I'd love to take you fishing, man definitely i don't want the patience to go for multiple days but i could give you i'd give you a little bit efficient time i grew up on a lake so oh yeah we'd go for a few hours you'd love it yeah i got a few hours in me for sure i appreciate you man yes sir