There were times that Paige Spears wasn’t sure this day would ever come.
“This has not been an easy road, you know. It's been a journey,” Spears said. “But thank God that we made it to this point, and I'm out here now, and I'm just ready to live my life one day at a time.”
At 8:51 a.m. on March 17, after 37 years in prison, he walked out the front door of the Farmington Correctional Center.
“I'm willing to put as much effort in the free world as I put inside to be successful out here because this is what I've been fighting for," Spears said. "So, I'm not going to come out here and throw the towel in now, you know, I'm not. So, I'm just excited, and I've always said that once I walk out of prison, one of the things I want to do is kiss the ground, and I want to do that. I want to kiss this ground, man.”
Paige had been incarcerated since 1988 when he was given more than a life sentence for an armed robbery where no one was physically injured. Due to a clerical error, his sentence was actually listed at 1,001 years, which left him unsure if there would be a future for him outside the Missouri Department of Corrections.
This changed last December, when then-Governor Mike Parson commuted Spears’s sentence to the parole board. The board then looked at the person Spears had become and the work he’d done in prison, such as working in hospice care and creating programming for other inmates — to determine if he deserved a second chance.
“I can honestly say that Paige actually left corrections better than when he found it,” Warden Teri Vandergriff said.
Vandergriff has been the warden at Farmington Correctional Center for the last eight years, and was one of the people outside the facility that morning wishing Spears well.
“He's been very impactful,” Vandergriff said. “He's been the backbone of many programs here, starting it up, helping mentor some of our guys, and, you know, we kind of joke that we are going to feel his absence at this facility, in those programs, and they're big shoes to fill.”
Vandergriff, several journalists and a few friends stood with Spears outside the correctional center as he anxiously waited for more friends and family to arrive. A group of them, including Spear’s 88-year-old mother, Betty Cummings, were on their way from St. Louis, but had been delayed by traffic.
Suddenly, a large white commuter van pulled in and out poured a dozen or so of Spears’s closest friends and family who immediately started yelling with joy – “Free at last,” “Hallelujah” and other greetings filled the air.
Spears watched – near tears - as his mother walked toward him. As she reached him, he enveloped her in their first hug in nearly 40 years, burying his face in her neck and not letting go for several minutes.
“It was just so wonderful,” Betty Cummings said. “The only time I could really hug him was when you came out because when you're inside there [prison], you can't touch him or hug him or anything, just tell him how much you love him.”
For years, Spears has said his goal was to be released and take care of his Mom, and he began to fulfill that promise right away – handing her back into the van alongside his brother, Tim – so they all could head to a local catfish restaurant for their first family meal in years.
Outside Katfish Katy’s, a local restaurant in Farmington, everyone gathered to wait, as there was still an hour or so until the restaurant would open. Spears was handed cell phone after cell phone – video calling with siblings who couldn’t be there in person, cousins and other family members.
Charles Durley, a friend of Spears who was actually incarcerated alongside him, pulled out a dozen or so multi-colored balloons for a balloon release in celebration of Spears's freedom.
“These four balloons are for the 37 years – the dark side, when he was locked up in prison. This balloon is for the fighter that started it - Jackie,” Durley said recalling Spears’s younger sister who was murdered some years before. “This is to the Lord for thank you for letting him go. And this is for let's stay free forever in a golden light. Amen.”
And with that, Spears let go of the balloons and they all watched them float off into the distance.
Once inside the restaurant, Spears’s family and friends chattered excitedly and picked out what they wanted for lunch. But Spears just stared at the menu in front of him.
“I am very overwhelmed,” Spears said. “The variety of food – fish, chicken, shrimp. Oh, my god, wow. This is crazy. I ain't got to look at no ramen noodles, no more.”
He said it's the simplest things he’s appreciated so far. The fact that he can use a real fork and spoon, there’s actual paper towels and no one is monitoring him while he uses the bathroom.
“It makes me feel equal, you know?” Spears said. “Nobody is judging me or anything like that. Nobody's staring at me, you know, like, ‘Oh my god, this guy just got a prison.’”
The food arrives and people start eating, but suddenly a “Spears?” rings through the room.
“Spears - what are you doing out?”
“We broke him out,” someone joked.
Spears rises from his seat excitedly and embraces the man who turns out to be Rob Gerst, his former chaplain at Farmington Correctional Center who now works at another facility in Potosi.
Spears sits next to his mom, his big sister Madelyn and his little brother Tim. They said it feels surreal to have Paige sitting next to them.
Madelyn acknowledges that since Paige was in his 20s when he was locked up, his nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews don’t really know him – beyond a voice over a phone.
“It's just kind of really sad that all these years have passed and he missed out on a lot, but we're grateful for the time that he has now with us, you know,” Madelyn Hogue said. “So, we're just trying to make new memories now.”
She and Tim both agree that having Spears home to help with their mom is going to be hugely beneficial – Tim lives in Kansas City and can’t help as much as he would like, which means that a lot of responsibility falls on Madelyn’s shoulders.
“I'm happy for him and her because I know how much she missed him,” Tim Spears said, “Now I think she can rest, she can get some sleep.
As the meal wraps up, Spears reflects on what’s next. He said he’s excited to get back to life and to put into practice all of the self-discovery and skills he gained in prison.
“It's a lot of opportunities for me out here, and I just want to take a really deep breath and just enjoy life for a moment,” Spears said. “First a good nap, because I'm full of good food, you know, [then] just start my life, you know, one day at a time, and there's no doubt in my mind things are gonna work out well for me out here.”
Seven weeks later
It’s been seven weeks since Paige was released, and he’s “trying to get back in the groove of things.”
And after nearly 40 years behind bars, there’s a lot to learn and relearn, such as how to help his 88-year old Mom, doing the dishes and figuring out his new cell phone.
But adjustment hasn’t been without its challenges. Spears, now 64 years old, hasn’t been able to get a job or a driver’s permit because once he was released, he found out that someone had been fraudulently using his identity the entire time he was locked up.
“My social security number was used illegally, and the person that used it is deceased,” Spears said. “They had to issue me a whole new social. So, now I'm waiting to get my hard copy of a social security card, and then I can kind of move forward with my life.”
So, for now, he’s doing what he can to stay busy, and he’s already started thinking about how to spin this challenge as a learning opportunity for all his friends still behind bars.
For the audio transcript, click here.
