I, like many other inmates, believed I was too young to be on death row. I am eighteen, and have been on death row for a little over a year now. I have been cold. Yes, it was the middle of a cold fall night, but this was far worse. I go by Shadow. Not many people understand what I have done...

I know what it’s like to be in jail. Cold, lonely, scary, and yea, those stereotypes of the druggies, the rapists, the stone cold killers, there’re all true. Not many new inmates think they are going to make it through the first week at this goddamn place without becoming someone else’s b****. No one screws with me though, probably because everyone knows why I’m here, but no one says it. I just don’t give a crap about anything anymore. I just wanna live my life the way it was. Just kickin’ it with my old gang.

I normally ended in the joint for doin’ a bunch of dumb crap with my gang that would be about a week sentence, like petty theft. The crime I did this time to get in the slammer though, was far worse. Not stealing some random person’s twenty bucks, or fake earrings, or having drugs on me. No. This crime was far worse.

I was hangin’ out at one of my gang’s houses in the sketchy part of town after chillin’ with the some of the other members. I was getting into bed, so the house looked deserted. This is why I wasn’t too surprised when I heard a window break downstairs around two in the morning. I knew someone from the gang was drunk or high and wanted to break something, or the more likely option, someone was trying to rob this place. I reached over to the nightstand next to the bed, opened the drawer, and pulled out my favorite gun: a .45 magnum. This gun had the works. It looked badass, and there was no safety switch; which meant if there was a bullet to fire, the gun would fire. I silently checked to make sure it was loaded.

The house acts like a storage house for some of our goods. We kept whatever we could store here. We had some food, some of the things we stole from cars like some stereos, we had some of our guns and ammo there, some cash was kept there, a couple wallets and purses, and a bunch of other crap. We all knew the damage other gangs could produce, which is why we needed this stuff. It was our source of income for food, and of course, our guns and ammo.

Instructions in our gang are simple, if someone who is not part of our gang is in one of our houses, get rid of them, but not kill them. I could tell if someone was part of the gang based on our gang’s symbol tattoo: a green snake wrapped around a black skull. If he had the right tat and it was visible, he could stay.

I crept down the stairs from the bedroom, with my gun drawn, and saw the intruder. I stayed in the shadows. I was always good at not being noticed. That’s why the gang gave me the name Shadow. I silently studied the thief from the darkness. He obviously believed he was alone in the house, as it was often deserted. Studying the intruder, I saw there was no tattoo. He was not a part of our gang. As he was stuffing all he could carry into the brown pillowcase he brought, I moved from the foot of the staircase to the shadow by the door, so I was facing his back. It was not far, the bottom of the staircase was about three feet from the shadow by the door, as the stairs and the door were right next to each other. I was facing his back as he continued loading the pillowcase with my gang’s valuables.

I began to slowly sneak up behind him, being extremely cautious to make less noise than a dead fly. I did just that. Once I was within about two feet of the intruder, I stomped my left foot down in order to get his attention while I swung my right hand holding my magnum at his head. The plan worked. The stomp got him to turn his head just a little to the right so the butt of my magnum hit him square on the right of his forehead. He was now on the ground, knocked out cold. I then pointed my magnum at the rookie thief, and unloaded a shot to the head, and three to the stomach.

Unfortunately for me, the cops were a mere two blocks away, and heard the shots I fired into to thief. When the police pulled up to the house to see what was going on, I panicked. I knew I had just killed someone. My first thought was to go to the rest of my gang, but I didn’t want the whole gang to be sent to the slammer because of me. Plus, if anyone else from the gang went to the same prison as me, I would be brutally murdered within about three days. That’s just how this gang is.

As the cops pulled up and got out of their car, I didn’t think. They cautiously stayed by their car, but were not inside or behind it. They called out to me asking what happened. I couldn’t respond. They asked again. I could not think. I watched myself as I pointed the magnum still in my hand at the two cops and fired all three remaining shots at one of the officers. One shot hit him in the arm, another in the stomach, and the third in the head. I then pointed the empty gun at the other officer and started pulling the trigger. I heard clicks, and felt no recoil. I then knew the gun had no more bullets. I quickly reached into my deep pockets to try to find more bullets. There were three.

I tried to load those three bullets into the magnum, but I couldn’t move. I had just killed two people. One of them was a cop. I managed to get one of the bullets into the gun, but dropped the others while doing so. I tried to grab the fallen bullets off of the floor, but as I reached down, the remaining officer shot me twice in the stomach. I felt a deep, agonizing pain, then I just felt cold.

Some people think they know what it is like to be cold, but I guarantee it is like nothing I have ever experienced. I felt as though I would rather be lost in the arctic tundra for a month naked. I know that would be warmer still than being so close to death. I still feel this way.
I couldn’t move from the wound. The cop was able to easily cuff me and I assume get me to a hospital. I blacked out on the way. I faintly remember waking up to a bright light in my face. The light was very blurry and I could faintly hear muffled, slurred voices. I thought I was dead. I don’t remember anything after that until waking up a jail cell.

I was now a murderer, who was placed on death row.