My husband and I knew Ronnie Cornelis who was at Hamilton Work Center. I, myself had never personally met Ronnie but my husband knew him from Limestone. He was young and impressionable. Waiting on the day he could finally wear civilian clothes again. I had bought him several shirts, blue jeans, underwear and such as he looked forward to the day to wear them. That day never arrived. He along with another inmate, was struck by a speeding car while they were getting their day started picking up trash on the side of the road. He called me once a week to check on me as he did his grandmother. Such a sweet young man who loved God with all his heart.
He would say he was helping the community as well as his self, getting a small portion of freedom outside the camp. I am 62 years old, but he never failed to call me every Sunday to find out how his friends at Limestone was doing and how this ole lady's health was for the week. I will never be able to Thank him again for him uplifting words or for simply calling to say "Hey, how was your week" or "What did the doctors' tell you this week?" Remember Ronnie Cornelis for his short time on this earth and all the efforts he put in life trying to do better for God and his grandmother, whom he loved dearly.
Thank you for writing about this. The biggest thing I keep hearing from former and current incarcerated people is that MOST people on the inside are good people, serving out unnecessarily long sentences because of they got caught up in an unfair and opaque criminal justice system. Your story touched me, and I truly feel for Anthony and his family.
These men continue to go through so much which is unnecessary! It’s plain to see the slave mentality and I’ve seen where people say “ they are in prison” and I tell them real quick that prison or no prison, they have rights as human beings and by the constitution and shouldn’t be getting taken advantage of just so the state can make a profit! The parole board is sorry! My son would be alive today if the parole board approved his parole when he was at Elba work release and he met all the guidelines. That day he said to me, Moma they aren’t ever going to let me out are they? They had put him off 4 years and he’d done 22 years already. I told him to just keep praying and maybe something would change soon. He loved his job at pike county road department and had been doing mechanic work and he loved the people there and he worked a year and half and got sick and kept getting worse and then not sending him out to a doctor for test and he was in excruciating abdominal pain for months and had a baseball size mass in his right side , I told him he had all the clinical signs of cancer , they kept telling him they were waiting for approval from Montgomery to pay for the test, it never happened and then he was sent back to Easterling and one and half week later he woke up screaming in pain and couldn’t walk end up in the hospital septic due to the mass had penetrated the abdominal wall , he was in intensive care for 8 days before they could even do surgery to remove the mass , it was colon cancer stage 2 they said , this was the first week of Sept 2023 , they put a port in and 6 days later sent him back to Easterling and was supposed to start chemo the next week . It never happened, they put him off for months until I emailed their top attorney and in November test revealed it was stage 4 now and they gave him months to live , his pain management was Ibuprofen twice a day for one of the most painful cancers they are and finally he seen a Oncologist Nov 27 and Nov 28 someone hit him in the head while he was in bed asleep , he had severe brain damage and passed on Jan 11 th and ADOC and all staff didn’t care one bit! As a RN the entire system is so corrupt they all should be shut down except for room for all the COs , Wardens and Healthcare workers and Doctors , legislators AG and Governor Ivy and anyone else that he helping to kill inmates almost daily now! That’s my take on the corrupt slavery houses in Alabama! The only good thing for my son now is he isn’t suffering anymore and he’s definitely free. But there are so many more like him still suffering and being mistreated on a daily basis and it’s just not morally right!
My husband and I knew Ronnie Cornelis who was at Hamilton Work Center. I, myself had never personally met Ronnie but my husband knew him from Limestone. He was young and impressionable. Waiting on the day he could finally wear civilian clothes again. I had bought him several shirts, blue jeans, underwear and such as he looked forward to the day to wear them. That day never arrived. He along with another inmate, was struck by a speeding car while they were getting their day started picking up trash on the side of the road. He called me once a week to check on me as he did his grandmother. Such a sweet young man who loved God with all his heart.
He would say he was helping the community as well as his self, getting a small portion of freedom outside the camp. I am 62 years old, but he never failed to call me every Sunday to find out how his friends at Limestone was doing and how this ole lady's health was for the week. I will never be able to Thank him again for him uplifting words or for simply calling to say "Hey, how was your week" or "What did the doctors' tell you this week?" Remember Ronnie Cornelis for his short time on this earth and all the efforts he put in life trying to do better for God and his grandmother, whom he loved dearly.
Thank you for writing about this. The biggest thing I keep hearing from former and current incarcerated people is that MOST people on the inside are good people, serving out unnecessarily long sentences because of they got caught up in an unfair and opaque criminal justice system. Your story touched me, and I truly feel for Anthony and his family.
These men continue to go through so much which is unnecessary! It’s plain to see the slave mentality and I’ve seen where people say “ they are in prison” and I tell them real quick that prison or no prison, they have rights as human beings and by the constitution and shouldn’t be getting taken advantage of just so the state can make a profit! The parole board is sorry! My son would be alive today if the parole board approved his parole when he was at Elba work release and he met all the guidelines. That day he said to me, Moma they aren’t ever going to let me out are they? They had put him off 4 years and he’d done 22 years already. I told him to just keep praying and maybe something would change soon. He loved his job at pike county road department and had been doing mechanic work and he loved the people there and he worked a year and half and got sick and kept getting worse and then not sending him out to a doctor for test and he was in excruciating abdominal pain for months and had a baseball size mass in his right side , I told him he had all the clinical signs of cancer , they kept telling him they were waiting for approval from Montgomery to pay for the test, it never happened and then he was sent back to Easterling and one and half week later he woke up screaming in pain and couldn’t walk end up in the hospital septic due to the mass had penetrated the abdominal wall , he was in intensive care for 8 days before they could even do surgery to remove the mass , it was colon cancer stage 2 they said , this was the first week of Sept 2023 , they put a port in and 6 days later sent him back to Easterling and was supposed to start chemo the next week . It never happened, they put him off for months until I emailed their top attorney and in November test revealed it was stage 4 now and they gave him months to live , his pain management was Ibuprofen twice a day for one of the most painful cancers they are and finally he seen a Oncologist Nov 27 and Nov 28 someone hit him in the head while he was in bed asleep , he had severe brain damage and passed on Jan 11 th and ADOC and all staff didn’t care one bit! As a RN the entire system is so corrupt they all should be shut down except for room for all the COs , Wardens and Healthcare workers and Doctors , legislators AG and Governor Ivy and anyone else that he helping to kill inmates almost daily now! That’s my take on the corrupt slavery houses in Alabama! The only good thing for my son now is he isn’t suffering anymore and he’s definitely free. But there are so many more like him still suffering and being mistreated on a daily basis and it’s just not morally right!
Sad but very important! Thank you!