May 3, 2011 12:16 am
Students, Faculty Work Towards Freeing Patty Prewitt
By Kyle Jernigan, Editor-in-Chief
Twenty-five years ago, Patricia “Patty” Prewitt was ripped from her five children and locked away for 50 years based on bad police work and a falsified motive of “lust and greed.” This past Friday, St. Mary’s faculty and students came out to try and make sure her suffering doesn’t last another 25 more.
Prewitt was accused of the murder of her husband in 1985, and convicted after a four-day trial. Sentenced to 50 years without parole, she has since been detained at Women’s Eastern Receiving and Diagnostic Correctional Center in Vandalia, Missouri. She will be eligible for parole on April 29, 2036, when she is 86 years old.
From prison, according to Associate Professor of English Beth Charlebois, Prewitt has been “a mentor to hundreds of women” through her advocating for prisoner’s rights and her focus on educating others with job skills. Charlebois said, “She has done more good [in prison] than I will ever do out in the free world.”
Charlebois met Prewitt during her 2007 sabbatical working with Prison Performing Arts (PPA), which according to the program’s website is “a nineteen-year-old, multi-discipline, literacy and performing arts program that serves incarcerated adults and children.” According to Charlebois, Prewitt’s leadership and personality immediately showed through. “She was the unofficial leader of the acting troupe and poetry class.” She added, “[Prewitt] recruited about 90 percent of the class.”
It was also in PPA that Charlebois learned of Prewitt’s case, and was exposed to a collection of letters Prewitt had written from prison outlining her experience both leading up to and including her incarceration. Charlesbois said, “I really learned about her past through her letters, and I learned about who she was after five hours a day in class with her. I realized with increasingly horror what it meant for her to still be in prison.”
Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth Charlebois.
For many, including Charlebois, Prewitt is unequivocally innocent. Charlebois said that both court documents and Prewitt’s own accounts painted the picture of a trial tainted by sloppy police work, gender bias, bad evidence, and selective attention to details. “To me, the state did not meet the burden of proof.” Charlebois also said she felt Prewitt expressed too much love for her family to have killed her husband in her home with her children sleeping only a few feet away in their rooms. “The woman I met would not have shot her husband. I can’t come up with a scenario in my head where she would’ve done that.”
Charlebois said, “I think she was convicted because, in a small town, if you don’t have a culprit and a smoking gun you need somebody.”
Charlebois also noted even if Prewitt has been in some way implicated in the crime, her sentence demonstrates a powerful gender bias against women who kill. Especially egregious is the lack of parole on her sentence, something that according to Charlebois is granted to many other convicts who commit crimes similar or even worse tthan murder. She added, “My guess is they wanted her to plea, they stuck it to her.”
Ever since meeting Prewitt, Charlebois has sent the governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, weekly post cards from St. Mary’s asking him to free her. Charlebois has also lectured in a number of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (WGSX) classes about Prewitt, informing students who have become increasingly desirous to do something about what they also perceive as an injustice.
This year sentiments reached a head when Charlebois’s passion spread to first-year Maddie Alpert, who in February wrote Charlebois asking how she could help. Alpert said, “I heard [Charlebois] talk about [Prewitt’s case], she was so passionate and the case was so appalling to me.”
Since then, Alpert and Charlebois have worked together to coordinate students to write letters and call Nixon’s office, calling for Prewitt’s release. As efforts at St. Mary’s grew, they also became increasingly connected to the “groundswell” of support for Prewitt around the country preceding the 25th anniversary of her incarceration, according to Tim Bazzle and Brian Reichart of Georgetown’s Community Justice Project.
Reichart and Bazzle are some of the major legal forces fighting for Prewitt’s release. Reichart helped Prewitt draft her official clemency (submitted in December), and Bazzle has attempted to draft legislation in the Missouri senate which would grant prisoners such as Prewitt a parole hearing. Reichart and Bazzle, along with providing ethical and legal arguments similar to Charlebois’, also noted that there were economic disadvantages for keeping Prewitt in prison. Bazzle said this was something that legislators seem to have caught on to, and Reichart noted that the upwards of $1 million spent on keeping Prewitt incarcerated could be spent to fund upwards of 14 teachers.
To support the efforts of Bazzle and Reichart, and as a culmination of efforts throughout the week, members of the St. Mary’s community came together Friday to provide a new background for Charlebois’ weekly postcard: over 50 students in front of the Garden of Remembrance, holding a sign that said “GOV. NIXON – FREE PATTY.”
Senior Monica Powell, who helped coordinate the event, said “I feel pretty connected with this [issue] since [Charlebois has] been so passionate about it. I was absolutely happy to help.” Sophomore Aryel Rigano, also part of the event, said, “This is an opportunity to free an innocent women…I don’t know why the entire campus isn’t here.”
Like Prof. Charlebois, I met Patty Prewitt through my activity in Prison Performing Arts. Your story hit the nail squarely on the head. Congratulations to the students and faculty of St. Marys’ for acting to right a terrible wrong.
More information, including a picture of Patty with 4 of her grandkids, can be found at the website
Like Prof. Charlebois, I am absolutely convinced that Patty is innocent. But, independent of innocence or guilt, there is absolutely no public purpose, and considerable public expense, in keeping Patty Prewitt in prison. She poses no threat to society. She refused a plea bargain that would have had her home in 6-7 years because she insisted she was innocent and was unwilling to leave her children for 6 years, especially since they had just lost their father. 19 additional years is enough of a penalty to extract for refusing to plea. The state’s offer is definitive evidence that they considered 6-7 years sufficient to satisfy their perceived need for retribution and deterrence, even if she were guilty as charged.
