Letters from the Inside, Sarah Pender, #66

Dear Kelly:

I was listening to a show called Marketplace Money on NPR this morning and thought of you. There was a piece done by a guy named Steve Henn. Part of it was about how sophisticated technology that once was only availalbe to military and scientists now are esily accessible to average consumers. One product is a software program tha tallow sa user to hack into just about anything with just a click of the start button. One example he used was if you went to a wifi cafe, you get on this network and then start the program which listens for other users and then pops up their FaceBook and email which you can automatically log on as them. Sound familiar? I figured that since Teresahgad these sneaky hacking behaviors that you shoudl bve able to as well. There's a program called Flexispy that you can secretly download into other people's phones or computers in order to spy on them from yours. They also talked about how they sell these two foot wide drones tha tyou can fly around the city and you load photos of people you want to look for---it uses face recognition sofatward to track whomever you are searching for. It used to cost thousands but now it is only $1200.

I got your letter about that book (GARBAGE) and your sudden and unexpected trip to Mexico. (SWEET!) With Amir. you get to do these things out of a fairy tale. I wonder if you realize how different your life is from Midwest suburbanites or urban Detroit families? NYC has such a variety of people and cultures and economic scales that it boggles my mind. So now that Amir has returned to Iran, are you missing him and being worried sick about his safety? Do you think his absence and being in danger will endear you even more to him? Kind of like how when you choose to leave someone its ok because you feel like you can always choose to go back, but when they leave you or when you see that they could leave permanently tha tyou suddenly value them more and are willing to put up with more than you would before. I hope he returns safely.

While NY made gay marriage legal, Indiana was voting to explicitly make it illegal. People in Indiana are so afraid of change and judge any one that is different from them as evil or bad--unless it is the latest video game system or McDonald's Value Meal.

Boulders on pillows--juxtaposition.

What happened at the John deposition?

By the way--that villa and private pool was AMAZINGLY beautiful. And I am with you--horses are too pretty to eat--unless I am stranded in the country and there's nothing else to eat. I could eat rabbit. Even though they are cute--the horse is INTELLIGENT and to eat something as smart as a small child is just weird to me.

I love that that you went skinnydipping and tanned nude. Mymother used to live out in the middle of AZ's desert where her nearest neighbor was a half mile away, and tanned nude in the bed of her truck. There was a nearby rocky formation. A guy who justed to job up on this cliff each morning started bringing his binoculars. Mom just flipped him off.

I haven't read the book yet but my mom and several others have and they say it is so twisted and manipulated that it is more like fiction than the truth. The review on Amazon that blast them out about how the author tells only half the story and twists up scenarios and so on is totally correct. The Sarah Pender vs. USA is a collection of my appeals and court filings.

The abstract is not correct on that, either. I escaped in Aug 2008, not Oct. And my petition for habeas wasn't denied, it was withdrawn because I had escaped. See? Even simple details like that people can't get right.

But I find it interesting how the author demonizes me for my sex life when anyonem else can do the same things and be considered normal. What's so scandalous about skinny dipping with a woman at a party? I'm queer. Whoopee! Or having a threesome? Men drool over the idea, yet because I'm a woman, it somehow makes me a whore. This is conservative Republican journalism for you.

Anyway, the author words things to make them seem true but they are concoctions of his own mind made to juice of the story. He leaves out the exonerating evidence because it doesn't fit into his narrative. He avoids uncomfortable issues and exaggerates what's left. And I know this just from what I've read in blurbs and conversation wtih my mother. Just garbage.

One thing it has done---it is raising questions and awareness about just how I got convicted. My mother went to confront the author and the prosecutor was there at the book signing. He admitted to mom that there was always doubt in my case that I did not get the defense I deserved and that forensic analysts are biased, both for and against the State. He apologized to my mother.

An attorney agreed to take my case pro bono. And we are looking into possibly participating in a documentary about my case for the Oxygen Network. A local investigative reporter also wants to look deeper into my case. So there is good news.

NPR just did a series on a bunch of convictions that were overturned in Canada for neglect or murder of children. Many women were convicted of murder because of forensic pathologist who manipulated reorters to make sure the parent was convicted when it was really an accident.

And recently, here in Indy, a bunch of convictions for driving under the influence of cocaine were overturned because they found that the processes were done wrong at the forensic labs, resulting in a false positive.

It was the forensic analyst that manipulated her testimony and research to match 100% to a letter that I never wrote, and convicted me of murders I never committed.

So, life is interesting. I wonder what will happen next?

Take care,

Sarah