'I started writing to a death row prisoner in May 2004, having been put in touch by the charity 'Human Writes'. This is an extract from one of many letters written to me by Jack Alderman from death row, Atlanta, Georgia, over a four year period.
"Your letters impact my world profoundly. It centres on the acceptance, it is fuelled by freedom. I trust you to let me be who I am. I am not suspicious or defensive. You cannot imagine the assault on the soul when the interrogations begin. I have no complaints about doubts or questions, they are reasonable. What can depress is a facade for curiosity..."
All Jack's letters were written on the same prison file paper, placed in the same regulation envelope and stamped with a prison stamp to indicate they had been read by the authorities.
They contained the unfolding of an extraordinary story of a deeply spiritual man, who had been on death row for 34 years for the murder of his wife, Barbara. It is the story of the destruction of evidence by the State of Georgia to cover up their own improprieties and a confession by the actual murderer, who was offered his freedom by the State, in return for implicating Jack Alderman in the murder. Hundreds in the US and abroad, including the prison governor, thought him to be innocent.
He was executed in 2008 in spite of a campaign to try and prove his innocence. New evidence was discovered to show he was not at the scene of the crime, but the Court refused a retrial on the basis there were no witnesses. The witnesses were both dead.'
Simone Sandelson, 2026
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