00:00:06
[Inside a running car.] Robin Woods: This is the... We're on... What is this? Bedford Road.
00:00:11
These are some businesses. This is a liquor store here. This is a Chessie Bank. They just built this not too long ago.
00:00:20
City limits is right here, at this intersection
of Bedford Road and Shades Lane.
00:00:27
So, this is the place, over here on the right
hand side, that I committed the breaking and
00:00:35
enterings act. Phoebe Judge: This is Robin Woods. In November of 1988, he was 26 years old when
he stole a car and drove to an office building
00:00:45
in his hometown of Cumberland, Maryland. Robin is African American. Robin Woods: And that side door, there's a
steel door with a glass window, and I just
00:00:55
knocked the window out. And I stole some stuff: computers, some typewriters,
some telephones.
00:01:01
They were called Marlin Phone Systems. When I took this stuff through a place I was
staying at, it was just a little shack.
00:01:09
It wasn't much of a place, and it wasn't much
furniture in there. And I had put all the stuff in there, then
I abandoned the car, and I knew that I was
00:01:19
going to be in trouble
because I had what they said was $20,000 worth of office equipment.
00:01:24
Well, what was I going to do with that? Phoebe Judge: Robin started trying to sell
the stolen equipment as quickly as possible,
00:01:32
offering it up for cheap. So, a few people knew he had it. And the next night, while he was playing pool,
his plan fell apart.
00:01:41
Someone turned him in. Robin Woods: Troopers came in. It was about six or seven of them.
00:01:46
They came in the side door and came in the
front door. I was standing there talking to a friend,
and I seen them come through the door and
00:01:53
I knew exactly who they was coming after. I knew they was coming after me. So, of course, there's no reason to fight
six or seven state troopers.
00:02:02
You go ahead and you just went on to jail. And a friend of mine ended up turning me in
for the reward.
00:02:11
He's since passed away, and there's no reason
to throw any mud on him. When he passed away, oh, I didn't have any
animosity against the man.
00:02:21
Phoebe Judge: Robin was convicted of two counts
of warehouse breaking and entering, a nonviolent
00:02:26
felony. But he'd been arrested a half dozen times
before. And because of prior convictions, he was sentenced
harshly: 16 years at the notorious Maryland
00:02:37
Correctional Institute, or MCI, in Hagerstown. He'd been there before, serving two years
for firing a gun through a woman's window.
00:02:47
But this time, he was going to be in much
longer. Robin Woods: I think the words draconian...
00:02:51
Well, I know the words draconian. To just take all those years for this crime,
and I had a couple of other things that I've
00:03:05
done prior to that, but nothing to justify
the time that I got for it. But that's the way things are.
00:03:14
I had to deal with it. I didn't have any choice. And they gave me the time, and I went to prison.
00:03:22
And that was that. Phoebe Judge: Today, contributor Daniel Gross
has the story of what happened to Robin during
00:03:29
those years in prison, and how his world got
smaller in every way. Except for one.
00:03:35
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. [Rock ballad-style instrumentals.] Daniel Gross: Robin described MCI Hagerstown
as one of the worst prisons he ever set foot
00:03:52
in, and he spent time in quite a few. The Baltimore Sun described it as "crowded"
and "racially tense," and reported that numerous
00:03:59
inmates complained of beatings by guards. Robin Woods: Basically, they would use sheer
brutality to bring you into line.
00:04:08
You could get beat severely for suddenly looking
at an officer in the eye and standing up and
00:04:15
back-talking him. Daniel Gross: One day, a group of prisoners
decided enough was enough and refused to leave
00:04:20
their cells until the prison warden agreed
to meet with them. Robin Woods: The warden, instead of going
down and finding out what the problem was,
00:04:27
he sent his goon squad in and what they call
an extraction team, and probably within 12
00:04:33
hours time, they had beat probably 40 inmates. You didn't have to get beat up to be pissed.
00:04:40
I mean, it was a night of terror. Daniel Gross: The next morning, the rest of
the prison heard about the beatings, and at
00:04:46
breakfast, a bunch of inmates attacked a group
of guards and took the keys. Robin Woods: It was retribution time.
