Out Of The Shadow Of Death: A Sister's Undying Love

By Lynn Scott

After years of struggling with guilt and shame for being associated with a serial killer sitting on death row, a sister comes to grip with the fact that she and all family members of death row inmates are, indeed, victims as well. Although her brother was, indeed, guilty of his crimes and deserved to pay for the lives he took, society placed her into the same category as him and quickly labeled her guilty by association.

Bringing public awareness to the loved ones of death row inmates is something that is frowned upon, and families are often warned by their lawyers not to do so, which leads to detrimental health issues for those family members. They are punished not only for being associated with the inmate but also for loving them and standing by their side despite the horrendous crime they committed.

The death penalty brings about many more victims when an inmate is executed. Its grasp is so far-reaching, not only for the victims' families and inmates' families but also for so many others placed in a position they did not ask to be in but were so because of the crime our loved ones committed. The weight of carrying that pain as a result of what our loved one has done can sometimes become too much to bear, and because of that, we are not able to grieve the loss of someone we loved.

It has been five years since her brother's execution, and although the healing process has been slow, by publicly sharing her journey with her brother, she hopes to help others begin their healing process as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886449051

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

1: What's So Amazing about Grace?

2: The Phone Call

3: The Roller Coaster Ride

4: The Waiting Game

5: Wednesday, April 19, 2017

6: Thursday, April 20, 2017

7: Friday, April 21, 2017

8: Saturday, April 22, 2017

9: Our Final Goodbye

10: Letting Go

11: Three Cardboard Boxes

12: Just Trying to Make Sense

13: Let My Faith Lead

14: My Story's Not Finished Yet

15: Releasing the Shame

16: Back to Arkansas… Again

17: Everyone Is My World

About the Author

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Out Of The Shadow Of Death

A Sister's Undying Love

Lynn Scott

ISBN 979-8-88644-904-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88644-905-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 Lynn Scott

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to him be the glory. To my husband, Scotty, thank you for your patience, love, and understanding and for encouraging me to write my story. To my children who I adore and to my grandchildren who hold YaYa's heart. To those who have lost a loved one to the death penalty and have wounds that have not yet healed and to those who still have someone they love on death row, love them through the eyes of Christ. Compassion is for all. To anyone struggling with bitterness, anger, and forgiveness, may God give you the strength you need to release it all to him. To those who struggle with mental illness, may you seek and be given the help you so desperately need and allow God's grace and mercy to pull you out of your darkest days. To those who never had anyone advocate for them, know that there are people who care and that compassion is still very much alive and well. Finally, to Jack, you'll forever be my big brother. You are loved and missed more than you will ever know. And most importantly, in the end, you were good!

Introduction

Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.

—Psalm 63:7–8 NIV

Living for years in my brother's shadow, I had no voice. Fear, shame, guilt, bitterness, and doubt held me back. Although I knew God had never left my side, I tried to hide for fear of exposing myself to others. In the years since my brother's death, I've had a few opportunities to speak with regard to what took place in Arkansas back in 2017.

I've always known deep down that I had a story to tell but never fully understood what exactly I was to share, with whom, and more importantly, why would anyone care. My brother was a serial killer, cast aside, and hated by many. He committed horrible, unspeakable crimes, and because I loved him and cared for him, the world hated me too. The death of my brother is deemed insignificant and not a legitimate loss in the eyes of many. Because of that, loving Jack and grieving his death rooted pain and hurt buried so deep inside my soul that shame and guilt took a hold of my heart. But no matter how deep our hurt and pain go, God's love goes deeper. Deep calls to deep, the place where our deep meets God's all-sufficient presence. In the beginning, the great deep was waiting in the darkness for God to speak order into its chaos. Nothing is too messy for God to make beautiful, and nothing too void for his presence to fill with His steadfast love. So now, as I cling to Jesus, he upholds me with his right hand and living in the shadow of his wings, covered by his love, he leads me in a dance.

He leads me in a dance. I have found my voice and will sing a song of praise. In Garth Brooks's words, I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance.

My story with my brother spans over fifty years with almost half of them being while he was on death row. And although I was against the death penalty before he went to prison, I learned and experienced so much over those years that my reasoning behind why I oppose it is so much more complex now. I saw firsthand what takes place and can attest to what everyone associated with it goes through. The victims. And not just the family members of the one who was murdered but all the new victims that that person's crime created.

