It's 10 a.m. on a cold February morning at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. An intense morning sun glints off garlands of shiny razor wire atop chain-link fences. Her name is Leola Brewer. Born in 1913 in Mississippi, she was sentenced to prison in her 70s after shooting and killing a man in a dispute in Cleveland. Today, she's being paroled.
Brewer looks frail and worn, and smiles disarmingly.
With her hands clasped on her lap, she looks more like a sparkly eyed grandmother than a hardened criminal being paroled after serving 13 years of a possible life sentence for murder. Before the elderly inmate can leave, guards and prison officials envelop her in a flurry of hugging and kissing, wishing her all the best in the future. Brewer fully admits she shot a young man, but that she didn't intend to kill him. She smiles a little and pats her leg where an imaginary gun would have been hidden. Reed, who was stationed in Germany at the time of the shooting, explains it was a rental dispute.