Mark Melvin, a white youth, was only 14 when he was arrested at his home in Pensacola, Florida, and taken to Alabama to be charged with first-degree murder. Alabama charged Mark as an adult, as is customary in some states when the crime is particularly violent. In his interviews, Mark does not deny the charges; alone of the prisoners profiled in Kuklin’s book, he discusses the murder of which he was convicted in some detail and says not only that he did it but that he fully deserves his punishment.

A fatherless child from an impoverished, unstable home, Mark was lured by a beloved older brother (David) into crossing into Alabama to help eliminate two witnesses: a husband and wife who had agreed to testify against members of Mark’s family. David worked as a correction officer, but Mark did not entirely take seriously his tales of the horrors of prison and pointed reminders of Mark’s complicity in his family’s thefts. Goaded by his brother, Mark nevertheless shot and killed the husband just outside the couple’s house while David killed the wife inside. As soon as he pulled the trigger, Mark knew he had done something irreversible for which he would be severely punished: “I knew I was done for” (39).