I hope and pray that this email finds you in the best of health, good spirits, and divine thoughts. Myself, there are so many factors that’s contributed to me being healthy in all areas of my life right now. One being my dependency on the invisible, inconspicuous reality of FAITH. I’ve come to believe through experience, that a man is only as strong as his FAITH. I put my trust more into FAITH, religious indoctrinations have a tendency to separate people of different creeds or religious beliefs. I’m no longer with being taught, conditioned, programmed, trained, or told to be separated from any of GOD’S children. I’m learning to take heed to my intuitive nature today, that being, heart, spirit, inner voice, or what ever title is comfortable and relatable for the individual. I receive divine direction from within when listening to my inner self. This wasn’t always the case for me. I do study CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM, BUDDHISM etc…I recognize the spiritual benefits in them all. I study with the intentions of implementing any spiritual literature that teaches me about the nature and character of GOD, and the essence of me. Energy, vibration, frequency etc, I believe relates to my nature. These are the forces I concentrate on to obtain the knowledge of the true internal self for proper self improvement, self development, all to obtain self control over my destructive habits and vices. Please allow me to reintroduce myself to you.
My real name is Shawn Williams, not Harold Richardson. Mr. Harold Leroy Richardson is my cousin. Unfortunately, Mr. Richardson was killed in 1994, may GOD accept his soul. Do to Mr. Richardson not having a criminal record, out of desperation and a disregard for my cousins peace, I used his name in attempt to elude law enforcement. I had a birth certificate, social security card, and a driver’s license with my photo, all made in Mr. Richardson’s name shortly after his transition to the afterlife. Consequently, the court system never caught the deception, therefore they recognized me as Harold Leroy Richardson. Even when I revealed my real name years later, the court system recorded my real name as an alias. Again, my name is Shawn Williams, I was born 1-23-74 at Washington Hospital Center located in Washington, D.C. I’m 45yrs. of age. I was imprisoned on September 18, 2001, I’ve been incarcerated ever since for multiple armed robberies. My current release date is May of 2023, this date is subject to change depending on my institutional behavior and conduct. For the record, I was imprisoned long before l ever stepped foot in a jail, institution, or prison. I was raised up in D.C. in your stereotypical project settings by my mother who was a heroin addict all my life. Though my first love fell victim to drugs and hopelessness, I never had one ill thought, word, or feeling toward my mother. I can’t deny the hurt I experience from my mother choosing drugs as her priority over motherhood. It hurts me to the core of my being to see such a divine gift literally killing herself in front of me do to the overall effect heroin is having on this beautiful creation of GOD’S. My father was never apart of my life at all, yet, despite his lack of love & responsibility for me, I never harbored any negative thoughts or emotions toward him either. I just fantasized about what it would be like if my father took care of my mother & I. What if he showed his love for me in actions, you know, teaching me about girls, how to be tough, how to play sports, how to love & respect myself and others etc… Of course my fractured relationship with my mother and my lack of a relationship with my father affected me in a negative manner mentally & emotionally. Also, for the record, I’m no longer using my broken relationships with my parents to make excuses about my negative behaviors. I dropped out of the 7th grade. Without the proper supervision, guidance, and disciplines, I became attracted & interested in the street life, so to the streets I gave myself. Consequently, I became a product of the negativity in this street environment. Ignorance produced negative thoughts, negative thoughts produced negative behavior, negative behavior produced aggressiveness, selfishness, anger, self hatred, disrespect, low-self worth, insecurities and a host of other negative attributes that contributed to my negative lifestyle. I started stealing small items to feed myself out of the local stores in my neighborhood. From there, I got into shoplifting from clothing departments. I would shop lift my school clothes, and some of the stolen clothing items, I would sale. Then I was introduced to stealing cars. It started off as joy riding at first, but money for parts motivated a deeper interest in stolen cars. Shoplifting & stolen cars became an employment opportunity to help me suffice a particular lifestyle. As I got older, I became more materialistic, so l searched out other ways to make more money. Lo and behold, you seek and you shall find. I asked and the streets answered, drug dealing! I learned that drug dealing is two to three times more profitable than stolen cars and clothes. Who did I learn this from? My mother! I did this, not just out of ignorance and selfishness, but because I was poor, my family was poor and I wanted decent things. Drug dealing became my full time occupation, it became my livelihood. Apartments, cars, name brand clothes, jewelry, attention from all the wrong people, and other material items had my focus. I had a street reputation that helped me maintain an active criminal lifestyle. The consequences of such a lifestyle started to take its toll. I was shot twice, once in 1988, and again in 1992 do to the nature of that type of occupation, or simply put, drug deals gone bad.