00:04:54
We went out and tore the jail up. Daniel Gross: Were you afraid for your own
safety?
00:04:59
Robin Woods: Well, it's very disquieting. Because it's basically every man for himself.
00:05:10
I armed myself to the best of my ability to
defend myself and— Daniel Gross: What did you have?
00:05:16
Robin Woods: Well, I had a, it's called a
homemade knife, it's called a shank. Daniel Gross: According to the Baltimore Sun,
the prison was filled with clouds of tear
00:05:26
gas, and some guards were firing shotguns. Robin Woods: And I'll never forget the look
of terror in their eyes, as well, because
00:05:33
they had never, in their wildest imagination,
imagined that they would lose their prison.
00:05:39
Daniel Gross: Robin alleges that he was taken
down to the prison basement and severely beaten.
00:05:44
Robin Woods: The wonderful thing about it
was I found out that day that I could take
00:05:48
a weapon. They surrounded me, and one of them hit me
in the ribs from the back and another one
00:05:54
hit me in the kidneys. And I fell to the ground, and basically, they
stomped the crap out of me.
00:06:02
Daniel Gross: As Robin remembers it, when
the Baltimore officers arrived to transfer
00:06:06
him, he started shouting back at the Hagerstown
guards. Robin Woods: I was telling the captain, "And
you let those guys know in the basement they
00:06:12
hit like a bunch of sissies." And then, I got down and start doing pushups. So, everybody knew I was nuts.
00:06:19
Daniel Gross: But did you actually... I mean, were you proud of the riot? Robin Woods: Absolutely.
00:06:23
Absolutely. Daniel Gross: Would you have done it again? Robin Woods: Absolutely.
00:06:29
Daniel Gross: Robin was charged with helping
to incite the riot, and seven years were added
00:06:31
onto his sentence. He was transferred to the Maryland Correctional
Adjustment Center, a supermax facility in
00:06:37
Baltimore. And from that day on, Robin was officially
classified as one of the most dangerous prisoners
00:06:43
in Maryland. Robin Woods: And I don't claim anything, any
such thing. I know dangerous people.
00:06:48
Believe me, I'm not. There's nothing dangerous about me. Daniel Gross: But the people around you, were
they murderers?
00:06:54
Robin Woods: Yes. I've seen... people fighting each other with knives. I've seen people jump on — two or three
people jump on one person with knives.
00:07:09
I've seen people murder each other. I've seen the worst of what men can do to
each other.
00:07:19
[Driving drum and bass music.] Robin Woods: [Inside of a running car.] [Coughs.]
00:07:28
Now, this is where I grew up at. Daniel Gross: You actually grew up in these
buildings?
00:07:30
Robin Woods: I grew up here. Yes. Daniel Gross: Robin is driving me around his
hometown.
00:07:33
When he was a kid, he lived at the Fort Cumberland
Homes housing project. He says it was a mix of poor white and poor
Black families.
00:07:38
Robin Woods: This was a library. I used to go to this library all the time. Even though I couldn't read as a child, we
would go in there and play.
00:07:45
Daniel Gross: At first, Robin loved school,
but he wasn't great at it. He never paid much attention to his teachers,
and he says he got in trouble a lot for acting
00:07:53
up and causing problems. Robin Woods: And I remember the teacher used
to put me in the closet, in the coat closet.
00:08:01
They decided to put me in special education. Daniel Gross: Robin was kept in special education
for five years, through seventh grade.
00:08:08
He remembers being told that someone like
him didn't really need to learn things like
00:08:12
math or reading. Robin Woods: Back in those days, it was just
a place to put someone and you didn't have
00:08:18
to deal with them. I would go around and pick up the attendance
slips. Now, at the other end of the
building here, right here to our right, is
00:08:29
the cafeteria, and I used to go in the morning
time, the local milk company would drop off
00:08:35
crates of milk. And my job would be to go and stack the milk
into the coolers, so at lunchtime the other
00:08:42
students could have cold milk. Daniel Gross: So, you're saying that instead
of getting an education here, you were basically
00:08:52
doing the chores? You were doing the chores of the school. Robin Woods: Exactly.
