Post by CCADP on Aug 17, 2005 7:11:03 GMT -5
Posted on Wed, Aug. 17, 2005
'God has changed my heart'
Former death row inmate released, ready for 2nd chance
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles is betting that Andrew Legare is a changed man. Dot Pinkerton has staked the credibility of her Lighthouse Mission on that prospect.
And Legare, 45, contends that he is no longer the confused 17-year-old escapee who bludgeoned to death a disabled Milledgeville truck driver in 1977.
"I feel that God has changed my heart and given me a will to live a decent life and a productive life," Legare said in an interview Tuesday at a Lighthouse Mission halfway house in Macon.
After serving nearly 30 years in prison - more than half of that time on death row - Legare is making a transition to freedom. He completed a six-month stay at the Macon Transitional Center and was released Monday on parole into the care of Pinkerton and her ministry.
Legare said the change began for him while he was awaiting the death sentence in the late 1970s. He realized that he had to openly acknowledge that he had committed a heinous crime.
"I was in a cellblock right beside the electric chair and I felt like I was going to see the electric chair before long," Legare said. "One of the things I could change was whether or not I was a liar about what I had done. Wherever there's something I can change, I should do that. And I'll do everything I can to do that."
Legare came to Georgia from his native Massachusetts in a stolen car at age 16. After stealing a tank of gasoline at knifepoint from a south Georgia service station, he landed in the Milledgeville Youth Development Center. On May 27, 1977 - two months before his release date - he and another teen broke out. Legare broke into the home of George Hill Sr., 54. And although Legare denied it at first, he later admitted on the witness stand that he beat Hill to death.
Legare was sentenced to death three times. Each time, appeals courts overturned the sentence. Finally, at a 1992 sentencing hearing, a jury sentenced him to life.
That Legare is now free from prison infuriates the victim's family.
"I'm angry. I do not feel like he should have been released. I do not feel like we were given an opportunity at all," said Hill's daughter, Barbara Mapp of Milledgeville. "It's just so unfair for someone to be tried four times, three death sentences, moving it to another county, get a life sentence and he's out on the street again. I feel when it's a life (sentence) the only way he needs to come out of jail is in a pine box."
She said Legare has never contacted her family to express his remorse.
If he were standing before her today, Mapp said, "I would tell him to do the right thing and spend the rest of his life behind bars."
Legare said he has wanted to contact the Hills and has tried several times through the years. But he said lawyers dissuaded him and later officials told him any such initiative must come from the victim's family, not from the condemned man. And he said such an effort by a prisoner could easily be interpreted as a cynical ploy for freedom.
If Hill's family were standing before him, Legare said, "I would want them to know how sorry I am, how much I regret the horror that they have lived with, the pain they have lived with, the loss they have lived with. And if there was anything I could do about that, I would do it."
Why should anyone like Legare get a second chance? Pinkerton said a question like that applies to every person.
"I think we all need a second chance and have been given a second chance in life by the Lord," she said. "When a man has accomplished so much in prison to rehabilitate himself and to do everything the system has to offer and not buck the system and see where they're at and where they're going in life and let God be in control of their life, then you see a different person. It's not the same person that goes to prison. ... It's not what they've done but what they can become in life. And only they can make those choices, good or bad. He has made those choices for himself, even before I came into the picture."
Since shortly after entering the transitional center, Legare has been working for a construction company. Married since 1991, he has had visits with his wife. Simply looking around and not seeing razor wire and chain-link fences is a marvel.
Legare said he hopes "to try to live in such a way that I wouldn't define myself or be defined by the terrible 30 or 40 or 50 seconds of my life that have had such harmful repercussions on so many people." But he said the knowledge of his crime "is something that won't ever leave me. And there are things that will never leave the Hill family either."
He added, "Some people seem to feel that growing old and dying in prison would be justice for me. I think justice is something that happens in the heart."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To contact Don Schanche Jr. call 744-4395 or e-mail dschanche@macontel.com.
