Part i: "Dear Samuel," 

An inmate at the Kern Valley State Prison, Delano, California. This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call. To accept this call, say, or dial five now.
 

Magida: Are you cool if I record this? 

Samuel: Yes, I'm fine with that. So, I mean, we're discussing the time when I ended up in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison and how my mentality started changing. So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, while in Corcoran State Prison, I was sentenced to an indefinite SHU term after an incident that occurred. I was then transferred to Pelican Bay State Prison, where I was told I would spend the remainder of my sentence in solitary confinement. I think during my first couple of years in solitary, I was just really, really depressed. I hated myself, and my life. I was struggling with the idea of being in solitary confinement forever. Panic really started to set in, and I was overwhelmed. My patience was wearing thin, and I was being tested daily. Most days I hoped I would just get killed. I just wanted to get stabbed or shot. I kept thinking “why am I here, why am I waking up?" I am living a life with no purpose. I felt sorry for myself and I thought I was better off dead. I was completely alone. I started experiencing these moments of loneliness and quietness that I’d never experienced before. The conditions were pretty bad too. No windows, all artificial lights. Every move you make, you’re being watched. Whenever you leave your cell, you’re being stripped and searched, to the point of sticking your clothes in the tray slot, so they can check your clothing, then you turn around, squat and cough. You'd have to put your arms through the tray slot of your cell, and then you’re shackled to your feet. You are treated worse than an animal.
  
…“This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded”
 

Samuel: When I got to the SHU, everybody was really quiet. It was kind of spooky. I introduced myself by kite (kite is a prison term meaning a handwritten note), and then after that, for over a year, I was quiet. I had no conversations with anybody. I was angry with myself. I'm in solitary confinement, never going to get out, never going to see the sunlight again, and that's just one of the smallest things. Things were bad, and it took me a while to start to communicate with other guys in the pod. I had family and friends that were writing to me here and there, but it wasn't consistent, and I was lacking a deep, meaningful conversation and connection. Somebody had kind of mentioned this write a prisoner website, and I think as soon as my profile was put on there, I got some “fan” mail. You know, females that maybe wrote to me once and then lost interest. Then suddenly, I received this letter from some 23-year-old woman that was kind of cool and different, and that happened to be you.  

Magida : Was it different right away? 

Samuel: Yeah. It was different right away. I seen the letter, and I read it. Being that you were from a different country, and you were straight up like, “I'm not looking for anything but a friendship.” It was just different. It seemed authentic, and you could tell you weren't somebody who had ever written to somebody in prison before. A lot of the other females kind of felt like they probably had tried writing to somebody, or were currently writing to other people. I think that's what interested me about you. Oh, and your culture was totally different from mine. Where you grew up was different, and it just changed my state of mind from the moment I got your letter, until today. Eleven years later, and I still find interest in every conversation and every letter as I did the first time I wrote to you. Your friendship has always been a surprise. So now, my question to you is, what made you choose to try and write somebody in prison? What were you looking for? What was that about? 

Magida: Well, there were a few different things going on in my life at that time. So, it's 2013. I had just finished art school, and I was trying to find my path and what kind of photography or art I was going to start my career with. During that time, I was really interested in true-crime podcasts. One day, I was researching this case, and I stumbled on a penpal service website for inmates. I curiously scrolled through it, looking at hundreds of profiles. Then I remember being like, “There he is. I found the person I wanna write to!” and it was you. There were a few reasons why you instantly grabbed my attention. The main one being your eyes, they kind of looked like mine. I felt there was this similarity between us before I even wrote to you. Your eyes were kind of sad. There was this look of hope, hidden behind a lot of despair. I think that glimpse of hope was what I needed at that point in time. I could see there was a lot of depth, a lot of stories and pain. Then, when I read your profile, you mentioned your interest in poetry, drawing and that you were looking for a friendship that could test time. I think that was the selling point for me. I also knew we could potentially collaborate on many creative things in the future. I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for at the time, I just knew I needed a friend, someone to connect with, and you seemed like the right person.

…you have 60 seconds remaining…

Magida: Wanna call me back?

Samuel: Yeah, one sec.

*Click*

Samuel never did call back, he was called back to his cell, so the conversation will have to wait until next week.