00:08:56
And that's how I got through junior high school. Daniel Gross: Robin didn't make it through
high school.
00:09:02
And when he was sent to prison, almost a decade
later, he could barely read or write.
00:09:07
He knew enough to get odd jobs and to read
a menu, but not much else. Robin Woods: I had never read a book in my
life, so—
00:09:13
Daniel Gross: Really? Not even a kid's book? Robin Woods: Nothing. Not even Watch Spot Run.
00:09:19
Daniel Gross: Robin's prison in Hagerstown
was organized by floors, or tiers. The inmates were alone in their cells for
most of the day, and he says, they'd sort
00:09:27
of yell out and try to talk to each other. One day, a guy wound through the tiers with
a cart yelling, "Library call."
00:09:34
Robin Woods: And I was thinking to myself,
"Well, why would I want a book?" Daniel Gross: Robin was skeptical, but he
figured, "Why not?"
00:09:41
He borrowed The Autobiography of Malcolm X
and The Sicilian, a mafia novel by the author
00:09:46
of The Godfather, Mario Puzo. The librarian slid them through the slot that
was normally used for food.
00:09:52
Robin Woods: Many, many words I had to skip
over because... I couldn't read them.
00:10:00
Daniel Gross: What did it feel like, staring
at the page, only understanding some of the
00:10:06
words and trying to figure that out? Robin Woods: It was hard at first, because
I may have been grasping maybe 30%, 40% of
00:10:17
what a page would say. But every time I would turn a page, I would
become more confident that I was understanding
00:10:24
more of what was going on in the book. I mean, it's like, "Wow, this is pretty good."
00:10:31
Daniel Gross: Eventually Robin bought a dictionary
from the prison commissary. He would copy words he didn't know into a
notebook, then study them carefully.
00:10:41
Robin Woods: But I remember reading that Sicilian
and getting done, and I wept like a child.
00:10:49
Because those people had lied to me. They had programmed me that, "Don't even try.
00:10:55
You can't
do it. You're not capable of doing it." And then once I did it, it was like, I could
go to China, I could go to Rome, I could go
00:11:06
to Greece, I could go to the Second World
War, I could go to the Civil War, I could
00:11:11
go to the moon. Daniel Gross: He started a small library in
his cell. Other inmates sometimes asked to borrow his
books, or for his help reading legal documents.
00:11:20
Robin Woods: It was a marvelous thing. The whole world opened up. Even though I was confined in an institution,
in a prison, in a building, in a cell, my
00:11:31
mind was free, because the only thing I had
to do was wait for the library man to come
00:11:35
and bring me a book and I could escape. Daniel Gross: Robin tore through the books
he could access in the library, and as he
00:11:43
became more confident, he also became more
ambitious. Robin Woods: I wanted to know about the world
that I lived in.
00:11:50
I wanted to know about Sir Isaac Newton and
Socrates and Alexander the Great. Daniel Gross: In 2004, he ordered an encyclopedia
from a Merriam-Webster catalog.
00:12:02
It contained 2.5 million words, a gigantic
book of 1,800 pages. Robin Woods: By the time that I got ahold
of the Merriam-Webster's Desktop Collegiate
00:12:13
Encyclopedia... I always give the whole thing out, because
it's impressive for me.
00:12:19
By the time I got to that point, I had probably
read 500, 600 books. That's not hyperbole.
00:12:26
That's the truth. Once I would find a subject, it would lead
me to the next... It would all dovetail together.
00:12:36
Daniel Gross: While most people open an encyclopedia
looking for a specific thing, Robin just started
00:12:42
anywhere and let one discovery lead him to
the next. One day, he read an entry about the acquisition
of Texas, and it didn't seem right.
00:12:50
Robin Woods: I believe the reference was that
the acquisition was acquired through the American
00:12:58
and Mexican War, which of course, that happened
after Texas became a state. And when I found it and I read it several
times and I knew that it was wrong, I went
00:13:11
and found that the chief editor, or the editor
for the Merriam-Webster's Desktop Encyclopedia,
00:13:17
and this guy's name was Mark Stevens. Daniel Gross: In November 2004, 15 years into
Robin's sentence, he wrote a letter.
