The hell begins when Franky Carrillo Jr. is accused of murder and later wrongly sentenced.
There were moments of desperation. It was logical, being in prison with a jail sentence that ensured he would spend the rest of his life incarcerated was not a situation that would give tranquility to any human being in this world.
“I tried to stay calm, to control my mind, but sometimes desperation would overcome me, regardless of the hope I had. Then a memory came to me that helped me a lot in prison. As a child, one day on my way to school, one of my shoe laces came lose and got tangled. Not being able to walk because of the tangled lace, I became desperate, lost my calm, but I started working to untangle the lace. I succeeded after a while and managed to calmed down. In my cell, I did the same, I took one of my laces and tied many knots in it, then patiently would undo the knots while letting time pass by and that is how I made friends with that situation, that helped me spend more than twenty years in prison,” says Franky Carrillo Jr., a Latino who spent just over twenty years in prison, wrongly convicted and released when errors in his conviction were exposed.
Franky Jr. and his two sons.
“You can be in the most complicated moment, but you must keep hopeful. I’m not lying, many times I was angry, the system had failed me, many people had failed me, and I found myself unjustly imprisoned,” adds Franky.
His case gained notoriety upon his release in 2011. After several years, the Innocence Project organization worked tirelessly to show errors in witness statements and investigators’ efforts to incriminate him.
I ask Franky Jr., how did you manage to endure loneliness, isolation, and anxiety in prison? In society, there are people who complain because their day or weekent got ‘ruined’.
He laughs.
“It’s all about controlling thoughts. Many times I got into my head thinking that if someone looked at me, it was because they didn’t like me. And it wasn’t true, I had to learn that they were just thoughts in my head, I had to put them aside and focus on the positive, on hope. The last ten years of being locked up I spent them in Folsom State Prison. An old, stone, cold prison. There I understood many things that made me grow, I started meditating, doing Tai Chi. I made friends with things that were going to break me,” he adds.
“It was the most beautiful example I could have. It was a pride to be my father’s son. He taught us to be very polite, to greet, to shake hands, he didn’t like tattoos and I still don’t have any on my body,” he proudly says.
For Franky Jr., this was fundamental. Being in isolation was learning to be with himself. To love himself.
“I fell in love with being alone, reading, being at peace with myself, spending hours, days alone with myself,” he adds.
He says that even today, being free, he seeks moments to be with himself.
“Many people don’t understand it, they think I’m sad, depressed, it’s difficult for them to understand that sometimes I enjoy being alone, in silence,” he mentions.
Franky Jr. went through several character building events at a young age. His parents divorced when he was little and his mom left home. His father took care of him and his brother and two sisters.
“It was the most beautiful experience I could have had. I was proud to be my father’s son. He taught us to be very polite, to greet, to shake hands, he didn’t like tattoos and I still don’t have any on my body,” he proudly says.
One of the most valuable things his father left him was the encouragement to help people.
“My father always did it, if we were walking and he saw someone on the street who needed help, he would help them. in prison I did that which I had learned from watching him, I helped as many people as I could, I wrote letters for them, acted as their translator when their lawyers came, exchanged advice with them. You don’t have to question, just help, that’s what I learned from my dad,” he adds.
He believes that this experience and his way of seeing the world will help him in his candidacy to reach the California Assembly this November.
Years passed, his legal resources ran out. Coming from a family without resources didn’t help him. He also suffered the loss of his father, he felt alone without him, but hopeful.
“I would go to the library and consult law books, I would try to find a way, another inmate told me that I was being reckless, he said that I didn’t realize that my appeals weren’t progressing, that I was accused of murder. ‘No te hagas pendejo, give up, no one will rescue you.’ That got into my head and I told myself, ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to prove it, I know I’m a dreamer, but I kept trying and I succeeded,'” he mentions.
With 15 years in prison and after sending hundreds of letters to organizations and people, he managed to get the Innocence Project to look into his case. Five years later, he achieved his freedom.
“I had so much hope that I even rehearsed in my cell, I would ask myself, ‘how will a man behave when free?’. I visualized being free, I thought that I had to greet people, shake hands, treat people with respect, help the needy. I would try to see myself doing all that, trying to be a man in my cell. I questioned myself over and over again, what kind of man do I want to be?” he says.
When he was released, he tried to bring that visualization into reality, to his surprise, few returned his greetings.
When the judge pronounced his freedom, Franky Jr. faced another question. The magistrate asked him where he would live. Silence filled the courtroom. He didn’t know, his father had died and the house had disappeared. His brothers didn’t offer him their home. And then, one of his lawyers spoke, “he can stay with me and my wife, that will be his temporary home.”
Franky Jr. laughs again.
“The lawyer lived in Manhattan Beach, a few blocks from the sea. My father always told me that I had to pray. I wasn’t very religious but I listened to him, I prayed, don’t you think this is all a miracle?” he asks.
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