Just to Be Free: Searching for Hope In a Death Sentence

By Willie Green and Jason Pitts

Willie Green grew up in Canton, Mississippi, and he never saw any white people unless he went across the railroad tracks. But his mother’s best friend was white, and whenever they met, they pressed their hands together. This simple act showed him that everyone could get along—something that would stay with him when the Civil Rights Movement swept through the nation. But after helping a cousin move his things out of a girlfriend’s place—things that in fact, belonged to her—Green was arrested for burglary. When that same girl ended up dead, he was convicted of murder. He’d end up spending twenty-five years in prison—most of them in San Quentin—after a witness who had been high on cocaine and pressured by police blamed him for the crime. Green would not be freed until 2008, after the witness set the record straight. He looks back on a life defined by unexpected turns, race relations, his despair while on death row, and how he found hope and freedom in Just to Be Free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Oct 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483464190

Book preview

JUST TO BE

FREE

Searching for Hope in a Death Sentence

WILLIE GREEN AND JASON PITTS

Copyright © 2016, 2017 Jason Pitts.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6420-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6419-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017900509

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 1/12/2017

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Life in Canton

Chapter 2 Black and White

Chapter 3 First Taste of Freedom

Chapter 4 Sweet Home Chicago

Chapter 5 California, Here I Come

Chapter 6 Life in the ’Hood

Chapter 7 A Victim of the System

Chapter 8 Highway to Hell on Earth

Chapter 9 Life on Death Row (1985–1993)

Chapter 10 Life on the Main Line (1993–2008)

Chapter 11 God Opens a Window

Chapter 12 Free at Last

Chapter 13 Tying Up Loose Ends

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my grandfather and grandmother and all black Americans who laid a foundation of hard work and community.

Also, even though my black heritage first nurtured me and loved me, many times a white person extended his or her hand to protect me and grow me, so I want to dedicate this book to the whole United States, for the growth we’ve experienced together to be a better country and better people and ultimately to love one another more.

EDITOR’S NOTE

While this book is focused on the life, unfair imprisonment, and triumphant exoneration of Willie Green, the real victim of the events surrounding Mr. Green’s time in San Quentin is Denise Dee Dee Walker, who was gunned down by an unknown assailant on August 9, 1983. Like Willie, Ms. Walker was a young African American trying to stay a step ahead of her bills and carve out her little niche in Southern California. That she was working in a crack house at the time of her murder defines her no more than the time Willie spent as a dope dealer in Chicago in his twenties.

At the time of this writing, it has been thirty-two years since Ms. Walker’s murder, and it remains unsolved. Had the Los Angeles Police Department been more focused on solving the case correctly, rather than quickly, perhaps Ms. Walker’s true killer would have been brought to justice and her family spared the pain of finding out in 2008 that the wrong man had been found guilty and that her true killer had gotten away with this brutal crime. The entire Willie Green team expresses our condolences and prayers to the family and friends of Denise Walker. May she rest in peace.

PROLOGUE

In the early-morning hours of September 27, 1983, thirty-one-year-old Willie Green slept soundly in the South Central Los Angeles apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Sheila Carter.

Life was going reasonably well for Willie, who had been back in Southern California for about two months after a long visit home to Mississippi. He had come west a few years earlier and found steady work for a powerful father-and-son business team. Willie didn’t exactly know what their business was, but they looked out for him, paid him in cash, and had no problem giving him time off when he needed it.

His peaceful slumber was shattered that September morning by sudden pounding at his door.

Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, Willie opened the door to four Los Angeles police officers, who rushed into his apartment, armed with shotguns, and manhandled him and pinned him to the ground.

One of the officers put a shotgun on the back of Willie’s neck, while another handcuffed him. They told him he was under arrest for the murder of Denise Walker, a woman he had met exactly one time and who had previously dated his cousin.

After allowing Willie to put on a pair of blue jeans, the four officers took him out and placed him in a squad car—a homicide detective on each side of him and two more in the front.

Once the car was in motion, one of the detectives leaned back from the front seat and looked Willie squarely in the face. We know you didn’t do this murder right here, but we need someone to go down for it, he said. We want as many of you niggers off the street as we can before the Olympics happens.

The detectives took a detour on their way to station, driving across the campus of the University of Southern California, as the college’s students, many of them young women dressed casually in the warm September sun, were arriving on campus for their first classes.

The same detective who had spoken before told Willie to drink it all in.

You’re going to be an old fucking man before you get out, so take a good look, the cop said.

Willie didn’t look, because he knew he was innocent. He believed he would be able to sort out the situation, clearly a misunderstanding, once he reached the police station.

Unfortunately, as it had been so many times during his life, doing nothing wrong didn’t equate to not getting in trouble. Willie had been fighting against prejudice since the day he was born in 1952 in Canton, Mississippi. Thirty-one years later and 1,630 miles away from home, it reared its ugly head again. Here is the mind of Willie and the way of the world.

CHAPTER 1

LIFE IN CANTON

I was born in a little town in Mississippi called Canton. It’s about eighteen miles north of Jackson, pretty much in the center of Mississippi. Canton wasn’t much of anything when I was first growing up, but it became a very storied town later on.

The civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King came right through Canton in the 1960s. I had a very close-knit family. I lived with my mother and father and my sister and brother; my grandfather and grandmother were a big part of our lives. My grandfather had five or six brothers who all lived on the same road as him, and each owned his own property.

My grandfather was a man of small stature, but he was a big man in the way he carried himself. He owned his own land, and he was treated with a lot of respect in the state of Mississippi. My