The Macon Telegraph
'God has changed my heart'
Former death row inmate released, ready for 2nd chance
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles is betting that Andrew Legare is a changed man. Dot Pinkerton has staked the credibility of her Lighthouse Mission on that prospect.
And Legare, 45, contends that he is no longer the confused 17-year-old escapee who bludgeoned to death a disabled Milledgeville truck driver in 1977.
"I feel that God has changed my heart and given me a will to live a decent life and a productive life," Legare said in an interview Tuesday at a Lighthouse Mission halfway house in Macon.
After serving nearly 30 years in prison - more than half of that time on death row - Legare is making a transition to freedom. He completed a six-month stay at the Macon Transitional Center and was released Monday on parole into the care of Pinkerton and her ministry.
Legare said the change began for him while he was awaiting the death sentence in the late 1970s. He realized that he had to openly acknowledge that he had committed a heinous crime.
"I was in a cellblock right beside the electric chair and I felt like I was going to see the electric chair before long," Legare said. "One of the things I could change was whether or not I was a liar about what I had done. Wherever there's something I can change, I should do that. And I'll do everything I can to do that."
Legare came to Georgia from his native Massachusetts in a stolen car at age 16. After stealing a tank of gasoline at knifepoint from a south Georgia service station, he landed in the Milledgeville Youth Development Center. On May 27, 1977 - two months before his release date - he and another teen broke out. Legare broke into the home of George Hill Sr., 54. And although Legare denied it at first, he later admitted on the witness stand that he beat Hill to death.
Legare was sentenced to death three times. Each time, appeals courts overturned the sentence. Finally, at a 1992 sentencing hearing, a jury sentenced him to life.
That Legare is now free from prison infuriates the victim's family.
"I'm angry. I do not feel like he should have been released. I do not feel like we were given an opportunity at all," said Hill's daughter, Barbara Mapp of Milledgeville. "It's just so unfair for someone to be tried four times, three death sentences, moving it to another county, get a life sentence and he's out on the street again. I feel when it's a life (sentence) the only way he needs to come out of jail is in a pine box."
She said Legare has never contacted her family to express his remorse.
If he were standing before her today, Mapp said, "I would tell him to do the right thing and spend the rest of his life behind bars."
Legare said he has wanted to contact the Hills and has tried several times through the years. But he said lawyers dissuaded him and later officials told him any such initiative must come from the victim's family, not from the condemned man. And he said such an effort by a prisoner could easily be interpreted as a cynical ploy for freedom.
If Hill's family were standing before him, Legare said, "I would want them to know how sorry I am, how much I regret the horror that they have lived with, the pain they have lived with, the loss they have lived with. And if there was anything I could do about that, I would do it."
Why should anyone like Legare get a second chance? Pinkerton said a question like that applies to every person.
"I think we all need a second chance and have been given a second chance in life by the Lord," she said. "When a man has accomplished so much in prison to rehabilitate himself and to do everything the system has to offer and not buck the system and see where they're at and where they're going in life and let God be in control of their life, then you see a different person. It's not the same person that goes to prison. ... It's not what they've done but what they can become in life. And only they can make those choices, good or bad. He has made those choices for himself, even before I came into the picture."
Since shortly after entering the transitional center, Legare has been working for a construction company. Married since 1991, he has had visits with his wife. Simply looking around and not seeing razor wire and chain-link fences is a marvel.
Legare said he hopes "to try to live in such a way that I wouldn't define myself or be defined by the terrible 30 or 40 or 50 seconds of my life that have had such harmful repercussions on so many people." But he said the knowledge of his crime "is something that won't ever leave me. And there are things that will never leave the Hill family either."
He added, "Some people seem to feel that growing old and dying in prison would be justice for me. I think justice is something that happens in the heart."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To contact Don Schanche Jr. call 744-4395 or e-mail dschanche@macontel.com.
The Macon Telegraph