I’ve been on Texas death row since November, 1999, and was first held with the others at the ‘old death row housing’, Ellis One Unit, that provided group recreation, church services, work programs – camaraderie. There was a different vibe then. Sure, men were still being led like sheep to the slaughter in record numbers, and sure, a few were innocent, some wrongly convicted and many guilty, but the deprivation of social and human interaction in all forms was not as glaring then because we were allowed to play four-on-four basketball games outdoors, able to share hugs with one another, able to lean on one another when one had some bad news and needed a shoulder to cry on, and we were able to pray in groups. Some sat around tables playing card games, chess, or just sat in silence watching a movie or sports on ESPN. In no way am I exulting that existence, because I can never be content as long as I am being held in chains. I’m innocent. But the reality of living at Ellis during that time was ‘doable’. Man was not alone.
March, 2000, everything changed, including death row’s location and current housing. From the moment we arrived on Polunsky Unit we were handcuffed and chained, from our ankles to our stomach to our hands by one long chain, and ordered off the heavily armed buses and stripped nude for the whole world to see. That became the moment I knew everything was different.
We were placed in single man cells on sections that held fourteen cells per each of the six sections that encased one of six pods. Gone were work programs, group recreation, church services and all forms of physical contact that we once enjoyed. Morale was so low, it could be sensed within the thickness of the silence. Suicides and suicide attempts spiked that first year. A black, middle-aged inmate from Dallas, Clark, started shouting madly, daily, as if he was Paul Revere, saying things like, “In five years this place will be a place of madness!” Many laughed, thinking him already mad.
Clark and three others would die within the first five-hundred days, from unknown natural causes. They simply dropped dead in their cells. Men as young as 26 and as old as 51 were now remembered as ‘how did they die’. Though many surmised their depressive stress became too much to bear.
As time passed, men started self-mutilating, one cutting his penis off and throwing it out of his cell. Another, so consumed with religious material, set himself on fire. One man stabbed himself in the jugular and made not a sound. Before he bled out, he wrote, ‘I’m innocent’, in his own blood on the wall. The following day, the Courts granted him a stay to look into his claims, to no avail. One man ate his own eye, then ate the other. He said it tasted like chicken. Many hung themselves. A few started eating their own feces. An overwhelming number sought help from the mental health department which provided them with experimental psychiatric drugs that kept them in a nebulous, zombie-like state, in which they slept all day and could not function in a coherent manner. Inmate-friends at Ellis became inmate-enemies on Polunsky. Staff and inmate assaults rose substantially. The ugly reality the aftermath, when loneliness became dictator.
Clark’s prophetic words soon became a beacon to the fact that man crumbles from the starvation of physical interaction.
I’m not exempt from suicidal thoughts, the cancer known as depression swallowing me whole from time-to-time, more often than I care to dwell on. At times I’m consumed with thoughts of dyeing, being murdered, never getting free again and never getting another chance to feel the warm lips of a lover. Will I ever again salivate over the seasonings and texture of a home cooked meal from my mother? Who says insanity is all that bad? My mind does play tricks on me.
I want to be free. My freedom was molested from me with false allegations, and I struggle every moment to exist within these solitary confines, my survival not based on my courage or strength, but on those who write me, encourage me and love me unconditionally. I survive for them.
I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I’m out of appeals and the only step left is to get an execution date. That notion weighs heavily on me, but I have given my friends a promise to continue to be me until my soul is liberated from the manacles of my flesh.
Know this – I love you. Doesn’t matter if you hate me or support me. None of it matters. For without love, we all cease to survive the day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Charles “Chucky” Mamou is living on Death Row in Texas. He is out of appeals and has always maintained his innocence. For information on his case, and to support and share his story, follow on Facebook at – Charles Mamou – How Wrongful Convictions Are Made. You can also read all the information specific to his case at Charles Mamou on this site.
Mr. Mamou can be contacted at:
Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit 12-CD-53
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351
