What if you were sentenced to death for a crime you did not commit?
Les Bower was sentenced to Texas Death Row in 1984, where he spent 31 years until the state executed him in 2015. His wife, Shari Bower, wrote a memoir about this tragedy called Before They Executed Him: A Wife’s Story of Death Row. I feel honored to have worked on her book, which was a catalyst for Crime & Compassion: without this story, Crime & Compassion would not exist.
Les and Shari’s firstborn daughter, Leslea, was just a young girl when FBI agents and Texas Rangers charged her father with four counts of capital murder. Today, she’s going to take us back to Grayson County, Texas, and share her side of the story in the first-ever episode of Crime & Compassion Podcast, Season 1.
Created & Hosted by Shayla Hale
https://crimeandcompassion.substack.com
Crime & Compassion strives to shake up how we view and treat the incarcerated. Podcast host Shayla Hale asks difficult questions to gain a more compassionate understanding of those who were written off. The podcast serves as a safe space for the formerly incarcerated, currently incarcerated, their families and loved ones, and those who work with men and women in US jails and prisons. Crime & Compassion’s goals are 1) to show love and kindness toward the captives, 2) to help bring their stories and art into the world, 3) to completely flip the narrative on the US justice system by having tough conversations, 4) to educate society on why people commit the crimes they do, and 5) to reframe how people see, treat, and think about the incarcerated.
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