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#065180
P.O. Box 500
Grady,AR 71644-0500
This is not just another story, this is one of many stories that need to be read,
thoroughly, and thoughtfully.
It begins in Vennis, Plackerman Parish , LA. Oct. 23,1937 Harold Sherman Upton is born to Lois
Marie IsaBo Upton. Harold attended the Assembly of God and Orleans High School before taking
up a trade working shrimpers and tug boats.
December 27,1971, I , Harold Upton and Lauri Knight entered a liquor store in El Dorado
Arkansas to commit a robbery; I was manning the wheel of the 1965 Oldsmobile and my
girlfriend was carrying the shotgun. Things went horribly wrong and Wilson De Fee died.
For pulling the trigger, Lauri Knight was sentenced to twenty-one years for second degree
murder, of which she only served 3 yrs. and 6 months. I receive a life term in the Arkansas Dept.
of Corrections. I have served 33 calendar years, in Cummins Unit, Grady, Arkansas and as of now
have earned 20 years of Good Time, have been made a trustee, and have a status of level 1,
which I have maintained for several years. After spending thirty-three years of a life debt, I
believe that if penal rehabilitation is possible, I am rehabilitated. But aside from that, there is
nothing I can say or do, to change the course of events, all those years ago. What happened at
that time will be engraved in my heart and on my mind forever, as it is in the man’s family and
loved ones.
I am sixty seven years old now, I have been able to see how a person’s life can change in a heart
beat and how one person can make a difference in another’s life. I have had several people
involved in helping me to see life from both sides now and along the years these good people
have left definite footprints in my life. To be truthful, I hold no threat to anyone, if I were to be
released and I also have a good stable home to go to in another state and a good solid religious
group for support also. I have applied for Executive Clemency twice in the past 4 yrs. and to no
avail . I have the moral and stable support to be able to survive on the outside and that is a good
start from where I came from as a youth. But I have not been able to obtain my release and the
answers I have been given for this are worded sparingly.
In spite of half a century of making every effort to change inside and out, living in the penal
system and knowing that the reason for it is solid ground, I have not learn to be bitter and have
made every effort to show the system, that I am an exception to the rule. But still I am not able to
obtain release.