Bente Hjortshoj - why I am an active supporter of Greg
I am 44 years old, Danish of origin, but a resident of Norway since
1982 where I got married, had two children, now 21 and 18 years of age.
I finished at the Teacher's College in 1987 and have since then been
teaching English at a private high school called Aglo, north of
Trondheim in Central Norway. In the year 2000, I finished my
post-graduate studies in American history and politics at the
University of Trondheim in Central Norway while teaching English full
time. It was rewarding, educational and extremely interesting. In that
connection my mentor asked what topic I would choose for my Master's
Degree, and by then I just knew it somehow had to be about the use of
the death penalty in the USA. I had been a member of Amnesty
International for a while, and recently joined a Norwegian organization
against the death penalty, NORAX. I received my first letter from Greg
October 20, 2000. My intention, as well as NORAX', was to reach out to
a fellow human being, to be a support in an inmate's daily ordeals. I
never gave it any thought whether Greg might be guilty, it was not my
job to judge or presume anything. So for the first year or so I did not
ask him any questions about the case. Based on advice from NORAX, which
unfortunately does not exist today, we were told to let the actual
inmate decide whether he or she wanted to disclose any information.
Besides, I knew the prison officials were scanning all letters, and
might hold any information against him. However, had Greg at any time
admitted or stated that he was guilty it would have made no difference.
That is and never was any issue for me. I simply cannot support a
system that kills to prove that killing is wrong. It is inhumane, to
put it mildly. Not to mention the fact that it without any doubt has
killed innocent people due to extreme flaws in the system, something
that I deal with in my thesis; "The Exonerated".
Throughout the entire year I got the feeling that Greg was something
out of the ordinary, extremely caring, intelligent and with a great
sense of humor, something which I admired him for being in that
position. He always asked about my kids, my students, my bad back, and
I was impressed with his personality. He never asked for anything, not
even money. He did not strike me as a hardened criminal, so I finally
decided that I wanted to know the specifics about his case, guilty or
not. He gave me the names and addresses of his lawyers, and I got the
case files from them. That probably became the turning point in my
interest since both the private investigator at that time, Tina Church,
and his lawyers, Bruce Anton and Carrie Sperling, seemed to think he
had a good case. I read the State's rejection of his first appeal, and
later his application for relief with great interest. It is not
something anybody can just read and understand just like that. I have,
though I am a non-scholar in this field, due to my research in
connection with my own thesis on the subject established some knowledge
on the matter.
However, there were and still are many things I still not quite fathom.
For instance, how is it possible for the State of Texas still to
withhold material evidence from Greg and his lawyers? How could the
State of Texas first convict Greg as the murderer, claiming among other
things that he wore the bloody Umen jeans size 32, knowing full well he
was a size 36, and then convict Adams with the exact same evidence,
knowing he fit the trousers being a size 32? My problem is that I think
as a European, but to understand the question I have to think as a
Southerner, a Texan, and then it makes sense, sadly enough. The State
of Texas will not admit any wrongdoings, perhaps it never will.
Obviously John Wade Adams has a different version, just check out his
web site. I do not blame him for that, if I were him I would fight for
my life too. I do not want him dead; I just want justice for Greg,
which ultimately includes a new but fair trial.
That is what this is all about. Greg was railroaded, and framed by his
ex-friend, and subsequently I got more and more involved in his case,
e-mailing his lawyers, looking into articles from Texan courts,
checking out information on the Internet for him, for instance about
his medical situation, and I kept in touch with one of the few people
who actually visits him on a regular basis, a good decent Christian
woman, whose name I will not reveal since I have not asked her
permission. This past summer, July 3, my daughter Line, who was an au
pair in Long Island at the time, and I visited Greg at Polunsky Unit,
and luckily I actually met this amazing woman at the prison, and I am
glad to say that she was everything I thought she was. She visits
several inmates voluntarily. I got the opportunity to thank her for
being there for Greg. I know he treasures her visits. It was both the
worst and the best we have ever done. It was tough to see Greg being
brought into that small visiting room like an animal in a cage, but we
had a good time during our three-hour visit. We had prepared ourselves
as well as we could for the emotional ordeal it would be to see Greg,
and Greg was in fact what I had imagined he would be. You see, you do
not really know what a person is like just based on three years of
correspondence, or do you? We both felt deeply moved seeing him, and to
be honest he handled the situation far more superb than we did. It was
hard to see all the rows of inmates and their families, parted by a
wall of glass and only a telephone at our disposal. I kept thinking as
a European, and what our prisoners are allowed to. It almost broke our
hearts saying goodbye, and we were happy that my distant cousin was
waiting outside to take us back to Dallas. It felt good to talk to him
about everything we had experienced. I kept thinking that whatever we
must feel, it was still far worse for Greg, he was still stuck there.
A year ago I also started telling my adult students about Greg and his
case, not just because of self-interest, but it is in fact on our
English curriculum to learn about capital punishment, and what better
way to inform them than from "real life"? One thing led to another, and
soon they volunteered to send both letters and monetary gifts to help
Greg. He was very happy to find out that so many cared about him and
his situation. This is where my former student, Evy, comes in. She
heard about him this last school year, and during that year she also
wrote him a letter. All my students knew that I was going to see Greg
during my vacation, and they all wanted to meet with me when I returned
to hear all about it. There and then Evy decided that she wanted to
help me out creating a web site to seek sponsors for Greg, and this is
the result. She has the knowledge on the creation of such a web site, I
had the personal knowledge about Greg and his case, and so it made
sense to join forces. Together we ask for your help. Obviously he
firstly needs money for his defense, secondly he needs money for items
common and easily accessible for us, like paper, pens, and envelopes.
They will enable him to keep in touch with family and friends, as well
as his lawyers. Perhaps you will as well?
October 16, 2003, a local paper interviewed my daughter Line and me in
connection with our visit to Polunsky Unit, and Greg. I had together
with my students and Evy in particular, found out that we wanted more
people to know about the horrible conditions under which death row
inmates live, and obviously to make them aware of the injustice of the
system. We had decided to try to gather support for Greg and his case,
something which both this article and web site are examples of.
Bente Hjortshoj
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