Breaking the Chain: Life and Times of a Convict Through the Eyes of His Daughters

By Melinda Leigh Alkire and Shirley Anne McMurray

To outsiders, Larry Owen Azlin was a drug-addicted criminal who defied societal rules and norms. But to authors Shirley Anne McMurray and Melinda Leigh Alkire, he was the man they called Daddy. In this memoir, these sisters paint a picture of their life with their father and mothera life marked by crime, drugs, police busts, and shootings in the ghettos of Fresno, California.

Breaking the Chain provides a glimpse into the life of children with parents who struggle with addiction and the impact the criminal justice system leaves on them. McMurray and Alkire share the details of what life was like with their father before drugs engulfed his mind, body, and soul. It also narrates the grim stories of his drug-addicted machinations, his prison incarceration with the California Department of Corrections, and his failed attempts at reform.

Recalling both the heartaches and the joys, Breaking the Chain provides a unique perspective of their unusual upbringing. They provide testimony that there is hope for the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462076475

Melinda Leigh Alkire

Shirley Anne McMurray earned a master’s degree in social work and has been working in the helping field for ten years. She is currently a mental health therapist. McMurray and her husband, Rodney, have four children and five grandchildren. She lives in Benton, Arkansas. Melinda Leigh Alkire is a mother of eight who has dedicated eighteen of her thirty-three years to raising her children. Married, she now lives in Malvern, Arkansas.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Young Love

ON MY MOTHER’S SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY, she and Larry Owen Azlin eloped and went to Las Vegas against her parent’s wishes. She remembers wearing a green, velvet dress and that he wore a pin-striped suit with shiny, black Stacy Adam shoes. He was six foot; she was just a few inches above five. His dark complexion, wavy, black hair, and green eyes contrasted with my mother’s fair complexion and blonde hair. Petite in stature, she weighed just ninety pounds the day they married.

In telling me about their early days, my mother proudly mentioned that all the girls in high school flocked around Larry. My mother adored him and stated, I felt as though I was marrying a teen idol. My mother came from a family that struggled financially; my father’s middle-class family did well. After they were married, he drove her to the home of his sister, who also had recently married. Daddy left my mother there for a week while he partied with his friends. She also told me that they didn’t consummate their marriage until they had been married for seven days. A virgin at the time, she was on edge about the big night. Their relationship was unconventional from the very beginning and continued for years to come.

Her wedding day should have been a sign to Mama that she had married a man who would show her a lifestyle that could only be explained as different with a plot sordid enough to be on the big screen. Mama explained to me that she had been in love with Daddy since she was a small child and had often admired him during her years in junior high and high school. She felt a boy like him would not have anything to do with a girl from the other side of the tracks. At one time, her family lived in a tent with dirt floors. Her family picked fruit to sell and lived on the profits.

Popular and strikingly handsome, Daddy was actually shy and a loner. When he chose Mama, she felt as though she had just been saved by Prince Charming. She told me a story of one of their dates when he reminded her, Bring your scooter pie. So she brought a scooter pie cupcake on their date. She told me how he laughed all night at her while she was embarrassed by his forward way of approaching her for more than a cupcake. She was a virgin and remained that way until she married him. At least, Daddy knew she was a good girl and saw the qualities in her that she may not even have seen in herself.

My mother was a loyal wife. The townspeople called her foolishly in love because she never gave up on Daddy no matter how much he put her through. She stood by his side regardless of the personal cost that could never be measured; she worshiped him until the day she died. He put her through things that most normal women could not handle, yet she stayed and endured the madness for twenty years. She would go toe-to-toe with any person to defend her husband’s reputation

She was certainly not a typical mother and was known for carrying a pistol in her purse just in case things went sour anywhere she went. I remember the day she entered a convenient store to buy some snacks for me and my sister. She blatantly laid her pistol on the counter as she attempted to find her wallet that she thought she had misplaced. The checker’s eyes widened and my mother politely stated, Oops, that was not meant for you. We left the store happy. Mom had no real reaction, as this was a mild infraction compared to the life to which she was accustomed.

People in my parents’ crowd often remarked, There is no Larry without Paulette, and there is no Paulette without Larry. Even with a separation in place, no one dared to disrespect either one of them as an unspoken bond remained. When their love was good, it was really good; but when it was bad, it was horrible. When I turned seventeen, the age Mama was when she married Daddy, she said, Honey, if you fall in love and it don’t come easy, and your heart is in pain more often than not, get out and fast. My mother knew she would never shake the hold Daddy had on her, and she really had no identity without him.

If my mother loved someone, it was a love she would die for. But if she no longer cared for a person, she wasn’t afraid to let it be known publicly to the person’s face and to the point. Mama was a beautiful woman with long, blonde hair, a perfect tiny body, and green, catlike eyes. Her smile melted hearts and her wit and humor made the hardest of the hardest laugh till they begged her to stop as she was making their tough guy image seem weak. She always pumped Daddy up as a man who had the potential to conquer the world. Even when he was shunned by society and classified as a junkie, she was his biggest and most loyal fan who never gave up hope. I believe she is the main reason others could recognize his talents since she was known for telling detailed stories about the perils of his life and the subculture we lived in. I don’t remember that she ever belittled my daddy. Somehow, she always found his strengths. Even in the midst of the storms of our lives, Mama always had Daddy’s back.

Mama had her own crutches and vices. These allowed her to manage the pain of living with the