00:13:26
"Dear Mr. Stevens, I'm writing to you at this
time to advise you of a misprint in your fine
00:13:31
collegiate encyclopedia." Robin Woods: I thought maybe they would think,
"Well, how arrogant is this guy, sitting in
00:13:36
a prison somewhere writing me to tell me that
there was an error." [Bubbly electronic music.].
00:13:47
Probably about a month later, I get a letter. I went and sat on the bunk, and I opened it
up very gingerly because I didn't want to
00:13:54
tear the envelope up real bad. And I read the letter. And Mr. Stevens congratulated me.
00:14:00
First, he thanked me. I mean, a person who had basically taught
myself to read and write, and I found that
00:14:11
error. Daniel Gross: It's like getting an A in English
class or something. Robin Woods: Absolutely.
00:14:16
Yes, absolutely. It was getting an A+. [Bouncy electronic music continues.] Mark Stevens: This was the beginning of a
real correspondence, and he informed me, I
00:14:28
think fairly early on, that his ambition was
to read the entire encyclopedia. Daniel Gross: Mark Stevens, editor of the
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Encyclopedia.
00:14:38
Mark basically assembled the book from scratch. Mark Stevens: And nobody before, or since,
has ever told me that that was their ambition
00:14:46
for that book. Daniel Gross: Within days of his first letter,
Robin caught more mistakes.
00:14:52
The entry for William the Conqueror mentioned
Harold I when it should've said Harold II.
00:14:57
And a different entry said Uthman ibn Affan
was the third caliph of the Umayyad dynasty,
00:15:02
but Uthman ibn Affan died five years before
the dynasty began. Over the course of two years, Robin caught
more than a dozen mistakes that were corrected
00:15:12
in later editions. Mark started to think of him as a freelance
editor. There's actually a history of this.
00:15:19
Back in the late 1800s, a famous prisoner
in England was one of the main contributors
00:15:23
to the Oxford English Dictionary. Anyway, Robin and Mark debated whether Lincoln
deserved credit for freeing the slaves.
00:15:31
They discussed whether Cleopatra was Greek
or African. Mark Stevens: He would move through a lot
of subjects that you might find improbable
00:15:39
for an incarcerated person with, who I learned
had, a ridiculously small amount of education,
00:15:47
of formal education. Daniel Gross: Robin may not have graduated
from high school, but he was an incredibly
00:15:52
close reader. He'd read hundreds of books by this point,
and he'd flipped through the pages checking
00:15:57
and cross-checking information, and then writing
to Mark, lots and lots of letters going back
00:16:03
and forth. And in all that time, Mark did not know what
Robin was in prison for.
00:16:08
He never asked,
which seems funny, but maybe some part of him just didn't want to know.
00:16:14
[Staccato violin music.] In early 2006, Robin was transferred to a
different prison, which happened a lot.
00:16:21
But this time, they told him he wouldn't be
allowed to take his books. Robin Woods: Usually, they give you your property
when you get there, and they had had all my
00:16:28
stuff. So I immediately went on a hunger strike within
three or four days. Daniel Gross: Robin wrote to Mark, "I need
my books, and I cannot afford to replace them."
00:16:37
He refused to eat until he got to speak with
the Maryland Commissioner of Corrections,
00:16:41
Frank Sizer. Robin Woods: And I went from 220 pounds, roughly,
to 147 pounds. You could see the bones in my face, the bone
structure.
00:16:53
Mark Stevens: I got a very distressed letter
from him. And he had been thrown into solitary confinement
again — far from the first time, I believe.
00:17:06
But on this occasion, they had removed and
evidently destroyed his books, his own private
00:17:13
library, including the encyclopedia. And this was the most distress he had ever
indicated in a letter.
00:17:23
And in response to that, I looked for information
about the institution and who its wardens
00:17:34
might be, and I sent a letter to the warden
who I thought I had identified. Daniel Gross: What did you include in that
letter?