I truly didn’t understand, at that time in my life, how detrimental and selfish my decision making was. As I decided to take myself through a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual hell, I did recognize within myself that I was internally empty. I was void of self love, empathy, compassion, respect, etc… Despite the money I was making from illegal drug transactions, I was miserable. Plus, everything I made I shared with my mother, unfortunately the drug money didn’t motivate my mother to kick her heroin addiction, she actually got worst. Over a period of time, I accumulated a numbness toward life, especially when it came to my mother. If my mother wasn’t good, I didn’t want to be good, if we couldn’t enjoy life together, there’s no joy in life for me without her. I really stop caring about myself because I couldn’t fix my mother’s problems. I let myself go and started using drugs with my mother. You would assume that a mother would, at the lest, attempt to convince their child not to use drugs, but in my case she benefited more by me using with her because of the availability to drugs that I had. I started using the very drug that supported my lifestyle and found out the hard way that hell does exist. I to became an addict, addicted to crack cocaine. Once I allowed crack to totally take over, I couldn’t sale crack and use crack, the usage became priority. Drug affiliates stop trusting me, so my access to drugs became limited. This lead me to robbing drug dealers. Once they got hip to me, my advantage, the element of surprise was no longer. To continue to support our drug habits, I started robbing commercial establishments, which lead me to my present incarceration. My incarceration goes outside of the perimeters of me breaking man’s law. My imprisonment has everything to do with GOD having mercy on me, sparing my life to save me from myself to help others. It would be good for you to know that I haven’t indulged in any drug use since January 10th, 2004. No cigarettes, no alcohol, no marijuana, no crack, no caffeine, despite the excessive availability of drugs here in prison. This comes out of a strong desire to want more from my life than just uncertainty, unhappiness, unfulfillment, and the unloving conduct I display toward myself and others. I want to know how to properly love myself so that I can properly love others. The majority of my life, I’ve been internally dissatisfied with myself, allowing my insecurities, and feelings of inadequacy to dictate my thoughts, words and actions, but no more! I’m at a point in my life today, whereas, I understand that I have the power within to change what I don’t like about myself, and I have the ability to love what I can’t change about myself. That’s true peace to me. Though I earned my G.E.D, I still lack so much academic knowledge making writing intimidating. I hope my lack of proper grammar, spelling, pronunciation, punctuation, etc… is over looked because of the context within my writing. I’m not going to let my insecurities silence the good I have to offer. I will not allow my lack of education to become an obstacle of hopelessness and pessimism that I can’t over come to help myself and others. I was reluctant to write in fear of my ignorance being exposed in a negative manner. I trust you, but you understand like I understand that internal growth is a process. I’m still working on the doubt I have about myself not being good enough. This doubt is caused by my insecurities, which I allow to play on my mind. Accepting the truth about my overall life, the good with the bad, gives me the ammunition I need to fight against such discouraging thoughts. My understanding of accountability and responsibility frees me from the mistake of blaming, making excuses, or pointing fingers at others for what ever reason. I’m strictly focused on the role I play in my life to understand my present mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical state of being. I’m learning that I can have insecurities and fears, but I don’t have to allow these negative attributes dictate or define the totality of who and what I am. I believe that the essence of me is spirit, and the nature of me is love, my goal is to manifest love to its fullest.
This opportunity is a blessing in disguise for me. I have every attention of taking full advantage of such a powerful public outlet to help myself and aid and help others. There’s a freedom in writing that can only be obtained or experienced by being completely honest with yourself about yourself when writing. Mrs. Jennings, thank you for allowing incarcerated men and women to have a voice beyond these prisons fences. Thank you for creating an outlet for our voices to be heard and shared. Thank you for seeing the positive power in words, in writing. Thank you for your time and attention to all the writings that is sent to you. Mrs. Jennings, may the creator of love govern all that you love and care for during the New Year and every day after.
with a sincere heart, Shawn: )
HAROLD RICHARDSON
DOC #1074145
