Woman Condemned

Life in prison for women can be just as violent and deadly a place as it is for men. Women with life sentences know that prison is their home for the rest of their lives. Others will come and go, but they will remain. With this knowledge and ultimate acceptance, comes the need to nest, adjust, acclimate, and make the best of what is now their forever home. While male lifers go through the same process, women do it in an entirely domestic way. Males tend to become more isolated as years go by. Women do the opposite. They form families by proxy and each member fulfills a vital, and oddly colloquial, role within the family unit. Women who have a life sentence to serve start out like everyone else. It is after the years accumulate that she begins to take a place of honor among other long-term inmates and the newbies quickly learn she is the one to respect. Some women take on this role with a firm hand and hard line. Others are more soft and motherly, keeping to themselves and impart

A 64-year-old man found shot to death in his home on the Delaware River last month was killed by a woman who'd lived there and manipulated the crime scene to make it look like a robbery, the Bucks County District Attorney alleged Friday. Jennifer Lynn Morrissey, 33, is charged with criminal homicide, burglary, a gun charge and tampering evidence in the death of Michael McNew, a pharmaceutical manager. Authorities found McNew dead in a chair in his River Road home Aug. 8, shot in the face, and a bullet casing on the floor nearby, the office said. He'd been killed two days prior and one of his registered guns was missing. In a statement about the arrest, and court documents, the district attorney's office said they built a case against Morrissey through her cell phone and four confidential informants. Morrissey and McNew had a prior relationship, but he'd ordered her to move out of his house. A search of Morrissey's iPhone found user-deleted text messages

My dad was often involved in illegal activities and as a result we moved a lot during my childhood. Only once or twice were my brother and I ever at the same school for two consecutive years. One year in the late 70's, we lived in Portage, Indiana in a duplex. Our connecting neighbors changed several times in the year or so we lived there. The ones who stayed the longest were a couple, Zina and Dave. They buddied up with my parents and spent long nights drinking and playing cards. I remember Zina the clearest because Id never heard that name before and she had a huge dark gold Afro, bronze skin, and a loud laugh. A few months into the friendship, I noticed things had cooled off a bit. No more card games late at night or bottle rockets in the yard. My dad was a notorious abuser and one night I awoke to him throwing my mom around the room. He was accusing her of being an accomplice to Zina, who had apparently been caught in a set-up trying to find a hit man to kill her husband. M