For being in prison, my daily life is quite full.  I train service dogs full-time.  I currently have a black Labrador named Bode.  We work with C.H.A.M.P. Canine Helpers Allow More Possibilities, Inc. (www.champdogs.org).  This is a rewarding job full of entertainment, learning challenges and love.

In addition to training dogs, I am certified to teach aerobics and am working on my personal training certification through AFAA.  I teach at least four classes a week for the other offenders through a committee called BLAST (Better Living Awareness Support Team).  We have training twice a week.  I am also taking a paralegal certification course through correspondence.  Plus, we have institutional tournaments that I participate in.  I believe in the adage “a healthy body creates a healthy mind.”  I also attend a Baptist Bible Study once a week. I do hobby crafts, crochet and cross stitch.

There are numerous daily activities to keep us busy.  However, I yearn to be released.  I have a niece that I would love to get to know and watch grow daily instead of once a month.  Because she is so young, when she comes to visit, she does not remember me.  If I only had one day of freedom, I would spend it getting to know her.  I would like the opportunity to learn what true life is like.

It is hard to put a brief summary on everything that I would like to say.  How do you put seventeen years of incarceration in 350-600 words?  They gave us some topics: have you had any positive moments while in prison, do you have regrets, etc.?  Yes I have regrets and I seek forgiveness from God and myself daily.  I also have positive moments.  I try to view live as a positive instead of a negative.  I have many wonderful people in my life and I now know how to communicate with them.  I have learned that what happened to me, what he did to me, does not make me who I am.  I had a choice to live my life as a victim or a survivor.  It took a loooong time, but once I decided life was worth living I learned how to be a survivor.

My attorneys, Mike Anderson and Ellen Flottman, filed a clemency application on my behalf asking the Governor to commute my sentence from a non-parolable life without to a parolable life sentence.  We have been patiently waiting for about 9 years.  We went public with my situation on the advice of the previous Governor’s administration.  The following is excerpted from a letter I have sent to Governor Blunt of Missouri, requesting he review my clemency application:

“I found my voice and I hope to help others find theirs. Attitudes regarding sexual abuse have changed, yet the victims’ feelings have remained the same.  I discovered inner strength because I have succumbed to true weakness, I found courage because I was a coward and I learned freedom because I lost mine.  It is my hope that eventually I will help others discover what is truly important: acceptance, forgiveness and finding joy in the life we are given.”

If you would like further information regarding my situation, please visit the website my attorneys created: www.freestaceylannert.org