Suicide and Abuse in a Pennsylvania Prison

Leonna is a talented author, advocate for the incarcerated, and founder of The New Vision Organization. Her son John is in a Pennsylvania prison, serving a life term. John and other inmates have recently witnessed abuse and suicides. When they tried to file documents on these issues, they were punished. I interviewed Leonna about this matter and here is Leonna and Johns story.

Leonna, could you give us a biography of yourself, and your son John.

I was born on Cape Cod and I attended the Barnstable Schools. I was raised in a two parent home with eight other siblings. My father passed away when he was fifty-seven years old from a massive heart attack and when I was seventeen years old. I married three years after graduating from high school in 1965. I had a son, John Anthony Diaz and a couple of years after my son was born I divorced my husband due to severe emotional abuse which began to escalate into a physical state. Following my divorce, I continued to work until I was able to have my own house built which was directly behind my mom's house. My mother was a big help to me because she cared for my son while I worked.

In 1980 I started working for the Dept. of Social Services, Cape Cod & the Islands and I furthered my education at Fisher Jr. College, Cape Cod Community College, and U-MASS. As a Social Worker my studies and work included Community and Public Services and I used my services in the field of Social Work, revolving around families, children and adolescents.

Following my own family tragedy, when my only child in his final year of a four year college term and following a year's bout of depression, shot someone, I was placed in a position, as many families, who suffered an overwhelming loss. I subsequently, decided to travel in order to broaden her views on cultures and behaviors. I attended a Mayan Indian School, "Centro Maya De Idiomas ", in the mountains of Quetzeltenango, Guatemala, Central America, and studied the language and culture of the Mayan Indians. Following a six month stay there, I traveled to El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, meeting new friends and regaining personal recognition of myself. I ultimately, moved to Ghana, West Africa, where I founded the "New Vision Organization" which provided services to the medically ill individuals, in the various regions of Ghana.

I returned to the States in 1996 and became an advocate for prison reform. In the year 2002, I decided to put my philosophical views on prisons into writing and I eventually wrote and self-published ten books on prison issues and the need for churches to become more involved in the crusade to end violence in the communities and in the country.

My son John Anthony Diaz was born on July 17, 1968 and he was an only child in a single parent home. He was well liked and respected and he spent his life before incarceration, working and going to school. Following his graduation from high school, he attended Bridgton Academy in North Bridgton, Maine and then attended four years of college at Springfield College in Springfield, MA. He enjoyed lifting weights since he was thirteen years old, everyday after school and whenever he had the time. He worked since he was fourteen years old after school, on weekends and during school vacations. In 1991 he met a girl at his summer place of employment, the Mill Hill Club where he was a security guard/bouncer. Following several months of dating, he disclosed to her something that happened to him at the age of six years old by a family in-law. The girl found it humorous and a few weeks later, he learned that he had been deceived by the first and only person he thought he could trust enough to share his long hidden secret. He subsequently gave up everything and then..........

In John's words:

My name is John Anthony Diaz and I was born on July 17, 1968 on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. My parents divorced when I was two years old and I was raised by my loving mother. I am an only child to a single parent. Growing up was a struggle but my mother always made sure that I never went without. She had to work many hours to pay the mortgage and to provide for us. She could not always be around to watch me and unfortunately, and uncle-in-law took advantage of me and sexually molested me when I was seven years old.

I was ashamed and humiliated but I never told anyone. There was no male figure in my life that I felt I could confide in so I remained silent. As I grew older, this uncle-in-law went to jail for other crimes and was no longer around, but the damage had been done. For years I had no confidence and a very fragile self-esteem, especially when it came to girls. I always felt that I was never good enough for any girl, even when I knew a girl liked me. I was able to move forward.

I developed many defense mechanisms. The first one was avoidance. I tried to avoid any situation that involved me being alone with a girl. The second was lifting weights. The bigger I got the more muscle there was to hide behind. Following high school, I was accepted to Bridgton Academy in North Bridgton, Maine. It was a one year college prep school. After that, I was accepted to Springfield College in Springfield, MA. I studied for four years as a Biology Major.

It was in the summer, heading toward my final year at Springfield college, at my summer job as security/bouncer at a nightclub on Cape Cod for mostly young adults including college students, that I met a girl. She gave me her phone number and kissed me. Three days later, I called her and told her that I didn't want a girlfriend and that I was going back to college for my final year. She started to cry and I felt bad. After I hung up the phone, I felt bad. I felt that something was wrong with me. Here I was a twenty-one year old college student who had never had a girlfriend and here I was, still a virgin.

