Journey to Death Row

The personal account of Willie Leroy Jones describes clearly how a man, who had never been arrested prior to his murder conviction, became a resident on death row. It establishes the fact that anyone can be convicted. In addition, the State can execute both the innocent and the guilty with the same impartiality. This true story relates how six death row prisoners, totaling nine murder convictions, successfully pulled off the greatest escape in U.S. history. The escapees walked out of a twenty million dollar maximum security prison. Mecklenburg's model prison, a prison which the administration boasted as being escape proof. The prisoners who escaped include Linwood Briley, James Briley, Earl Clanton, Derick Peterson, Willie Leroy Jones and Lem Tuggle.

Journey To Death Row/The Greatest Escape In Us History is a true story about Willie LeRoy Jones who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. After two months on death row in Virginia he decided to join five other death row prisoners and escape. Mecklenburg prison was being boasted as being an escape proof prison by the administration. I was Jones’s best friend as evidenced by his letters. Every execution creates more victims. There is no closure. You never forget.

I was born in Sanford, Maine a non-death-penalty state. I became an activist on May 5, 1990, after the horrific execution of Jesse Joseph Tafero. Tafero's head caught fire. Simply put, he was burned at the stake. I met his mother the following day. When I looked into her eyes, I saw another victim survivor. After 32 years of studying the death penalty, visiting and writing many death row prisoners, meeting some of their families and having known several of the wrongfully convicted, my decision to stop the death penalty has never wavered. I am, and always will be, against killing our own citizens. Willie Leroy Jones has been my biggest inspiration to Kill the death penalty, not people.