“How did I become a member of the Choctaw nation? Well you can only do it if you are Choctaw by blood. It doesn’t matter how much, this is with any tribe in the Americas… or rather in the U.S. as long as you can show a direct lineage to the last dawls roll call… I think it is dawls.
So anyway, I had to go as far back as my grandfather who was a member, since he was then it only stands to reason I too can be one. But I went all the way back to my 4x great grand parents, who either walked the trail of tears or were little babies during that time. I would had like to went back even further all the way to their parents to find out their Indian names. Kenluck is what Dick and Lucy Kenluck… that is about as white as names come huh? But these were full bloods.
Can I tell you a bit more about getting my ass beat by the guards? Well I can do better than that, I believe Cathy has everything I have going on in an ongoing law suit. But in short I was accused of drinking home made wine in the day room one day, it was NOT wine. It was a little cooloff drink they sell with half of mint stick I drink during my work outs. But the real reason is this old miserable bitch that works here asked me ‘what is that?’ I told her my energy drink, she then said you ain’t supposed to have that in the day room, (even though two guards that took me to the day room let me take it) so she told me to give it to her, and I said no. She then gave me a direct order to give her “that bottle” so I drank the drink and gave her the empty bottle… this pissed her off. So she goes and tells the rank I refused a direct order or something, I don’t know what she told them, but here they come, they strip me out and take me to F pod, down grading me from a Level I to a Level II. For “drinking home made wine in the day room.” So I try and tell the rank I was not drinking in the day room, where would I get it? Go look at the cameras, and they will see me mix that drink at the table and it is just what I said it was.
Well they ain’t trying to hear it Amanda, so I see it is pointless to keep trying to tell him but I still do, then one guard tells me to stop crying like a bitch… that was the wrong thing to say to me when all I was trying to do was ask the Lt to look at the cameras. So out of anger, I kicked out at the Lt… they take me to the floor and beat my ass. It was bad.
The Lt beat me three different times, but they only recorded the first one, there is a 19 minute gap from the end of the surveillance footage until the start of the hand held use of force tape.
They destroyed the footage, and the footage of the medical examination the next day. I looked bad! I’m doing this all by myself, so I kinda dropped the ball on a few things because I didn’t know about discovery. But you can read all about it.
When did I decide or come to the realization I didn’t commit this murder. Amanda, there are a few things. First, I never had any blood on me, I know that for a fact. I never washed any blood off me as I said in my statement, if I would had had any blood on me it would had been all over my clothing they tested and retested. But that black out bothered me. So yes I did question myself for a little while thinking ‘what the fuck happened?’ But not long after i was in jail, I told my attorney I didn’t do it, and I even told the DA I didn’t do it one day when he and I were in the court room alone picking my jury. But of course he would say I never said anything like that to him. Just like he will say he didn’t withhold any evidence in my case. But I know deep down in me, I didn’t do that to Mrs. Franklyn.
How often do I think about that night? Everyday Amanda. Everyday. And no it has not gotten clearer over the years. And yes I have had blackouts before. Oh you asked me if I have ‘flash backs’ well that is funny, because I have. I have had three that I cannot explain, I have told my attorney about them. One is, I seem to have this memory of being on the street where I got shot and talking to the guys that shot me, and talking to this guy named James Falcon. This came to me several years ago, I once received a letter from James Falcon out of the blue, he was in jail and just decided to write to me. Well in this letter he was talking about a night he talked to me……. Amanda I do not recall this at all. And the thing of this is, it HAD to had been when I was black out drunk, because I hadn’t seen Falcom in YEARS. I can recall the last time I saw him and it was before my daughter was born, so that would had been in 1988. But his letter to me made it seem like he talked to me one night AFTER I got out of prison, and he mentioned me saying something to the guys who shot me. I recall none of this Amanda. But i don’t know if it is due to him planting this seed in my head, but there are times I can almost see this.
I had a deep fear of this street, hell they tried to kill me on this street, I did everything I could to avoid it. So I would have had to been pretty wasted to go there.
I don’t know if Falcon is alive or not, my attorney is under the impression he is dead. He wasn’t but a couple years older than me,
But this isn’t a real ‘flash back’ for me. It is just something I see from time to time likely due to him telling me this. But if true, it had to be the night of the murder.
Two, I recall going to this bar, a Spanish bar, to buy a pack of smokes. I don’t go to bars, and would have no reason to go into a Spanish bar. But here is the thing, this bar and the guys house that shot me? They are on the same street, Ubanks. And this bar? It is on Hardy Toll Rd, not far from where I woke up at under the toll road.
Three, I also one day while just thinking of my route home to my moms house, recalled cutting through this old school on Berry Rd, Berry Elementary. And out of the blue it hit me, I jumped these fences and was getting some water at one of the fountains in the school yard, and some black guy who I guess would be a teacher was about 60 foot away and asked me what am I doing there…
So these two are new memories.”
Charles D. Raby is a prisoner on Death Row in Livingston, Texas. All text above are excerpts from a letter written to me in February of 2016. For more on his case and situation, please read this article and see my previous posts:
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/true-confessions-6574624
