And You Visited Me: A True Story of Death Row Friendships Jan Greenough
When Penny Wheat found an old book about the convicted killer James Hanratty, and learned that his conviction might have been unsafe, something awoke in her: a lifelong concern for those in prison. Recently converted, but trapped in a miserable marriage, she started to write and visit first one prisoner, then a second. Then a television programme prompted her to contact Lifelines, an organisation which sets up links to men and women on Death Row - and a letter arrived from a prisoner in Tennessee. Penny paid the first of many visits to the States in October 1993. As she learned more about the American system of justice: sometimes excellent, sometimes arbitrary and prejudiced, her compassion deepened for those, mainly black, prisoners caught in it.