Transcript
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Hey, welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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I'm your host, chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey.
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So, with that being said, I have Kelly Darro on with me today, who's a part of the Humanization Project, and on this episode, she shares her story of how she spent 30 years of her life incarcerated, but now, since her release, she's been a voice for women who are still in prison to bring awareness to the fact that women who are incarcerated still have value.
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So you don't want to miss this conversation.
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As a matter of fact, do me a favor go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to my conversation with Kelly on let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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Hey, let's jump right in.
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Welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast Today.
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I have Miss Kelly Darrow on with us today.
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How's it going today, Kelly?
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It's going great, chuck, thanks for having me.
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Absolutely.
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I really appreciate you being on today.
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Thank you, I appreciate you talking to me.
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As always, I love to jump right into my interviews to have those genuine conversations with genuine people just like yourself, Kelly, to share a portion of your life's journey.
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And I love to jump right in by asking this question when did you grow up?
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I grew up right here in Virginia Beach.
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What part of Virginia Beach.
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I'm out in the Kempsville area where I am.
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Gotcha Shout out to Kempsville.
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Yeah, shout out to Kempsville, my home away from home.
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How was that out there, Kempsville?
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It's been my stomping ground since I was just a little kid.
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So, yeah, we moved down here.
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We moved down here from New York when I was like six and yeah, yeah, yep.
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So I don't even consider myself a New Yorker for real.
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but my family does so got you, wow, okay, so, so let's go back being being.
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You said you've been in Kinsville for six, since you were six years old.
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Yeah pretty much, so how was that at six growing up?
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Oh, it was fabulous.
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But, I come from a different generation so, like you know, the streetlights come on and you go home, type of thing.
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Right, exactly.
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So this area wasn't as developed as it is now.
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So, there was like a lot of woods and a lot of construction sites and we would go out with all of our friends and bike ride and, you know, explore and play on basketball courts and the whole nine yards.
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It was just a really, really yeah, and it was a really family-friendly area.
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Yeah, wow, okay, okay.
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When you finally got old enough to go out on your own, what was that like for you?
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oh, it was great um yeah yeah, I had good times, like when I hit.
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I mean I did the the usual rebelling things right, okay, you know like teenagers, do you know?
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And so I would lie and say I was going somewhere, that I wasn't going.
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But you know, I always got caught and I always got in trouble.
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You always did right, always did With no cell phones, still got caught no cell phones and still got in trouble.
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I snuck out of the house one night and came home and my mother was up waiting for me and I said how did you know I was gone?
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And she said there was no noise coming from your bedroom and they had no cell phones, but still somehow we all they knew that court yeah yeah, wow, yeah wow, amazing.
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So I met you through Taj Mayenhaf.
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He's a part of the humanization project and he introduced us to each other.
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And the reason why he introduced me to you because he felt like your story would be great on the podcast.
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And so let's talk about your story, your journey in being incarcerated, what led up to that place of incarceration.
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Oh, so many things.
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The easiest way to say it is that I took my rebellion too far.
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Ok the more detailed and more in-depth and real answer is that I was looking, I was looking for love, I was looking for someone to love me and I got involved with the wrong guy, you know, and it led me down the wrong path and I went to prison at the age of 17 for first degree murder.
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Let me pause right there.
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Taj Mahon-Haft is a part of the Humanization Project, and he advocates for those who are incarcerated, so that's why I asked you that question.
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Let's talk about your incarceration, you know, let's go back to that.
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So I just wanted to listen to the audience to know where I was going with that yeah, that's fine, that's fine yeah.
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So you were looking for love in the wrong place.
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Yes.
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Got you, yes Wow.
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And um, by my parents were completely against it.
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His parents were completely against it, and it just made it all the more exciting for us to be together.
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So we formulated a plan to run away and who okay?
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Set one of our classmates up and to steal his car and killed him.
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Wow, Mm, hmm.
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Yeah, steal the car and run away together.
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That was the plan.
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Wow.
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So what was that moment like?
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At that time, you just felt like you was going to get away and just that's it.
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Nobody's going to come after me.
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Yes, that's exactly what we thought.
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That's it.
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Nobody's going to come after me.
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Yes that's exactly what we thought.
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Wow, yes, yes.
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I believe the reason why kids do so much crazy stuff is that we have that mentality that we're not going to get caught.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Yeah, we're going to get away with it.
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Yeah, that we're all invincible.
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Untouchable.
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Yes, yes, that we can lie our way out of any situation, because that's what we do, that's what kids do.
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They try to lie their way out of every situation and yeah, wow.
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So, you think, even if you do get caught, say, stealing a bag of chips from the grocery store, you think that you can just lie your way out of it by saying oh man, I forgot that it was in my pocket and go home.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
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So when the police came and got you, so what was?
