Time stopped. I couldn't breath; darkness seemed to overcome everything. "Noooo, I screamed. He's innocent. You can't send my son to die. Oh God....why did you let this happen. Why...why....why."

The screams seemed to go on forever; I couldn't stop them as I held on to the bars and looked up at the sky as if God would answer me. The screams came from deep inside, ripping my heart out. The pain was unbearable and through a fog I heard my mother's voice drifting up to me.

"Please Shirley....everything will be all right. We'll fight this thing....please stop. Please...Shirley your father. Think of your father." I looked over at Pop as he stood there, his snow white hair shining in the afternoon sun. Tears rolled down his face and I knew with his heart trouble, he couldn't take much more of it. I had to find the strength to stop. He looked up at me and I loved him so much....I loved my son and now the state was taking him away. Taking him to die a terrible death in the electric chair.

  I saw Detective Keesling walk out of the courthouse, and he smiled up at me, an evil smile. Then he looked at my mother and father and told them to get out. He had no sympathy for them. He had won. I watched as mar and pop looked back, tears and despair on their faces, and with shoulders slumped, they slowly turned and walked away.

I backed away from the window and began screaming again. They couldn't kill my child. I wouldn't let them take my son and kill him and I began screaming again. It wasn't long before a nurse came in with my mother and gave me a shot. Mar told me that they were going to release me in the morning. I had been given ten days in jail for crying out in the courtroom. As darkness overcame me, I thought back to when I first got the phone call from Jeff.

  Jeff had called me and asked me to come to Tennessee as fast as I could. "I need you mom," he said. I knew from the tone of his voice that something bad had happened and I told him I'd be there as soon as I could. It was a two hour drive from Asheville North Carolina where I lived with my husband and my other three children to where Jeff and Betty were in the motel, but it seemed as if it were hundreds of miles away.

When I got to the hotel room where Jeff was waiting with his pregnant wife, I saw how pale his face was. Betty sat there while Jeff told me what had happened. He and Donald Strouth had been out riding, with Jeff driving the car, Donald, or Chief as he was called, told Jeff to pull over in front of a used clothing store. Jeff did as he was told and Chief said he was going to rip the store off.

Jeff just laughed and didn't believe that he would do it. The boy had told Jeff many stories as long as he had known him, and Jeff thought he was just trying to get attention by telling the wild stories. Never once did he believe any of the stories that Chief told, and he didn't believe him now. Chief got out of the car and walked into the store. Jeff waited, sure that Chief would come back outside and laugh. But five or six minutes went by, and Jeff was getting scared. He wondered if Chief was indeed robbing the store. Suddenly he saw Chief come running back to the car, his pants covered in blood at the bottom.

"My God! What happened?" Jeff asked. Chief told him to get going and he did. He was suddenly afraid and wanted nothing more to do with Chief...he wanted to go and call his mother. She would know what to do. He felt the sweat pouring down his face as they headed back to the apartment to pick Betty up.

Jeff found out later that Chief had robbed the man in the store of $200 dollars and hurt him. Chief asked Jeff if he wanted any of the money, and Jeff said No. He didn't want anything to do with the robbery. It wasn't until later on the news that Jeff found out the man had been killed.

That's when Jeff called me to come and get him. He was terrified...he had never hurt anybody and even though he was eighteen, he was very nieve.

I had always kept my kids at home when they were younger, and for years Jeff had worked with me selling Fuller Brush products to help raise his sisters and brother. He had never been one to run around late at night getting into trouble like other kids did, but worked hard to give us money to get by on. No mother could ask for a better son.

