My 15 years of freedom have been harder than all of my death row years combined.
— Nick Yarris
In death row every rule in society is flipped.
I lived around the man who was the model for Buffalo Bill in the movie 'Silence of the Lambs.'
There were several appeals, but I ruined it all by escaping after three years inside. I was being transported to court and we stopped to use the rest room. There were two sheriffs and I managed to get away. I out-ran a helicopter, got on the aeroplane and went to Florida.
My sentence formally was imposed on my mothers 50th Birthday January 24th 1983. The jury recommended it July 1st 1982.
I used music and reading to erase my world, so basically I read for up to 16 hours a day for 23 years.
If you torture a man as I was tortured he will learn more about love than you could ever imagine, and that has left me vulnerable.
Everyone seems to be rushing through their lives, wishing they had just two minutes to do all the things they want to get gone.
Here's the crazy thing: if I was guilty I would be entitled to job training, housing, medical treatment. But I have nothing. I was released with five dollars and 37 cents of my own money.
I didn't mind the 23 hours a day solitary confinement for the majority of the time, because after the first few years in prison, when I stopped being angry and started to like myself and understand myself, it was OK. I still enjoy my own company sometimes.
I genuinely believe that being on death row for 22 years ultimately saved my life. It was the greatest adventure of my life, and I survived it.
When everyone is spitting in your face and you can be nice back to society - that is the ultimate self empowerment and that’s what I was striving for.
It is really difficult to read a movie script about yourself and to think that a major actor - perhaps even Chris Pine - is going to play this role is really daunting.
It is a strange thing that true crime has now got entertainment value. I don’t know why people love shows about crime so much.
They put me in solitary confinement, and although I went on to do 8,755 days of solitary in total, the first two were the hardest. I almost went mad, beating my head against the wall.
I have nothing negative to say because what happened to me has happened to many others and I need to always remember that it was not personal what happened to me.
Death row saved my life. It taught me everything is a luxury to be treasured.
There is a man out there who prosecuted me. He's been constantly calling different lawyers, telling them how afraid of me his is. He's afraid I'll come after him now that I'm out, because of all the horrible things he did to me. The furthest thing from my mind I would ever do is waste a day being vindictive.
I taught myself German and psychology. Learning about psychology really helped me understand myself and the others around me and it helped keep me sane.
I circumnavigated the globe while I was sitting in a prison. It was wonderful because I kept defeating those walls they put around me.
The whole purpose of my education ultimately was so I could deliver a statement eloquently before my execution.
I realised no one else was going to care about me so I started to be nice to myself.
So the chances of you being sentenced to Death Row in America is roughly the same as you winning the lottery.
The world on the outside was tougher than I imagined. I felt allergic to fresh air, and my feet hurt from wearing shoes again. I didn’t know how long I was going to live, so I did everything as fast as I could.
I was 20 when I was sentenced to death. My life had been on a one-way path to self-destruction for years. I don’t remember too much about my early life, but I think I had a happy childhood, growing up in Philadelphia in a loving family with five siblings.
My worst memory is living through the 1989 riot in Huntingdon Prison.
For more than 20 years my identity was bonded with those people on death row, I cared about them.
I used to dream about being able to sit at a table with another human being, have a normal conversation, and have a meal with normal cutlery, and have normal moments.
I believe life imprisonment is far worse than the death penalty.
I had an enormous responsibility not just to survive but to become a good man because I had all of my family's hopes on my shoulders because they walked around outside without the shield that I carried knowing I hadn't done anything.
The hardest thing to do when people are hurting you is to remain a decent person.