I felt that I had to let my defense mechanisms down if I ever wanted to lead a normal life. So, two days later, I called her back and asked her if she wanted to go out. She said yes and we started dating. That summer, she would meet me at my house on Cape Cod. She said that I could not go to her house because her family was prejudice. You see sir, I am Cape Verdean and Lebanese and she said her family did not like black people. I didn't say anything because I figured that this was just a summer fling and that once I returned to Springfield the relationship would end.

A week before I returned to college, she visited me at my mom's house as usual. She said she felt that I was going to try to pull away and that she did not want to breakup. I was filled with lust and I told her we would stay together. As the months went on we continued to meet on the weekends at my dorm at Springfield or at my home on Cape Cod. I would always ask to meet her family because I felt if they could just meet me, they would see that I was a good person. I had never experienced racism before (I was raised in a multicultural background). It hurt even more, because I had started to care for this girl and I was forced to put up with this racism.

As time went on the relationship began to sour. She would say mean things to me and try to hurt me verbally. I had never been in a relationship before so I did not understand at that time, that this was a dysfunctional relationship. I began to feel bad about the relationship but I did not want it to fail. I began to tell her how hurt I was about her family not wanting to meet me. She would always tell me about the cruel and nasty things her family would say about me.

A few times she called her mother from my house. When she would get off the phone, she would laugh and say that her mother said, "I know you're with that nigger." I told her that it hurt and she would always laugh and say, "We're a team." It was right at this time that the uncle-in-law that molested me, got out of prison and moved into my grandmothers house which was directly in the front of our house on Cape Cod.

One weekend while I was home and she was visiting me, I told her about the uncle-in-law and how he molested me when I was seven years old. She laughed at me. Once again, I felt humiliated. As time went on, I discovered that she was cheating on me. When I asked her about it, she denied it and said that it was just a friend and then she broke up with me. What little self-esteem I had was shattered. That entire summer, she would still call my house on Cape Cod, but whenever my mother would answer she would hang up because she knew that my mother knew that she was playing head games with me.

At some point in time, I heard that another aunt was going to be moving, with her two small sons, into my grandmothers house. Unbeknownst to everyone, those two boys would be exposed to a child molester. I couldn't hold it any longer because I felt I needed to save these two small boys from a predator. I went and confronted him. I began to fight him when his wife; my came to his rescue and was upset at me because I hit him. Later, when I told the only person in my life that I had opened up to, about my confronting the molester, again she laughed at me. I felt that I was worthless.

I slowly began an uncontrolled downward spiral of severe depression. The job I had been working on as a Physical Therapist Assistant and enjoying, I quit. The one final class that I was taking to get my degree in Biology, I quit after my first exam. I stopped talking to friends. I stopped taking phone calls. The one thing I always did to make me feel good about myself was lifting weights. For the first time since I was thirteen years old I quit lifting weights. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I would stay in my dark room with the shades closed and stare at the ceiling. A normal person could have overcome this but I lost all touch with reality.

The one person that I trusted the most, that I opened my entire world to; my family, my friends, my house, everything, was that girl. The first girl I ever opened up to, had sex for the first time with, and what I thought at the time, loved. I felt that she destroyed everything. I started to stalk her. I knew what I was doing wasn't healthy. I tried to reach out for help. I talked to one "friend." He told me if I was going to kill myself, don't do it in front of my Mom. I talked to another "friend" and he encouraged me to shoot her. He even instructed and assisted me in getting a false passport. I felt that I had no place or no one to turn to for help.

I thought of suicide but a few years before, my best friend Michael, committed suicide over his girlfriend. At his funeral, his girlfriend seemed emotionless and his mother was destroyed. I felt at that time, suicide would not solve the pain. I snapped. On the night of July 10, 1993, I went to her house. I waited for her to get out of the car and I shot her one time. Something wasn't right. It was like I was watching what was going on but I was just a passenger in my body. I knew that the face of the girl that I had just shot was not hers. It was her sister. I ran from the scene and left the country.

At some time in all the confusion, I arrived in a small country of Guyana, South America. I was homeless and confused. After weeks of roaming the streets I had to do something. I had no food to eat. I found a job and when my employer learned from someone that I was without a place to stay, he introduced me to a woman who had a room to rent out of her home to have extra income to support herself and her two daughters.

Lynda was older than me but she is a good woman who had also come from an abusive past. Tiffany and Nadia, her two daughters, Lynda and I became very close and as time went on Lynda and I finally married. I love Lynda and my stepdaughters very much. We were like each others therapist, although my conscience would still not allow me to rest.

After three years of living in Guyana, I was arrested and brought back to Massachusetts. I was taken to trial and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. I have and always will regret that one mistake I made in my life although, I was not thinking rational at the time. I truly am sorry for the pain I caused others.