  I didn't know what to do, so I hid them out for a couple of weeks, until Jeff decided he wanted to turn himself in because he was not guilty. Jeff had wanted to go the police from the very first, but I felt a fear in the bottom of my stomach and I made the wrong choice. Jeff hadn't taken part in the crime, he had taken none of the money and what ever sentence they gave him, Jeff would take. Never once did we dream of that being the death penalty. It never crossed our minds that Jeff could be murdered by the state because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I went with Jeff to the police station where a detective read him his rights. We hardly listened..since we had not had any dealing with the police before. Detective Keesling was from Tennessee and he said we would not need an attorney present. He told us that they already had Chief in custody and his girlfriend had testified that he had committed the murder, and they also had his jeans with the blood stains on the bottom of the pant legs. His girlfriend Barbara Davis took police to where they had buried them. She also admitted giving Chief a knife for his birthday just a day before the murder.

The detective took Jeff into another room where Jeff gave a statement. The North Carolina detective offered the services of a stenographer, but they declined. Unfortunately, we didn't know any better, so I let Jeff give that statement. He told the truth, that he was there in the car...had not known Chief would actually rob and kill anyone. To our horror, Jeff was charged with first degree murder. Fear overwhelmed me, and I wished I had of taken him to Canada.

Jeff was taken to Bluntville Tennessee. Every weekend I traveled eighty miles from our home in North Carolina to Tennessee. The trip was hot and a winding road. I was pregnant as was Jeff's wife.

In the jail Jeff lost weight, his eyes became sunken into his face and he looked like a war prisoner. Hard as I tried to hold myself together in front of Jeff, it was next to impossible. That was my child. My first born child and he was being mistreated. It was a nightmare.

I spent all of my energy trying to raise money for Jeff's defense. I found out that attorneys wanted $100,000 to represent him because he had made a statement without an attorney, and this was going to be a capital trial. They were going for the death penalty. Just the words, death penalty, brought fear as I'd never known into my heart.

They already had Chief in custody and knew he had done the killing. However, the people in this small Tennessee town wanted both of them to die. I decided that I would go to Kingsport and question the people in the stores around where the crime had been committed. I wanted to find someone who might have seen Jeff that day in the car. I went in the first store and asked questions about if anyone remembered seeing my son sitting outside the store that day.

They were very rude...and I had no more than walked out of the door when three police cars came to screeching halt outside and asked me what I thought I was doing. I told them I was trying to find someone who might have seen my son that day. That he was not guilty and had not gone inside the store. They took a step in my direction and told me to leave their town....and do it now.

I tried to tell them again, that I wasn't doing anything against the law, but they said they didn't want the mother of a murderer in their town. I decided that I would leave the street.

I knew I wasn't going to be run out of town so I went to the hotel and called the tv station. They came over and did an interview with me showing Jeff's picture while I spoke asking if anyone remembered seeing my son that day. Jeff had told me a man in a pickup truck was outside the store that day...and they exchanged looks.

That night they were to play it on the news at six o'clock and then again at 10. I watched the six o'clock news and it was on. At about seven, a call came through. They said they were sorry but so many people in this town had called and demanded they not show that again, that they had decided not to. I felt so frustrated..but decided that I'd better head back to North Carolina before I was arrested. It was clear they had convicted my son before he even went to trial.

I was in my seventh month of pregnancy when I lost my child. It was a boy and I thought that God was giving me a sign that Jeff would live...and He would give this new baby to some other family. And while I felt pain at losing this child, I felt that my other son would now live.

I put my home up for sale but couldn't get much for it as we had only had the home for eight years. I wrote to all the famous attorneys and found that they wanted millions to represent Jeff. No one would help us. We were nobody. We were not rich and who cared if an innocent boy died for a crime he did not commit, especially if they were from the north and come south to live.

The prosecution arranged for Jeff and Donald to be tried separately, so that both could get the death penalty. I wasn't aware then of that, that testimony in Chief's trial was not allowed at our trial as it was called heresay. Therefore our jurors did not hear the whole thing. This is something that I can't understand, why the judge can pick what the jurors can and cannot hear. They do not hear the whole trial, the testimony of everyone, only what the judge says they can hear. How can they be expected to come back with a fair verdict when they do not hear the whole thing? I had grown up with Perry Mason where the good guy went free and the bad guy went to jail, where Perry Mason always got the bad guy to admit his crime on the witness stand, but I was to find out that we weren't living in the movies, that this was real. The good guy doesn't always come out the winner and the bad guy sometimes goes free.

