Cornelius Dupree Jr, is a better man and human being that I am because if my life was turned upside down this way due to mistakes in the justice system or the fact that someone lied against me or wrongly picked me out in a police line-p or that race played a role in this mess, heads will roll. However, you have to admit and take into account, these things happen and what more can you do but accept the sick and fraudulent apology offered though it does not give you, your life back. I still cannot get my head around the fact that this man, “innocent man,” I must add, spent close to the number of years I have been on earth in prison. I look back on my life and I am ever so grateful no matter the challenges I have had to face. It is nothing compared to the pain and injustice he has suffered. To be locked up, knowing full well, the politics of prison, I have no words to describe what he has been through, must be feeling and is still feeling. To know anything could have happened to him while behind bars is scary. I cannot imagine the agony his mother has been through. So, I understand when he says he has mixed emotions. Who wouldn’t? I don’t know him and I am mad like hell on his behalf. Reading comments on news stories and people are talking about compensation and that they pay him millions. I am tempted to scream, money cannot replace time wasted, love not discovered, relationships not had, dreams not built, hopes dashed, beatings endured…no amount of money can make up for any of these facets of life has missed out on. Not a single billion can do that.
The knowledge of knowing that your life could be so different to what you have known is a painful reality.
I would like to think this could never happen again but we all know that is not feasible…
Nevertheless, it is worth being grateful that he is alive to tell the tale. Without a doubt, it is sad and beggars belief that his life was stolen from him but it is not lost. He is still physically alive and one hopes that he survives mentally and emotionally after his ordeal because Cornelius Dupree Jr, needs all the help he can get to have some form of normality though that does not exist but at least, he is able to build a life again.