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that like how did you feel?
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If you could remember?
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Oh, I remember like it was yesterday.
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I was scared to death because we had actually taken off to North Carolina, and that's who.
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That's where we got arrested and brought back to Virginia.
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Wow.
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Yeah, yeah, scared to death.
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Wow, did you get out on bond, or did you just stay in there the whole time?
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No, stayed in the whole time.
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Never saw the streets again.
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Never saw the streets again.
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Wow, so talk about that moment where you went to court.
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The thing about going to court when you're 17, 18 years old is that you watch way too much TV Like you watch too many episodes of Matlock or Law and Order, or you know, and you think that some miracle is going to happen and that you're going to you're, you're going to go home and you don't.
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And it was heartbreaking, you know like the whole and not just, and I don't want to just talk about my situation you know, like for everybody that was involved.
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You know that one moment destroyed lives and going through court was just a constant reminder of the lives that I destroyed.
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Mm, hmm, mm hmm.
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Wow.
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So as a 17 year old, you had to go in front of the judge and and and hit a case, and so forth.
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So sentencing comes.
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Talk about that day, because I remember mine oh man, I my legs went out from under me when I got sent because, like I mean, I mean, can I go ahead and say how much I got sentenced?
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Talk about it.
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Yeah, yes, yes, I got sentenced to life under Virginia's no parole law.
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What year was that?
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1995.
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Wow, so you just missed it, then Just missed it, yep, because they stopped parole.
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What 94?
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95.
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January of 95.
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Yes, so at the moment you're in court, your family is there Judge tells you to stand up and he says, Miss Kelly Dyer, I now send you to life in prison as a 17 year old.
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That had to be like devastating to everybody in the courtroom at the time.
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It was yeah, it was.
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I clearly remember my mother saying can I hug her one more time?
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Before you take her from me.
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Yeah, but again, again, we have to.
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Yes, yes, it's.
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It's heartbreaking to go through this as a 17 year old, and I'm not trying to minimize my actions.
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I hurt somebody and their entire family.
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Yes, yes, yes.
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But with that being said, you know the other aspect is is that my actions not just destroyed the victim's family, my actions destroyed my own family, you know, and the ripple effects of every action that you make.
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It just goes on for so long and so deep and that one moment, like changed the trajectory of so many people's lives and having to put my parents through that is it weighs so heavily on me still to this day that I put them through that for all those years.
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Wow.
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So that whole situation still weighs on you mentally sometimes.
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Yes, it does, it does.
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That's deep man.
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Mm-hmm.
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So, but, that being said, you get sentenced.
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So what happens after that?
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I want to have this conversation so young people can hear what goes on with our choices that we make.
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You know what I mean, yeah absolutely yeah absolutely, um, nine months.
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I was in the jail for nine months and then I went to prison and settled in for the long haul.
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Really, it's the only other way to put it is that, you know, at 18, 17, 18 years old, hitting the penitentiary is, you know, it's a whole another world on its own.
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It's a whole nother world in there like it's, like being inside of a community that is stuck in their mentality.
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You know, and your choices are to either settle in and ride it out and, you know, join the club, or to rise above it.
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Wow, you chose to rise above it.
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Eventually, yes, but at first, no.
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I settled in, and settled in for the long haul.
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I was like, well, this is where I'm going to be and this is where I'm going to be forever.
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So I might as well, you know, join the club, yeah, plus plus the on.
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The other aspect of that is that I was still very, very young and it was basically my first time on my own.
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So I had to make decisions and choices.
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I had to grow up and I had to grow up quick and I had to figure out who I was as an adult.
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At 18 years, 17, 18 years old, you know like you don't have your parents there to shelter you.
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You don't have your big brother there to be like you're going the wrong way.
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You might not want to hang out with those people.
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You know you have to do you're on your own.
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Yeah, you had to make those choices, yep yeah, yeah, and it's survival of the fittest, like either you're gonna survive in there or you're gonna let it consume you, and I chose to survive yeah.
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So what would you tell a young lady right now who you see yourself in back then headed in the wrong direction?
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What would you say to her?
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well, I think the first question is would they even listen If?
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I could get them to listen.
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I think what I would say to them is, if somebody that's in the same position that I was in, I would have to tell them your parents really do know what's best for you.
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They really do.
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As much as you think they hold you back, as much as you think that they're making decisions and handing out punishments because they don't understand you, they do.
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They do More so than anybody else in the world, because parents have been there and done that and they got the T-shirt you know, they know what's best for you.
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They do know what's best for you, because they've made the same mistakes that you've already made.
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Right, yeah, and I would.