  Chief had his trail first and Betty and I went over to Tennessee. Betty had to testify against Chief, as did his girlfriend Barbara Davis. Barbara had taken police to where Chief buried his bloodied jeans, and told them what Chief told her. That he had killed the old man. He had bought a used car for the two hundred dollars and the used car salesman was in the courtroom and also testified. Jeff McMahan a friend of Chief's whom he had gone to after the murder, also testified that Chief had blood on his jeans, and had told him that he killed someone. HE told McMahan that his partner took no part, but had been in the car. Chief was found guilty and sentenced to die.

I knew at that point that my son would also die if I couldn't get him an attorney. A court appointed one had been assigned to him, but I didn't trust in them because they do not get very much money, and James Beeler the man who was going to be his attorney told us that he had never handled a capital case before. Looking back, I wish I had let him go on but I was intent on getting a paid attorney to give my son a better chance.

I couldn't raise enough money for an attorney so I decided to break him out of the small jail they were holding him in. My husband said I was crazy, and I guess I was at that point. All I knew was they wanted to kill my son and I had to save him. I had to save him at any cost...and if it meant I would go to jail, then that was all right too. I begged God to help us free Jeff...I knew God alone knew that Jeff was not guilty of anything but being friends with Chief and sitting in the car that day. He didn't deserve to die because he used poor judgement.

I planned the jail break and talked to a couple of guys who said they would help me. In reality they took the papers to the police and told on me. They moved Jeff to Brushy Mountain prison in Knoxville Tennessee where there was no way I could ever get him out. I was lucky in that they didn't bring charges against me. I was bordering on insanity, and my heart was breaking. I didn't know what to do, so my mind was filled with all kinds of crazy schemes. I had no time for the other kids, my whole thought in life was to free my son and run with him.

I knew I was doing wrong, but I made those choices and I had to live with them.

  Betty gave birth to a little girl whom they named after me, but we called her Maria, her middle name. She was beautiful and we took her to the prison to see her father. Jeff looked at her with such love...it brought tears to my eyes. I knew how much he loved her, he had always loved children.

Betty had begun to be abusive to Maria and she was in the hospital a few times from this abuse. She was going to give her up to an orphanage in Knoxville, and I told her that no way was she giving my son's child up. I would adopt her and raise her as my own. That way Jeff could be a part of his daughters life. She signed her away, and told how she abused her...how she couldn't raise a child and didn't want her. I legally adopted her, determined that no one would ever hurt her again.

Since I couldn't hire an attorney and my son's life was at stake, I wracked my brain for ways of getting money...I decided the only way was to write checks, buy merchandise and take the stuff to teh flea markets and sell them. I knew this was crazy..but I didn't care at this point. I knew I'd have to face up to it, but after Jeff had an attorney, I didnt care if I went to prison, at least my son would be safe.

I went on to write hot checks and was able to hire an attorney. His name was Larry Smith from Asheville, North Carolina, but I didn't know at the time he was only interested in the money. He knew how I was getting the money as I told him and he said he would let me know when the warrants would come in. I knew I would have to serve time, but it was a small price to pay for my son's life.

During the trial, testimony was changed from the first one. The jurors didn't hear that Chief was the trigger person in the beginning. They never called on Jeff McMahan to testify. I had talked to him during Chief's trial and he said he would come to our trial if I could pay his way over. He didn't have the money to do that. I agreed but our attorney didn't call on him. The prosecution tried to make it sound as if I was paying him to testify to a lie, and all I had wanted was for him to testify to the same thing as he did at Chief's trial.

The judge didn't let the jurors see Chief when we called him to the stand, and he stood on the fifth amendment.

