My Journey to Repentance
“I told you I would not run if we got pulled over.” About that time, a state trooper ran up to the stolen Camaro with at least ten other troopers behind her, with guns drawn on us as we sat in the car. “well, baby, I changed my mind. get out and start running in the direction of the woods, I will drive off, and most of them will go after me; here is the cash if you make it, find a way to post my bond if I get one, now go, go now.” This memory has hunted me most of my life since all this went down. There is so much to go into about this part of my history. But let’s say this is the moment that caused me to disconnect from myself and society. To this day, I have no idea why she took the gun along with the bag of cash we took from over three banks and two post offices(allegedly). Still, she did, and with a bag in one hand and a gun in the other, she got out of the car and ran. Even though she ran from the team of cops with her back to them and the pistol down to her side, they shot her down effectively and violently. I took off in the car at a high rate of speed and moments later lost control and crashed into a light pole.
Just the fact that I thought she even had a chance to get away from the cops that had us surrounded and pinned down and then find a way to make a bond that they would never give me goes a long way in describing my drug-induced psychosis at the time. A psychosis that effectively helped cause her death.
However, the voices in my head I am hearing now are all too real. I started to come out of an induced coma because of brain swelling. I kept hearing my name repeatedly until I recovered my consciousness to a degree. I was looking around while in a fog. I saw people in blue and green scrubs; one person had a pin light in my eyes. “Lonnie, Lonnie can you here me. Squeeze my fingers if you do” things went on like this until I became reasonably coherent. This was when things took a turn. The first thing I noticed was the handcuff on my right wrist attached to the bed rail. The deputy sitting in the corner of the cramped hospital room was now looking at me, and as we made eye contact, he started to stand; he then stated, “I am deputy Johnson, and you are under arrest.” Yet this is not even the start of my distress. I was in the hospital for about a week. But during this time, I could not find out why I was there. Outside of doctors telling me I was in a car crash that caused my head trauma and some terrible bruising, which was painfully apparent.
I was transferred to the county jail and placed under a federal hold for bank robbery, money laundering, and racketeering charges. The last memory I had was Sheri getting out of the car and running towards the woods. However, my memory was about to make a sharp, clear as glass return. “Here come the feds”, “Here come the feds”, is what I heard echoing down the halls as other inmates repeated the chant. I was still in bad shape, but jails, prisons, or any kind of lockup don’t care. I was dragged from my stinking solitary cell to an interrogation room where two clean-cut men stood and took out their IDs and identified themselves as FBI. The interrogation details are outside the scope of this testimony but let’s just say this is where I got my memory back. And from there, it was a fall into rage and despair.
Because of my need to get a bond and the money to post a cash bond I made deals and promises that had to be fulfilled. So I became very good at being a street soldier, bag-man, and whatever needed to be done for whoever it needed to be done for. It was not long before I caught the attention of some local MC’s in Texas and more or less became a point man for hire in which I would independently cause or clean up mayhem on the behalf of whoever hired me. At the time I was being the point man for the unscrupulous I was fighting the above charges and needed more and more money to feed my many ongoing addictions and my lawyers. This became a self-sustaining feedback loop because some of my best clients were the lawyers themselves. But no matter how hard I ran, how hard I schemed, or what I did the law will have its day. In the end, when it comes to the law it’s not what you do it’s what they can prove. I got 10 years which in itself was a miracle I could have gotten much more. I did 6 years in the Eastham Texas prison (the same one Clyde as in Bonnie and Clyde did time in). The rest of my time was done in various Federal institutions.
The intent of these words is to glorify Jesus Christ and not myself. So I will stop my with the story of my past because it’s not where you have been that is important it’s where you are going. God stepped in so many times in my past to save me from myself, so I may live to be saved by his Son Jesus Christ. My salvation came to me in a prison cell. The dead words on paper that were within the bible I began to read became a living powerful spirit that took hold within me. Because of this “I BELIEVE HARD, I BELIEVE REAL HARD. I BELIEVE IN SERVICE TO HIS CHURCH. I BELIEVE IN SERVICE TO HIS PEOPLE.” I was saved by the powerful and transforming Word of God handed down to us in the Scripture. I have overcome many things and been a failure in others but it’s my standing in Christ that has carried me forward. It has brought me to the place I am now as your Case Manager for Free at Last.
Jesus has brought me from being a street soldier for Satan to being a street soldier for God. May God Bless You in all Things, and I hope to see you soon.
Lonnie Ray Case Manager