00:17:43
I mean, what was your goal? Mark Stevens: I was trying to convince them
of how really cruel, unnecessarily cruel,
00:17:50
it was that his library had been taken away
from him. Robin Woods: Mr. Sizer came.
00:18:01
He had asked me, one of the questions he asked
me after he asked about my health and a couple
00:18:07
other things, and told me what he was going
to do... He was very curious, and he had a curious
look on his face, and he said, "Who is this
00:18:15
Mark Stevens?" And I said, "Oh, he's a friend of mine that
works for—" He says, "Well, what—" I said,
00:18:22
"He works for Merriam-Webster." And he asked me, "Well, what do you do? Do you work for them?"
00:18:28
And I was like, "Well, no, I don't work for
them. But I found some errors in their Merriam-Webster's
Desktop Encyclopedia."
00:18:38
Then I filled him into the relationship that
me and Mark had had over the years.
00:18:44
Mark Stevens: It was a very few days after
that, that I got another letter from Robin.
00:18:51
And he was not only getting his books restored,
but he had been informed that he was on the
00:18:58
road to freedom. Daniel Gross: Mark and Robin didn't piece
this together until later, but here's what
00:19:03
they figured out. The commissioner of Corrections was impressed
that Robin was so determined, not only in
00:19:09
his hunger strike, but also in his obsession
with learning. He offered Robin a deal.
00:19:14
Robin Woods: Mr. Sizer said, "If you do everything
that I tell you to do, and you walk through
00:19:20
the door, I'll give you your good days back,
but you have to be infraction-free for a whole
00:19:25
year. And I'll give you your good days back, and
I'll let you go home." Daniel Gross: In short, even though Robin
had once participated in a riot that left
00:19:33
a dozen guards injured, the commissioner was
willing to let him out early. Robin had five years left to serve, but once
he got his so-called good days back, there
00:19:43
was just one year left. Robin Woods: It was the craziest thing in
the world to walk out of the prison gates
00:19:50
after all those years and be free. Daniel Gross: Eighteen years had passed. He went to prison as a 27 year old and left
when he was 44.
00:20:02
Robin was released with around $50 in cash,
the minimum required by law. He knew about Julius Caesar and the Mexican-American
War, but he couldn't remember how to count
00:20:12
money. He had trouble finding work back home in Cumberland. He couldn't pay rent.
00:20:17
And all this time he stayed in touch with
Mark. Every so often, they talked on the phone.
00:20:21
Mark Stevens: Of course, I have no dependents
myself. There's nobody who I'm supporting in the world.
00:20:28
Daniel Gross: Eventually, Mark decided to
send Robin a little bit of money. The first time it was a loan, but then he
sent a bit more and a bit more.
00:20:37
And eventually, Mark started thinking of it
as a gift, a gift that added up to thousands
00:20:42
of dollars over the years. And remember, they'd never even met. If you had a family of your own, do you think
that this story would have happened?
00:20:53
Mark Stevens: No, probably not. I don't think people tend to put themselves
out in a personal way, maybe, when they have
00:21:06
families of their own. Daniel Gross: But you must've had friends
that would have said, "What if this is a bad
00:21:13
idea?" Mark Stevens: My friends didn't know I was
doing it. My friends didn't know.
00:21:19
Daniel Gross: How did that happen? How did it happen that, for so many years,
a relatively significant part of your life
00:21:25
was invisible to your friends? Mark Stevens: I don't know. I don't know. There's just things like, I just don't necessarily
tell people everything about.
00:21:35
I'm not sure if I've ever told one single
soul how much I might've sent to Robin.
00:21:41
They would struggle to believe it, actually,
I suspect. [Sweet, floaty orchestral music.]
00:21:43
Daniel Gross: Here it is. Stevens. Robin Woods: OK. Should we knock on the door?
00:21:47
Mark Stevens: Oh my goodness. You must be Robin. Robin Woods: How are you? Daniel Gross: After a decade of phone calls,
Robin finally met Mark at his house in Massachusetts.
00:22:19
Robin Woods: Give me a hug! Oh, it's nice to meet you. Mark Stevens: Great to meet you.
