Prison Nurse by Ellen Kane

Author:Ellen Kane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indie Author Project
Published: 2019-10-18T16:15:26+00:00

Mark Adams*

Base files were available to be read by staff if they so desired; I did not, ever. It was my mantra that these convicts had been judged and sentenced and it wasn’t up to me to make them any more miserable than they already were. Each day I mentally adjusted my thinking that each interaction with a rapist or murderer was a new day, I didn’t need to know the crime, I needed to know what was happening with that inmate on that day, that moment, and go from there. In nursing and healthcare when dealing with difficult patients in order to avoid burnout you have to take your personal judgment and the client’ past history out of the interaction and focus only on the present. Past, repeat behaviors were just that, in the past. And that attitude worked until I met Mark Adams.

On March 25, 1987, Mark brutally and savagely murdered the brother of a close friend of mine. Bob, my friend Kathy’s brother, was engaged to a woman who Mark had had a prior relationship with; however, she had ended it and was now engaged to Bob. Mark threatened that they would not make it to the altar. He slashed their car tires and continued to threaten them to the point where the couple would call many times a day and check in with each other, this was pre cell phones. One morning, close to the wedding date, Mark broke into Bob and his fiancé’s apartment and when Bob arrived home, Mark opened fire execution style, hitting Bob’s head and chest seven times. He next took the rifle butt and smashed the side of Bob’s face so hard it left an imprint on the side of his head. He died instantly.

On June 20, 1987, Mark got the maximum sentence, life with the possibility of parole. However, a life sentence in Minnesota at that time was only seventeen and a half years; the sentencing guidelines changed shortly thereafter to thirty years.

Mark arrived at Stillwater Prison one evening while I was the only nurse on duty. I was called to do his intake, not knowing whom I was interviewing. I met him in the front conference room and prepared to ask him all my medical questions. I froze when he gave me his name.

Sitting across from me was a short, nondescript, boyish-looking, white kid. I noticed how agreeable he was to whatever the officer was asking him to do, actually, overly agreeable. He was very forthcoming with all his answers to my medical questions. I knew right away what type of inmate he was going to be, a suck-up. And from that day forward he never caused any problems while doing his time. He played the good-boy act and wound up being known as an inmate we as staff, could call upon when needing extra help on a project. To be called out of his day job to go to another area inside the prison and be trusted to do another job on top of his work was a real coup for an inmate.

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