The medical examiner changed his testimony also. From the first trial where he said the victim was unconscious on the floor as Chief stood over him and slit his throat, the blood spurting upward on the bottom of Chiefs jeans, he now said that a very strong man could have held him upright position while Donald slit his throat. Why no one even questioned that the blood would have been on Chief's shirt and not on the bottom of his jeans if that was the case, I don't know. I hadn't been allowed in the courtroom and during closing arguments they let me in. When they were lying I yelled out so the jurors could hear, but the judge ordered me locked up.

  When the verdict came back.... Death by Electrocution...I was shocked. I had expected God to make it all right. I felt betrayed and cursed God for allowing this to happen to our family...to Jeff who had always been a good son and hadn't been in trouble before.

I took my youngest son Trevor and Maria and we had to go on the run for a year. It was a long and hard time, moving from place to place, and calling my family from pay phones. They mailed me letters from Jeff and he was pleading with me not to come in...he didn't want to see me locked up like he was...but I knew I would have to do it. In the year I was gone, my two older daughters paid off the check charges off and I called the FBI. I told them I would come in if they would allow me to visit with my son before sentencing me.

I was lucky that they only gave me a years probation. I knew they could have been harder on me but they didn't. I made the trip to Tennessee to visit with Jeff and it was very emotional.

My youngest son Trevor who was eleven at the time, Maria and I moved to Tennessee to be with Jeff as death row is housed in Nashville. It was hard being alone in a strange town, away from the protection and love of my family, but it was something I felt I had to do. I wanted to be with my son for as long as I could. I had divorced my husband during all this time as he would't help me with Jeff to raise the money so I thought we'd better part company.

  The years went by and I was bitter. I stopped going to church, stopped praying...and believed that God had forsaken me. I thought he stopped loving us..and was paying me back for something I might have done in my early life.

As time went on, we went through execution dates, and it was horrible. I had read about executions and what went on, and I wanted to lash out, to break into that prison and get my son and take him to safety. I felt so helpless....and at times suicidal. People didn't want to know us once they found out I had a son on death row and as Maria got older, they wouldn't allow their children to play with her.

It was a hard time and I knew we needed something more. I knew that Maria needed to know God so we went back to church where I had many long talks with the minister. I came to realize that God hadn't abandoned us. He hadn't made the decisions that led up to the trial and that He was there, waiting. Waiting for us to come to Him.

I was rebaptized along with Maria and Trevor, and I changed my thoughts. I couldn't blame Him any longer for the problems I faced, for the pain and horror of having a son on death row. He doesn't want us to suffer, because He loves us, and I finally had come home. I still had times of uncertainty and went back to my old habits and I had to fight the urge to lash out at God and blame Him once again, but I know that I'm winning.

Trevor had the same problems in school with the kids not being able to play with him, as if we were lepers...he became bitter and turned to drugs and alcohol. He even tried suicide and I didn't know how to help him. He also was mugged and pistol whipped and left for dead. I didn't know how much more I could take...the state of Tennessee was destroying my life..and the lives of my children. Trevor had been at the trial and at eleven years old saw what was happening. Saw the judge sentence him to death and that was very traumatic. Today he is doing great, off drugs and alcohol and is raising a family of his own. He was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from this experience and spends his life speaking out against the death penalty in the only way he knows to help his brother.

Maria is now almost eighteen and Jeff has come to the end of his appeals. We're doing all we can, and I try to get people to write to our governor asking for Jeff's sentence to be overturned to life. It seems as if nothing goes right for us and I have learned that it takes money if you are to get justice in the United States. I have a letter written by a minister after he talked to Donald Strouth saying that he knew Jeff was innocent of the crime and when I asked if he would testify to what Donald told him, he said he couldn't because it was privileged. I can't understand how an attorney or minister can keep information that would prove someone innocent can sit there and not speak out. I can't understand how detectives can get on the stand and lie to sentence someone to death. We tried to get a lie detector test done on us, and wanted the detectives to take one also, but they said they didn't have to.

F.Lee Bailey had a show out called Lie Test...and we were to be on it, but the show was cancelled just before that. It seemed as if we were never goign to get justice.

