A feared convict dodged his white chaplain’s daily greeting.

Evidence

After being paroled, he moved to Meridian, Mississippi, where his mother had relocated, opened a school of self-defense, and seemed to be on a better path. But he slowly became involved again with drugs and found himself back in prison, facing a new sentence of life plus sixty years for three counts of armed robbery. A major influence on him was Wendy Hatcher, a five-foot-tall white prison chaplain who was originally from England. As Gooch told it, “Early each day, she would say, ‘Oh, good morning, Sheldon, the Lord loves you and has a plan for your life, and I hope you have a good day and God bless you,’ with that British accent. I’d see her coming in the gym in the morning, and I’d run and hide. And here I am, one of the most feared guys in this penitentiary, and I’m scared of this little bitty old white woman. But the spirit in me was on the run from the spirit in her.” — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 151