It doesn't matter how strong of a person you are, how strong your faith is, and how you may think something like this will not affect you, every single person who goes through the execution of a death row inmate will never be the same. I used the term victim very loosely at first and even received backlash from it. But the true meaning of the word is someone who is injured, harmed, or killed as a result or action of another. And although Jack's victims were the only ones killed, his crime created so many more, many of who still struggle to this day and will continue to do so for years to come.

There is no manual where one can turn to understand the process of not only how the system works when someone is sentenced to death but also how one handles the process leading up to an execution, what takes place during the actual execution itself, and how to manage after that person is gone. Therapists have long been writing papers on the effects the death penalty has on various individuals, but our society and our government will have none of it. But then who is left to pick up the pieces when individuals are so deeply wounded by what they experienced? Many of them can no longer function in society, they turn to alcohol or drugs, they spend years in therapy, or worse yet, they take their own life.

As forgotten victims, the pain that death row families go through is not validated by society. The attention we do receive is negative, and we are made to feel guilty for the association we have with a capital murderer. Many do not seek help because of the shame that they feel, and if they eventually do, their mental state is far worse off than it would've been if help was given in the beginning. I myself didn't realize the therapy that I would need until an individual actually reached out to me after hearing my story and offered me help.

I know it will take time to heal, and I've allowed myself to not put a timeframe on that process but rather validate the fact that I am a victim, and however long I need, that's all right. But as I am continuing to heal from what I experienced, my heart still breaks for all the other victims that my brother's crimes created. I have always prayed and thought of the surviving family members of Jack's victims over the years and even wrote letters to them, telling them how truly sorry I was for what Jack did and what he took away from them. I never expected to receive anything back from them, and even expecting their forgiveness was not something I had been waiting for. It was rather my heart breaking knowing the pain they must be feeling.

When Jack's date was set again for the third time, I traveled back to Arkansas to go through one of the most difficult times in my life, and I now have an even longer list of victims who my heart breaks for. I saw firsthand the pain and anguish that the prison staff, guards, chaplains, and warden at the Varner and Cummins unit were feeling. They were handed down the task of executing eight men in ten days, something that had never been done before, and Arkansas was making a name for themselves just because one of the drugs used in the lethal injection process was set to expire.

Jack's lawyers and the lawyers for the other seven men were scrambling to prepare for clemency hearings and appeals, so that caused sleepless nights, hours spent away from family, and the anguish of knowing that life could possibly end if they did not do all they could to save their clients. The lawyers representing the victims' families struggle to bring comfort and peace to them by ensuring the killer's death sentence would go through and that justice would be served, giving those families closure.

Many media outlets swarmed in to cover this historic event, not only from the local area or from the state of Arkansas but from all over the United States and the world. It was a media circus that put Grady, Arkansas, in the spotlight. They worked effortlessly day and night to cover what was taking place to a waiting world on the edge of their seats, wondering if, indeed, the state of Arkansas would carry through with two executions a day in a span of ten days, starting the day after Easter.

And in speaking with a handful of the reporters, I caught a glimpse of sorrow in some of them because even though this was getting national attention, they saw firsthand the effects this was having on everyone. Law enforcement was brought in from all over the state to manage the grounds in and around the Cummins Unit during that ten-day period.

I have the utmost respect for the state troopers who night after night left their families behind to monitor who was coming and going and tend to the safety of myself and others on the grounds.

Then I formed relationships with men and women fighting for various causes to abolish the death penalty. Some of them had no direct ties to the cause other than what they felt and believed, but some of them could relate to my pain because they, too, lost a loved one on death row. Either way, I was surrounded by new friends who truly cared for me and supported me during that time of need.

I was an advocate for Jack for years. It was a position I wanted to walk away from many times but chose to stay in because of the love I had for my big brother—the love that was only possible because it was Christ loving him through me. It was a position I took seriously and fought hard for all the way until Jack's last breath. And although that position is over, Jack's memory will live on in and through me as I hope to become a voice and an advocate for the current and future victims that the death penalty creates.

I will forever be connected to the death