00:22:27
[Emotional.] It really is. Robin Woods: I told you I was going to cry,
and doggone it...
00:22:33
Mark Stevens: [Laughing.] Oh, no. Not really. Anyway. Well, great to meet you. Robin Woods: I didn't know what we was going
to do, so I brought a couple of different
00:22:42
outfits. But I'm going to tell you, the only way I
could tell you, I've never met you till today,
00:22:47
but I love you very much. You're a good man. Mark Stevens: That's really sweet of you.
00:22:55
Robin Woods: I'm not surprised you have a
lot of books. I'm not... Mark Stevens: [Laughs.]
00:22:58
You see, all behind the piano there is all
stacked books. Robin Woods: I remember in prison, again,
a lot of people that had a little bit of means,
00:23:13
they would have five or six pair of $100 tennis
shoes, and I would have a whole cell full
00:23:19
of books. But I had my sanity because of it. I'd have went nuts. Mark Stevens: Yeah.
00:23:24
Yeah. Robin Woods: I would have went nuts. Mark Stevens: It is impossible to imagine
being in there and not having...
00:23:30
God, and not having printed material and not
having stuff to read. I just can't — it's just unimaginable, just
unimaginable.
00:23:38
Daniel Gross: Over the weekend, Robin and
Mark went for a hike and went to see a play.
00:23:43
They even visited the house where Emily Dickinson
grew up. And then, Robin drove seven hours back to
Cumberland.
00:23:51
When he got home, he was in for a shock. One of his windows was hanging open. Someone had broken in.
00:23:58
The irony of the situation wasn't lost on
Robin. Robin Woods: No one has ever broken into my
residence and robbed me, so what poetic justice
00:24:10
is that? That now I know what it feels like to be invaded,
to have someone to come into your home and
00:24:17
steal your meager possessions. Daniel Gross: What does it feel like? Robin Woods: It feels like you've been violated
and you're helpless to do anything about it,
00:24:32
and now, the old me... But now I have to depend on the law to deal
— to get satisfaction.
00:24:41
Because, certainly, I'm not going to go out
and retaliate because someone stole some material
00:24:46
possessions. Daniel Gross: What would you want to happen
to the person that did this?
00:24:51
Robin Woods: Well... They need to go to jail. There's probably a lot of people that would
look at this and say, "Well, this man spent
00:25:03
years in jail," but they need to go to court
and answer up for it. [Melancholy guitar music.].
00:25:09
But things happen. Now I know what it feels like to be robbed. And maybe if I would have felt this way before,
I would have never robbed anybody in the first
00:25:20
place. [Laughs.] Daniel Gross: Robin turned 54 this year. He still has a copy of the Merriam-Webster
Collegiate Encyclopedia, but he told me he
00:25:32
doesn't really read much anymore. In prison, books connected Robin to the outside
world, but now he's in it.
00:25:40
Robin Woods: I actually do have time to read,
but to my shame, I don't. I don't read as much as I should.
00:25:51
Daniel Gross: I called Mark last week to check
some facts, and he told me that after 24 years,
00:25:58
he was just laid off by Merriam-Webster. He's 66, and he spent years working on encyclopedias,
but people just aren't reading them anymore.
00:26:08
[Melancholy guitar music continues.] Phoebe Judge: Daniel Gross. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohrer and
me.
00:26:24
Audio mix by Rob Byers. Special thanks to Alice Wilder and Julie Shapiro. Julienne Alexander makes original illustrations
for each episode of Criminal.
00:26:34
You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. The New Yorker is running a companion version
of this story.
00:26:41
You'll find it at newyorker.com. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North
Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.
00:26:48
We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX,
a collective of the best podcasts around.
00:26:55
Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight
Foundation and MailChimp. And thanks to Adzerk for providing their ad-serving
platform to Radiotopia.
00:27:04
We'll be going on a little tour this fall. We'll be stopping in cities all around this
country.
00:27:10
We'd love to see you. We'll be in New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle,
Portland...
00:27:15
You can find out all about it at our website,
thisiscriminal.com. I'm Phoebe Judge.
00:27:21
This is Criminal. Jingle: Radiotopia. From PRX.