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ANTHONY WOOLEY
By Ike Griffin
Note: Names of individuals and institutions have been changed.
It was the second or third Kairos weekend at Ferguson Unit that I met Anthony Wooley. He sat to my immediate left at the table of St. James. Tony was what you would call a well turned out man of less than thirty years of age, mild of manner and imposing of build. His ready, infectious smile set a tone for the table family of James, acceleratin bonding that inevitably takes place on such a weekend. Six inmates, all dressed in white prison garb, and three free-world volunteers began to share our lives in an easy, unguarded manner.
From DeKalb, Texas, Tony had married a girl from Texarkana and soon found himself embroiled in a sex perversion scandal that led him to prison. Tony was doing five years, but professed innocence of the crime. Working in prisons, we hear innocent pleas regularly, so I smiled understandingly, but thought less of him for trying to sell his story to what he thought was a gullible volunteer. I thought no more of it. It is not the job of a volunteer to become an advocate for a prisoner, though that happens from time to time. The Kairos volunteer’s job is to let thr residents know that we care about them, guilty or not. As time went by and the Kairos team returned monthly for a reunion with the participants, Tony and I got to know one another better and he revealed more of his story.
According to Tony, he had begun dating a beautiful white girl from Texarkana in High School. Of course their dating had to be done in secret because her father, a highly placed county law official, had forbidden his daughter to date blacks. After graduation from High School, she went on to college and Tony took a job in a diesel motor repair shop. After one year in college, the girl decided she was past the age of majority and agreed to elope with Tony. After a few months of working on reconciliation with her family, her father arranged to have them both arrested for sexual deviancy. At the trial, a prostitute came forth to testify she had had sex with both of them in a threesome on several occasions. Tony was sentenced to five years and his wife to three years in the state system. Tony was stunned that his wife's father hated him so much he was willing to fabricate testimony that would send his own daughter to prison.
Tony's wife was nearing the end of her sentence and eventually was released and returned to her parents' home in Texarkana where she came under immediate pressure to seek a divorce. Tony continued to keep me posted as we met monthly. His wife lived at home under hostile conditions, but refused to initiate divorce proceedings. Instead, she continued to communicate with Tony, though the mail was not sent to her parents' home. She was able to contact the prostitute who had testified at their trial and convinced her to sign an affidavit saying she had been paid to testify in the manner she had but had not, in fact, had sex with either Tony or his wife.
For the next two years, Tony suffered through the anxiety of knowing the pressure his wife endured living with her parents, one of whom she was secretly battling. She was working to get Tony out of prison, and her father maneuvering to keep him in. As his end of sentence date approached, Tony learned that the state was reviewing his sentence, and finally, he received word that his sentence was being reversed, but it would take a matter of weeks to expedite the paperwork. Ironically, Tony was ultimately declared innocent of the original charges, but had served more than the original sentence. He returned to his home in DeKalb.
Mickey and I were driving over to New Orleans a few months after Tony's release and I decided to stop by DeKalb to look him up and see how he was progressing. I had no address for him, but DeKalb is a small town. We stopped at a local car wash in town and I asked a couple of the employees if they knew Tony Wooley. Their verbal response said they did not know him, but their body language clearly said the opposite. They obviously did not trust me. I bored them with a history of my work in Ferguson Unit and the circumstances of my relationship with Tony. Finally, one of them said, "He lives in the house with a porch two blocks down. He is probably on the porch right now. Sure enough, he was.
Tony was working at the same diesel repair shop where he had worked before incarceration. His wife was still living with her parents, but they were seeing one another while Tony gradually rebuilt credibility, accumulating reserves lost in the prison experience. His plan was to move her back to live with him after he could hold his head up as a respectable citizen who could support a family. Tony wanted to forgive and forget past differences with his in-laws. He felt the best chance for that might happen when a grandchild presented itself for their consideration.
A year later, I called Tony to check on having a diesel engine overhauled for Kairos and learned all his plans had worked out; his family was united, with a grandchild opening the door to occasional, if not overly warm, visits with his in-laws.
