August 8, 2012

Dear Ladies & Gentlemen of Mississippi’s Death Row:

My name is Charity Lee, and I am Founder & Executive Director of The ELLA Foundation™. Before I tell you about ELLA, and the reason for my letter, let me first apologize for the formality of a group letter. Currently, there are fifty-one too many of you on Mississippi’s death row, and while I wish I could contact you each personally at this time, the clock ticks, and there is much work to be done. I assure you, each and every one of you is a human being to me. I promise, should you decide to keep reading, and respond with questions or aide, you will hear from me individually.

I created The ELLA Foundation™ after my 13-year old son sexually assaulted and murdered his 4-year old sister, Ella, in February 2007, in the state of Texas. In what I hope was less than ten minutes, I became the mother of both a murder victim and murderer. Twenty-seven years before my son killed my daughter, my mother hired someone to kill my father, so I was already the the daughter of an alleged murderess and murder victim. All this murder makes me a 32-year veteran of the US criminal “justice” system.

The ELLA Foundation™ is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, based in Texas, whose mission is to prevent violence and to advocate for human rights through education, criminal justice reform, and victim advocacy. We encourage those facing great adversity to act with Empathy, Love, Lessons, & Action™ in the world, to allow that adversity to make us better people. As time passes, I am happy to tell you all you’d like to know about ELLA and myself but, for now, allow me to press on. Your families can learn more about ELLA at www.theellafoundation.com. If they don’t have Internet, they can call me personally at 210-601-9551.

I am writing to inform you that ELLA has partnered with Campaign to End the Death Penalty, a national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment, with the sole purpose of opening CEDP chapters in Mississippi. CEDP has active chapters in cities and campuses across the United States-including California, Texas, Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C. It is time the people of Mississippi  impacted by the criminal justice system have a forum to make their voices heard, a forum to effect change. The ELLA Foundation™ and Campaign to End the Death Penalty are hoping to help foster that forum in Mississippi.

You may be wondering why the sudden interest in MS, and your lives, from CEDP and ELLA. I won’t speak for CEDP or Mark, but my connection to Mississippi is personal. In May 2012, I spent three days with the family of Matt Puckett, who was executed by Mississippi in March 2012. In that short time, I grew to love them. We share a common pain and beauty (that most of you can relate to): the pain of loving someone who has been murdered, someone who can be murdered, someone who may have, or did commit, murder. The beauty comes in loving that someone no matter what…no matter what…

Because I love the Puckett family, I decided I would do all I could to help them. All Mary wanted help with was bringing attention to Mississippi’s criminal justice system, so I said, “Ok!”. I just wasn’t sure how, yet, so I asked her to give me some time.

I travelled to DC to speak in front of the Supreme Court against the death penalty. While I was there, I learned CEDP wanted to start a chapter in MS. I emailed Mark, told him I would move to Mississippi for a spell, and do all I could to contact every single family of those currently on death row, and every family of those executed by the state since 1976, in the hope of bringing the families together for support, training, and advocacy work.

I arrive in Mississippi October 1, 2012 to do just that. I will do everything I can to help your families heal as best they can and teach your family what I’ve learned since my son murdered my daughter about how to be an effective and caring advocate for change and justice.

If you are interested in learning more about ELLA and CEDP, and what we are trying to help you and your families achieve, please contact me, Charity, at [email protected] or at 210-601-6551, or Mark Clements, whose contact information is included on the opposite side of this letter.

Until we talk again…love from ELLA, Ella, and me, Charity Lee….and remember….

“It may be when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” ~~ Wendell Berry

I look forward to hearing from you soon…

Charity Lee, Founder & Executive Director, The ELLA Foundation

TO: All Mississippi Death Row inmates

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is a national grass roots organization
that fights aggressively against ALL executions here in the United States. My name is
Mark Clements a former Illinois State prisoner who received a natural life sentence for a
crime that I never committed. I was just 16 years old and found myself locked inside a
interrogation room getting beat and tortured by a white racist detective that worked under
the command of a corrupt racist Jon Burge. In Chicago Burge would round up African
American and Latino men, have them transported to the police station where he would
torture them to confess to crimes. I spent 28 years in prison before having my sentence
overturn which allowed for me to walk free and to unite with my family and friends.
While in prison it was the CEDP that came to my aid. All I had was my mother who since
died last year from cancer. I survived wrongful conviction just long enough to see my
dying mother. I am making a plead to each of you to get your family and friends involved
with the CEDP-Mississippi chapter. I believe that it is urgently important for each of you
to participate with a Campaign that is willing to fight for you. I strongly believe that
Mississippi has currently wide spread corruption within it’s criminal justice system and
behind the prison walls. What is the Campaign to End the Death Penalty? A family. We
want to build this organization with your family and friends, allowing them to have a
head of there chapter from among the group. If you are ready to fight against the death
penalty have your family and friends to contact Mark A. Clements, 847-276-1382 or email: [email protected].
The United States is the only country in the Western industrialized world that still uses
the death penalty. Since 1990, 30 countries have abolished the death penalty. Among the
74 countries who continue to execute, a tiny group accounts for the vast majority of the
world’s executions each year— China, Iran, Vietnam and the United States. In the U.S.,
more than 3,200 people live on death row. Since 1976, when the death penalty was
reinstated, more than 1,200 people have been executed in the United States. More than
three-quarters took place in southern states—and over 35 percent in Texas alone. For
decades, both Republicans and Democrats have competed to be “tough on crime,” and
throughout the 1980s and ’90s, executions skyrocketed. More recently, however, public
support for the death penalty has declined.
I look forward in hearing from you, your families, friends, church groups, and other
organizations in the Mississippi area that share equal beliefs.
Thank you all for your cooperation.
P.O. Box 25730
Chicago, IL 60625
847-276-1382 phone
847- fax
[email protected] e-mail
www.nodeathpenalty.org web