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I would hope, I would really hope that somebody would really think about that If they were, if they are out there listening and they're heading down the same path I was heading down.
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Just stop, take a breath and just see if it's really worth it.
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Right Think about whether or not it's really worth it.
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Wow, good answer.
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Thank you, absolutely Good answer.
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Yeah, if they, if they would listen.
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Yeah, yeah, so being in there, how long did you do?
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I did 28 years 11 months to the day.
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Wow, 28 years from 17.
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Wow, 28 years.
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Kelly, you mentioned that you beat cancer.
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Talk about that.
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I was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer in 2018 and was only because I had my second mammogram of my life, and so everybody that's listening, go get your mammograms.
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I was 41 years old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
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No history of cancer in my family, nothing like it.
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It was just a fluke.
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So I went.
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I underwent a lumpectomy, four rounds of chemo, lost all of my hair, every drop of it, and anybody that knows me knows that my hair is my pride.
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I have long natural red curly hair and yeah, and it was gone completely bald and 20 rounds of radiation and as of what's today's date, december 3rd, mm-hmm 3rd.
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Okay, two days from now is my six-year survival.
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Wow, ring the bell, Shout out to you, yeah.
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Yes, ring it, wow, Ring it loud.
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Let me ask you this so how did you get that attention?
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Were you feeling bad or something that you know made you go get checked out, or just routine checkup?
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It was just a routine checkup.
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They had started.
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There was a bunch of and anybody can you know Google Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women and see the list of newspaper articles and stories that have been written about the horrible medical care there.
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So through lawsuits, fluvanna started being held accountable for their medical care, yeah, and so they started trying to get us all in for like our routine checkups.
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And I turned 40 and had my first mammogram and everything was clear.
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I turned 41 and they were like we found something We've got to send you to UVA.
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So shout out to UVA because they are one of the greatest cancer centers in America.
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They were.
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They treated me like a human being.
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I never felt like I was incarcerated when I was there, um, and they were the kindest, most gentlest people in in I've ever met while I was incarcerated.
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They were just amazing.
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So thank you for UVA and thank you.
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I feel bad for the people that had to go through what they went through in order to get the medical care a little bit better in Fluvanna.
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But thank you, ladies for your fight, because without them I wouldn't be having this conversation with you.
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Wow, so you was at where now I was in Fluvanna, okay.
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It's in Troy, Virginia.
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It's right outside of Charlottesville.
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Well, I tell you, boy, they got prisons in them little spots, they everywhere.
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People just don't know, just don't know.
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Yeah, just don't know.
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Glad you're a cancer survivor.
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You beat it and you also came home, yep, and you got another victory, so yeah.
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Yes, more to come, more to come.
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Absolutely.
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And this isn't the end.
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You guys are going to hear a lot more from me, yeah.
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So in that time frame, what did you do?
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Did you go to school?
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Oh yeah, when I was not being a knucklehead, I went to school.
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I got a college scholarship and came home with an associate's degree.
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I studied electrical, I studied plumbing, I studied digital imaging and printing.
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I did all of the like thinking for a change classes, all of the accountability classes.
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I did building and maintenance for a long time, where I would repair things within the institution.
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I did that for like 10 years.
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I did train dogs.
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I did everything.
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I did everything that they offered and that they offered to me and allowed me to do with my type of sentence.
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I did it.
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I did it.
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That's deep.
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And my reason for doing all of that, even without any like end of the road site like this sentence is never going to end for me, but I still want to take advantage of all this stuff.
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My main reason was because, regardless of where I was, I wanted my parents to be able to be proud of me got you wow now you know yeah, amazing so.
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I know people had listening, heard you say you had a life sentence.
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So the next question is you said you came home.
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Let's talk about how you got home okay.
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well, um, thanks to the effort of organizations like the humanization project, um, who, I think and you don't want to quote me on this because I don't know for sure Humanization Project helped pass a law for juveniles to be able to apply for parole in Virginia after serving 20 years.
00:18:33.201 --> 00:18:42.941
So this law applied to me because I was 17 when everything happened and it passed in 2020.
00:18:42.941 --> 00:18:48.036
I went up for parole three times and on the third time I made it.
00:18:48.036 --> 00:18:49.097
I came home in February.
00:18:49.638 --> 00:18:50.540
Wow this year.
00:18:51.241 --> 00:18:52.585
This year 2024.
00:18:52.585 --> 00:18:54.167
2024.
00:18:54.567 --> 00:18:59.384
Haven't even been home a year, yet you said 28 years, 11 months 28 years, 11 months.
00:18:59.545 --> 00:19:00.647
I just rounded up to 30.
00:19:00.894 --> 00:19:01.796
Yeah, round it off.
