Actress visits death row inmate
Sarandon meets pen pal, set for execution Aug. 26
By CINDY HORSWELL
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Andrew Innerarity/Chronicle Susan Sarandon leaves the Texas State Penitentary in Livingston Wednesday after visiting death row inmate James Vernon Allridge III. LIVINGSTON - With a brisk walk, actress Susan Sarandon made an unannounced trip Wednesday to Texas to visit her pen pal ? a convicted murderer on death row.
She had corresponded with the inmate, James Vernon Allridge III, for several years after buying some of the detailed drawings of flowers and animals he creates with colored pencils.
Prison officials said she had only recently been put on his visitation list, and she would not tip her hand as to why she had come to see Allridge, who is scheduled for execution Aug. 26.
"I'm trying to be as low-profile as possible. It fits the strategy at this time," Sarandon said, declining to comment further. She wore tennis shoes and a loose pants outfit without a belt to avoid setting off the metal detector.
"Susan is just here for a visit. It's just communication between two friends," said David Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, after escorting Sarandon to the prison near Livingston. "She just told him to stay strong, that she would pray for him and was thinking of him."
He said they had discussed the possibility of her doing something on Allridge's behalf but "that will be left up to his attorneys."
Sarandon became more acutely aware of the death penalty when she portrayed a nun who was a spiritual adviser to a death row inmate in Dead Man Walking, for which she earned a best actress Oscar in 1996.
After the movie was released, she told the Houston Chronicle, "I've always thought intellectually that (the death penalty) didn't make sense. It's expensive; it's arbitrary and capricious; it's not a deterrent."
She said the role crystallized her feelings to the point that she realized: "It's not important who is to die, but who is to kill and what it means to recognize the humanity in everyone. I feel more clearly now that there is no reason to kill."
Wednesday, she did not want to publicly discuss her views.
Allridge, who speaks to visitors by telephone through a Plexiglas barrier, had initially agreed to be interviewed by the Chronicle after Sarandon left. He later declined on the advice of his attorney.
| ? ? ? ? ? "It's not important who is to die, but who is to kill and what it means to recognize the humanity in everyone. I feel more clearly now that there is no reason to kill." Susan Sarandon, |
The 41-year-old inmate has spent the past 17 years on death row ? much longer than the average inmate, including his older brother, Ronald, who was executed in 1995.
James Allridge was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Fort Worth convenience store clerk Brian Clendennen while robbing the store of $300 in 1985.
The same year, during another robbery, his brother fatally shot a 19-year-old diner at a fast-food restaurant. He shot her because she was "penniless," news accounts at the time said.
Ronald had spent 3 1/2 years in prison in the late 1970s for killing a high school student and had been accused of killing the store manager of a pizza-delivery business where he worked, authorities said.
"In 1985, the two brothers had gone on a spree of robberies and killings. Each was driving the getaway cars for the other when their capital murders happened," said Mike Parrish, the Tarrant County prosecutor in James Allridge's case.
James Allridge knew his victim would recognize him because they had attended a management training school together, Parrish said.
"He came out of the store and thought about it, but then went back inside to rob the place and shoot him," he said.
Parrish said other robbery cases, including one in which Allridge allegedly pointed a gun at a 4-year-old, were dropped after the murder conviction.
About Sarandon's visit, Parrish said, "Nothing surprises me anymore. Like all those people from Europe who send (Allridge) money. It's surreal."
On a Web site where Allridge sells his art, he writes about his past and does not deny killing the clerk.
"I'm not making excuses," he said. "But there was a lot of pressure from my older brother ... who was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic."
He also expresses regret that anyone had to "lose their life for me to become the person I am today." He writes he has been rehabilitated and is no longer a danger to society.
He, along with Atwood and Sarandon, wants his sentence commuted to life.
"Susan has written to him for a number of years and sees him as a person who has changed and developed. She is impressed by his accomplishments like his art and intelligence," Atwood said.
"I've never met any death row inmate that is more rehabilitated," he said.