Here’s hoping Gov Nixon will act to have Patty home for Mothers Day!
It is very encouraging to see so many people acting on their understanding of what justice requires. It is a clear counter-example to the oft-asserted apathy of your generation.
Very inspiring, and well-written piece.
I remember when I supported criminals.
I knew Patty and Bill very well back in those days. I had a furniture refinishing business and saw them every few days on business. Never once did ever observe any sort of hostility between them. They appeared to be very happy and content with each other. They were very loving towards each other and to their kids. Why Patty is still in prison I just don’t understand. She should be at home with her kids who are all now grown with families of their own. Cut her loose and restore her family.
I knew Patty Prewitt quite well. She was a neighbor, a sority sister and a business person in the town of Holden. I have kept up with some of what is going on with her. I’m sorry to say but I am sure she was quite quility. There was a lot more going on with her besides just the murder of Bill. Most people since she has been prison only listen to what she has to say. She was involved with several other gentleman with some of them being business men. She also had propostioned several men about killing Bill. She chased several family to about brake up. Maybe there is a reason that she hasn’t been parole. There was enough evidence to prove that she did it. There was also a lot of evidence that wasn’t presented in court in case the state needed to go back to trial. I don’t think Patty would harm anyone now and I am glad to hear that she has been envolved with a lot of projects but it dosn’t change the fact that Bill is not here to speak for himself. I have gone through the list of people who signed a petition for her and I don’t see a lot of people from Holden and surrounding areas on the list. Maybe some people need to dig a little deeper to find out the truth.
It amazes me the battles some feel are worthy of fighting, particularly with all the true injustices out there. Prof. Charlesbois has been impressed with Prewitt’s leadership skills and personality in the prison acting program, so now she is passionate about getting Prewitt released; she is telling students, and it appears they are taking Prewitt’s version of the “facts” without question. What a shame. From what I can tell, Pam Prewitt has become a Missouri cause celebre.
Respectfully, I find the support for Prewitt naive at best for these reasons: 1) it’s odd that Prewitt’s “impressive” personality is being used as “proof” that she didn’t murder her husband 26 years earlier. How many times do we find out about a serial killer, a Ted Bundy, etc, and hear “this is just shocking. He was SUCH a nice person!?” Professor Charlesboi concludes that “the woman I met could not have shot her husband” (my guess is the Prof. would not make a very good juror). 2) Even those with perfunctory knowledge of psychology cannot help but wonder if Prewitt is sociopathic (or anti-social personality). This arises from her behavior/actions before the murder and since being in prison. Despite Charlesboi’s assertion that Prewitt “had too much love for her family,” she was unfaithful multiple times (when her children were young). Pointing this out isn’t about “gender bias” at all, it’s important to show a person’s history of dishonesty. Three of the men testified at trial that she repeatedly begged them to kill her husband, offering them money to do so, etc. Several other community members said Pam’s desire to get rid of her husband was common knowledge. Either all of those people are lying, or Pam is lying, period. Importantly, Pam did not even question the sufficiency of evidence in her first appeal. Now that her appeals have all been rejected, she has done a great job of manipulating good but naive people into showing her sympathy. I particularly think it’s telling that most of Prewitt’s “accomplishments” and activities in prison involve being in charge of a group. 26 years later, she is still lying to everyone about her role in her husband’s death. Translation: Teaching aerobics well does not outweigh the fact that she offered multiple people money to kill her husband. 3) Some feel that, regardless of guilt, she should be released b/c of her “harsh” sentence. I’m not sure why 50 yrs for a 1st degree murder is “harsh,” especially since she would have gotten life w/out parole in today’s courtrooms (and if she killed for life insurance, possible death). She has “certainly” paid her debts to society, some feel. Has she? Has she expressed any remorse for the murder? No. She can’t, b/c she can’t admit she did it (that would destroy the support she has had from her family). “The plea deal she rejected shows the prosecutor thought she wasn’t a threat.” All this shows is that her ego was too large to accept the profoundly generous plea deal. When someone plans and executes the murder of another human being (especially a loved one), 26 years is surely not an adequate punishment. I encourage everyone to look up “State v. Prewitt” to read the facts of the case presented during her trial, versus the “facts” as told by a supporter with an agenda (or Prewitt herself). 3) Finally, the most bizarre argument for clemency of Prewitt is that of the “gender bias.” Apparently the logic is that, b/c a “gender bias” in sentencing supposedly exists, Prewitt should be released simply b/c she is a woman. The only “evidence” I can find on this “bias” from supporters is the fact that women average a few years more than men when convicted of killing a spouse. But that fact shows not bias, but the tragic reality that men commit domestic violence at rates FAR higher than women; husbands are more likely to use physical violence, whereas wives are more likely to use a weapon, poison, or to hire someone else to kill their husband. It can be difficult for prosecutors to prove premeditation when someone is killed during a domestic dispute, leading to slightly different sentencing results. But regardless, this should not matter in terms of accessing Prewitt’s criminal behavior.
Killing a spouse in cold-blood, and then lying about it for 26 years, is indefensible behavior, no matter how many aerobics classes Pam teaches, college credit Pam receives, or easily led people Pam manipulates with her “wonderful personality.”