Your son is incarcerated in a Pennsylvania prison, what was he arrested and convicted of, and how long is his sentence?

My son was arrested and convicted of a fatal shooting (a first time offense although fatal) which occurred in 1993 following a ten month bout of severe depression and in his final year of college. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

What kind of a cell is your son housed in, and is he in solitary confinement? What are the conditions he is under?

My son was held in solitary confinement for over a year and a half, and he was only recently put back into general population two or three days after a number of calls and letters were sent to the Superintendent, from advocates across the country. The officials have and continue to confiscate his literature and magazines, which he has been receiving and reading since he has been incarcerated and that had already been approved by IPRC.

I understand there has been several suicides in the facility he is in. Could you tell us what you know about this?

It is very difficult for me to know exactly what's going on in regard to the suicides because my son and others are having their incoming and outgoing mail censored, so the info has been limited although there has been information on the attempted suicides, one successful one and documentation of abuse occurring in the prison.

Has John witnessed or does he have any knowledge of this?

He witnessed the officials dragging the suicide victim out of the cell to try to resuscitate him but it was too late. There is more to that story and prisoners have agreed to testify. The prisoners including my son, in the 32 cell unit, had not only admitted to being abused but they also have witnessed the abuse.

What has he said or done about this issue?

He has been trying to file legal documents about everything that has been going on but the officials have admitted to him that they have opened and read all of his legal material being sent out. My son stated that they have gotten so bold as to admit that they are reading his legal documents without him being present. I also received from him, names of other prisoners who are willing to testify about the abuses, attempted suicides and the one successful one. I also received the telephone number for the suicide victim's wife and for the victim's father, which I have spoken to the wife who has also been in contact with her father in law about all of this. I suggested they also try to get a lawyer for her husband's situation even though he is now deceased. She told me she knew there was more to it and that she did not believe her husband would just commit suicide for no apparent reason.

Is he being threatened or punished in any way by prison staff, and how?

He states that he and the guards like and respect one another but it is the higher ups that are giving him the most problems. Two Commanding Officers appear to have been the problem, but now that my son has raised awareness of everything going on in there, he is being targeted by the Superintendent and others.

Do you or he feel like he is in danger?

My son and others are in danger. John believes that officials are going to try to put him back into solitary confinement by forcing him to have a cell mate in his cell. This is something my son has been refusing because the last cell mate he had set him up. They claimed they found implements of escape in his locker and he was not the only one who had access to his locker nor did he have a key to his locker. So, he believes it was a set up and that was the initial reason for his being in solitary confinement. Since then he has been refusing to have a cell mate and they have been increasing his time in isolation. Now, they are very angry because he has been leaking information out about something they have been trying to cover up.

Are there any other misdoing in this prison, please explain.

I did some research on Complaints and violations at SCI-Smithfield Prison and I found a lot of information on just that. It was all on www.prisoners.com

How can the public help your son?

I, as well as my son and others, have been trying to get a lawyer into that prison to meet with the prisoners. Now that the officials have been reading my son's legal documents they are aware of everything and I would like to get someone in there before they can cover up all of their wrongdoing.

What do you want to happen to your son, do you want him transferred back to his home state of Massachusetts?

I would like to have him brought back here, but more importantly, I want to see him and other prisoners who are risking their lives to get the truth out, safe. I would like to see a Lawyer from ACLU or National Lawyer's Guild or some Lawyer/s get involved in this case. I know this happens in other prisons, but when there are a number of prisoners willing to testify, that's when I believe they need to get someone in there right away.

At this time if you would like to add anything please do so.

Prisoners have been and are being set up to fail in the system in order that the monetary gains continue to increase and flow into the prison system. However, monies allotted for the Rehabilitation and healing of prisoners appears to be going elsewhere. In numerous cases prisoners are asking for help for their illnesses and are not getting the responses that they expected. Instead, many are placed in Maximum security settings and/or solitary confinement. Many prisoners are given no hope, no positive future and no reason to live.

There are many remorseful and reformed prisoners who are in a position where they can also be harmed, subsequent to the abusive environments in which they are subjected to. Yet, they have no alternatives, as the harsh sentences of today; mandate all prisoners of fatal crimes, regardless of the circumstances, to remain in prison for life or life without the possibility of parole. Not affording many of them a second chance to show that they can be productive citizens in the communities and/or even providing them with appropriate rehabilitative treatment.

I firmly believe that Prisoners can be saved through extensive and appropriate rehabilitation, consistencies, compassion and understanding.

Access Leonna's New Vision Organization here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/bizuiard/newvisionorg2/id1.html