Transcript
NO TITLE March 13, 2018 True Story is a Real Life event. The construction of my words are meant to touch those who take the time to read them. It's a story of loss, of living through it, and how hard it's been on my mind, and my heart. My hopes are that my story will help someone "coping through it," in life... Maybe even save a life... My name is Donald R. Chapman. I've been in prison 15 years... Started at 18 yrs old, and now I'm 33... Last summer on August 3rd I got on a payphone and Avery Mitchell Correctional and called a person whom I've known for a long time, but don't consider a friend. As we spoke it became clear she knew of something that had happened to my wife... I couldn't get her to tell me because she had spoken to my mom prior to this call, and was asked to reveal no details. So I hung up and placed a call to my mom and my very worst fear in this world became a reality. My mom told me something that till this day haunts me... She said, "Rorie, Jojo is gone..." Gone? What do you mean gone? Gone? How? I felt so many emotions and as she explained the how's, the what's, and gave me what little she knew. I broke down in tears, and it was at that moment that I wanted to die... Life had dealt me a losing hand, and i was beyond wanting to deal with it. At that time the details of facts were few. But now over 7 months later I knew almost everything there is to know about what happened... This isn't just a story about me... It's a story about family, and love, and dreams beyond prison. So at this point I ask that you open your hurts and try to place yourself in my shoes... Jolene Dallos died August 2nd 2017... She was found by our son Bryan dead... She died in a praying position on her knees beside her bed, with her head laying on the bed itself... Bryon tried to lift her onto the bed thinking that she was alive... Once he realized he couldn't move her, and she wasn't waking up, he ran outside of her apartment and got a neighbor... JoJo was 31 years old when she passed away... June 23rd 1986... Just turned 31... Me and Jolene connected in 2015 after many years of silence... I had a cellphone, and though I know it was against the rules I don't regret it at all... I found her on Facebook and instantly we picked up and became best friends... She told me of all the things that happened to her over the last few years and never in my life did I feel so emotionally charged... In 2013 while working in a bar in AtL Georgia. She was confronted by 3 men from her past. All the guys had killed 3 of her friends in a drive by when she was a teenager. She testified. She opt her boss to make them leave. Later as she wrapped up closing down the bar she called a taxi, and went outside to wait. They was waiting as well. She was dragged behind the dumpster and raped in every place of her body, she was cut, her hair was ripped out, and the guy driving the taxi found her nearly dead... She survived... 2014 her daddy dies. She becomes homeless... So she moves back to North, Carolina and that's when I connected with her. We've always loved each other... But it was beyond friendship. Our connections was a meeting of the minds, and a banding of 2 exact same hearts. You see our pasts of hard living and deep pain led us to many mistakes. Their mistakes become tragedies. And our scars made us psychologically torn... We both suffered from bipolar, and anxiety... I have borderline personality disorder, and both of us could talk about the hurt, and feel like only each other could understand... Jolene is model beautiful... Don't believe me look up JoJo Dallas on Facebook. She was tatted on almost every inch of her body... Hair sometimes pink, blue, or blonde. She was so, so, so beautiful. But she suffered from a deep depression because I was locked away, and because she had lost her daddy whom was her rock... Amazingly she could survive every tragedy thrown her way, and it not only served as a deeply rooted inspiration, but it made me love her in ways that can't be described. With a cellphone we was able to connect at almost anytime. But having one in a place like this for a non gang member/civilian had some risks that could become dangerous, as well as institutional risks that could extend my prison time. So I ended my cellphone days and was set on gaining my Medium Custody level, and getting closer to my hometown in Western N.C. For years I tried to get close to home but zero luck... So I in October 2015 transferred to Lanesboro Correctional by manipulating a religious diet so that I could leave Bertie that was on a institutional lock down for many stabbings by signing up for a kosher meal. I was sent to 1 of 4 places in N.C. that offer kosher as an option. By making this move, and by getting rid of having unneeded risks, I gained my medium custody in February of 2016. However with much depression over Jolene overdosing herself in December of 2015 in a suicide attempt. That overdose produced a heart attack and a 3 day coma that was seemingly the end of her existence. The doctors said she was gone. Yet she woke up... And again she got her life together. Got a trailer, and started N/A classes, and even Sign Language classes because her heart attack at reduced her hearing to less than 40% in 1 ear, and 0% in her other. She feverishly wrote me letter after letter, and would beg for 10 page plus letters from me on a daily basis... We got engaged and in March 2016 right when we was set to meet again for the first time in many years I was packed up to be transferred... I had gotten medium custody to get a prison near her. But soon realized that my bags were labeled to a prison in the very opposite direction... I made my stand and refused to board that transfer bus and was thrown in segregation for 30 days. Jolene wrote me so much I couldn't keep up, and when I was released into regular population the phone was the first place I went. We had a visit scheduled again, and they ship me... again!!! I had discontinued my kosher meal plan because it would restrict the places I could go to. Well, the policy was wherever you come from (Bertie) is where you go back to. So right before my weekend visit the 3 1/2 hour trip for Jolene now become 8 1/2 hours again. For a woman with my 2 children, recovering from a heart attack, with no employment, it's virtually impossible to make that trip. 17 hours driving. Food... time... gas... we are taking a $400.00 trip... She was so upset. Back at Bertie I was met with resistance when I tried to set up a marriage for me and JoJo. She bought a dress, I got her her square diamond ring and we was set... But I was stone walled by the facility chaplain, and superintendent. So again I signed up for the kosher meal plan hoping to reach Maury Correctional. I had been there before and had a library job, so I had been amongst staff and knew I could get someone to help me get closer to home... The transfer was