Another Mother's Day has passed and I got a card from Jeff. I'd like to share with you what he wrote on the inside of the card.

"Just wanted to wish you a happy Mothers day and say how very much I love you. There could be no greater mom to be found on the face of this earth. Sometimes I wonder why God has punished me for something I have not done, but then I realize that he hasn't punished me, but rather blessed me with the greatest mother that ever lived. And I would rather be behind these walls and have you for my mom, then to be free and not have you. For to not have you for my mom and best friend would truly be a prison I couldn't stand. I thank God, he has blessed me with you and I pray He blesses you for all the lives that you touch and all the pain that you have suffered in this lifetime. You are truly one great woamn, with the strength, wisdom and love in your heart you have blessed many. And mom I couldn't be prouder of anyone else. The pride and love I feel in my heart when I hear your name being mentioned is beyond measure. You are my greatest friend and confidant and I love you with all my heart and soul. Yes, when I think that God could have given me any other mother in the world, yet he gives me you. I realize how greatly he must have loved me and blessed me. I wouldn't change a thing. I only pray that God allows me to pay you back one tenth of the joy and happiness that you have given me in life. Mom, you are the greatest and I love you so very deply. Have a wondeful mothers day and may all your dreams come true and I will be with you in spirit. May peace be with you always."

Jeff also knows what to say to me and I cry when I read his letters and cards that he sends. It breaks my heart to see him being locked away for all his young life...and for something he didn't do.

I have a ministry for the others on death row as I've come to love these guys that society had deemed unfit to live. I know that Jesus himself was thrown in prison and sentenced to die for a crime that He did not commit and that He only gave love. I try to do that, to love those who persecute us, but sometimes it's hard when I hear my daughter crying because the state wants to kill her daddy.

We speak out at schools and I tell our story...so that perhaps some other child will remember Jeff when one of his friends asks him to do somehting he knows is wrong...I tell them you dont have to be guilty to be in prison, or on death row...just poor.

I belong to MVFR and we have our own organization called Journiers for Justice that we hope will help to stop the violence in this country. I have devoted my life to this cause and to see my son walk out those prison doors a free man.

I don't know what the future holds, if they will actually go though with the execution and kill my son. All I can do is keep on praying for Jeff and for all the men who are on death rows that their sentence will be overturned to life in prison.

I feel that God has worked with me, to change me from the bitter person I was in the beginning. I'm not saying that I do everything right now, but I try. I remember the jail break I planned in the beginning when I knew they were going for the death penalty for Jeff. I was at a point where I was going crazy with fear, and there wasn't anything I wouldn't have done to get him outside and run with him.

God had given me strength over the nineteen years that Jeff has been in prison. I have been led to reach out to other kids and try to prevent them from being in the same place as Jeff. Last year I went on death row and made a video with four of the death row inmates talking to the kids about drugs and alcohol and getting into trouble.. It's called The Choice Is Yours and I take this video to the high schools and talk to the kids about what happened to my son when he chose the wrong kind of friend and I know I'm reaching them. I also sold five books on capital punishment including my life story called They're Going To Kill My Son so I'm reaching a lot of people. And I have made a few good friends who like me for myself and don't hold what I've done in the past against me.

Life goes on, and I feel as if I'm still in limbo. Not really living, but existing. Existing for the day when my son walks out of that prison a free man. Then my life will be happy once again.

We lost my father seven years ago. He never lived to see Jeff free. Now my mother is ill with emphysema.

If I could change places with my son I would do it. I die a little each day, just knowing what could happen if we lose in our appeals. Sometimes I am hopeful, then others it seems as if it's a losing battle.

 I would ask those of you reading this to please write to our Governor asking for clemency for Jeff Dicks. If you feel you can not do that, simply ask that he look the case over because testimony was changed from one trial to the other.

Governor Don Sundquist
State Capital Bld.
Nashville, Tn. 37243-0001
E-Mail:  dsundquist@mail.state.tn.us

Last updated May 7, 1997