successful... I got to Maury, got my job back, and began my march to getting moved to a prison near Jolene. I stayed there 6 months. From April 29th till the day President Trump was elected. My 10 page letters, and multiple phone calls become hard for Jolene because her life out there without me was becoming unbearable, as well as the stacking phone bill, water bill, power pill, and rent... In the summer she had a pretty serious surgery, completed 6 months of sobriety and met a man who tricked his way into her personal life... Now if you've read this far I will tell you now it hurts to write this. This guy went to her N/A meetings. With no car of her own he was a reliable way to get to and from meetings. Then it became a friendship. Movies and taking her and my kids places. For me I understand the issues of being on her own. But we got into fights, and he was a person tryin' to win her affection... Pulling her away he used his manipulation tactics to make her feel as if he was the perfect friend. The big fight occurred between us, and I didn't talk to her for about 1 month... I transferred back to Bertie because I'd been answered by Avery Mitchell for a request to sign up for school. The class they offered would get me transferred to within 2 hours of Jolene. The thing was first I had to discontinue my kosher meal, transfer back to Bertie, and only then would Avery Mitchell send for me. So I did. I got back and called Jolene... It was on that October day that she told me she had begun to use heroin... Days later I was in the hole for an alteration with staff, and it resulted in my missing a chance for school, and my visit with JoJo. Through many letters she told me how her and this guy had got in a fight, then manipulated her into believing she was a bad friend because he had relapsed and starting using heroin again. He blamed her for not going through with him. Jolene was so loyal, and was so sad, and so psychologically damaged that she used to prove her friendship. 1 year later she's dead... When 2017 came around we was as close as ever, and I never judged. I went through it all day by day with her. Her many letters describing her addiction to heroin and the needle broke my heart. She described using as follows: When it enters my veins Rorie it takes me to a place where we are together. I feel the fire of you... It's like your venom is running through my veins, and we are one." I felt honored, but broken. I loved her so much that I never cared about her mistakes, or wrongs. She was my entire world... I'd die right now to bring her back for 1 kiss. 2017 progressed to summer and her and the guy friend became enemies, and he became a stalker, and would not leave her alone... August 2nd 2017 she was killed... We was planning a visit because in June I was shipped to Avery Mitchell, and I was close to home... But it never happened. On that day she'd been with my son Bryan watching movie together enjoyin' a mother-son night together because his sister Brianna was spending the night with a friend. After the last movie she put him to bed. And from that time of him going to bed she was visited by this guy... He had become fed up with being ignored... He played the sorry role, gained entrance into her home, and he tricked her with a fatal dosage of heroin. He knew it was gonna kill her. He knew that she would never love him. Like a thief her life was stolen. 1 year prior in 2016 August she'd stood up on a stage and gave her testimony to the world at a suicide awareness convention... 1 year later... gone! When my mom told me I lost my will to live... Within 24 hours I was put in segregation and transferred back to Bertie—by 3 weeks times... I dealt with the pain by getting as high as I could and by beggin' for death to take me... Dealing with the magnitude of a loss such as losing your soulmate in this place is by far the most impossible thing to cope with. I had done all I could... I knew my hustling to send her money, and getting my family to pay her bills, and my unconditional love had kept her alive an extra couple of years... But Jolene said something before she overdosed herself purposely in December 2015. We was on the phone and 1 minute was left... She told me, "Rorie you just haven't accepted it..." I was like accept what? She as time expired said, "I'm not gonna make it without you here..." I listened as she cried 20 months prior to her demise letting me know to prepare for my life without her... goddamn man... that's so impossible... 7 months has passed, and I've gotten sober... 1,000% sober... every day is a struggle, and I cry several times a day 'cause I listen to music many hours a day, and we connected through music... Jay-Z is our favorite artist, and if you go check her out on Facebook you'll see HOVA tatted on her forehead... Being in prison was so hard for us both because she wanted, and needed me home... My being home could have saved her life, and made that 2015 prediction of us never living our dreams together vanish... It's a blessing we have kids together, and I make sure Christmas's, birthdays, and their lives are filled with my love... I love them so much... The resentment of begging for a transfer close to home for all those years, and being ignored is very strong. How can that be okay? And to have it end so close to that moment when our lips touched again... The way I loved her can never be duplicated. Nor will I try. I've dedicated my life to JoJo's cause... Suicide awareness, bullying prevention, and my heart belongs to her memory, and it begins, and ends with my loyalty to what we represented. Prison may hold me. The pain may still drown me with tears. I may cry every time I hear our songs "Love You Like I'm Gonna Lose You" by Megan Trainer, and J. Legend, and "All of Me" also by John Legend... But after all's said and done I'm still alive. I still have a responsibility to be a dad, and I promised JoJo I'd always "rep" her... So I will... Becoming sober, clearing my mind, and losing my JoJo AKA Mizz Bear brought me to write this story... Prison, love, loss, and the will to keep going. The honor to have loved so deeply will forever rule my being, and I know I will beat these odds... This is one of many essays I will write. I just had to make my first a testimony to those reading that it's not all about percentage, and conditions... We are humans. Struggling with real shit... The Opioid Epidemic is real... And I swear I will get out this place and save lives... To anyone who feels like life is over. Your big break may be tomorrow, or next week. Giving up and feeling like it's too much can change just as quick as you decided to say goodbye... My address is P.O. Box 129, Windsor, NC 27983. Jolene's speech is online, and her Facebook is still alive at JoJo Dallas... My prison term still has 10 years... So I've got a lot to talk about... Peace my friendz. Until next time... Donald Rorie Chapman
