RICHMOND, Va. — For the former chaplain at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, Lynn Litchfield, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking.
Seven years ago, when Teresa Lewis was sentenced to death and sent to FCCW, Litchfield began praying for her and for the families of the victims even before Lewis arrived.
Lynn Litchfield
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“Choosing to love someone condemned to death was never a comfortable idea,” Litchfield wrote for The Guardian, a British newspaper and sent to the Religious Herald. “I knew I would be exposing myself to a relationship in which, the more I gave to it, the deeper my hurt would be should her sentence be carried out. Yet, as a person of faith, I believe I am called to live out mercy, grace and love for ‘the least of these’ and Teresa Lewis was certainly among the least.”
“I chose to love as fully as I knew how,” Litchfield recalls.
It would have been understandable if Litchfield had written Lewis off as a hopeless case. After all, many others had.
Years ago, in an unhappy marriage, Lewis began an adulterous relationship with a young man, Matthew Shallenberger. Later, seeking money for a drug enterprise he hoped to fund through the insurance money, with Lewis’ cooperation he and a friend of his killed her husband, Julian, and adult stepson, CJ, in their beds while they slept. These two men who actually pulled the triggers were sent to prison for life, but Lewis, whom the judge believed to have masterminded the scheme, received a death sentence.
Because she entered a guilty plea, no real defense was mounted on Lewis’ behalf. After her sentencing, and too late to be entered into evidence, information questioning her ability to have formulated such plans and a statement from Shallenberger (and others) saying he had planned the murders surfaced but were disregarded.
During her ministry to the women at Fluvanna, Litchfield spent many hours talking with Lewis, though physical contact was limited.
“My hands were the only ones to hold hers in comfort or in prayer on the occasions when guards would open the food tray slot for me. I regularly visited her and heard her hopes, her fears, her grief and her faith. I was her chaplain.”
And her visits paid off as Lewis began to respond to the truth of the gospel: that no one is beyond God’s love and the hope of redemption. Although she had attended church off and on earlier in her life, Lewis committed her life to Christ and was baptized while in prison.
Some discount Lewis’ commitment as just another jailhouse conversion, Litchfield acknowledges. She estimates that between 15,000 and 21,000 women cycled through Fluvanna in her 11-plus years as the sole chaplain working with women in prison. “Seeing that God wasn't a genie in a lamp, some gave up when the going got tough,” she recalls. “But Teresa never did. Her Bible was worn out from use.”
The chaplain also cites Lewis’ ministry to other prisoners as evidence of her new life in Christ.
“Teresa attempted to contact other women through the plumbing or air vents to try to befriend those serving time in isolation for behavioral infractions. She would pray, offer Scriptures and sing songs of faith.
“As strange as it may seem, she really was a loving and nurturing presence. Teresa grew into a woman who inspired others to reach for their Bibles, to actively seek a spiritual relationship and to try and be better than they were before. Countless women who had the chance to meet Teresa while serving time in ‘seg,’ or cleaning the wing, or who cut her hair, passionately shared how ‘Ms Teresa’ changed them,” she affirms.
During their final meeting the day before Lewis was executed, Litchfield recalls her own anxiety as she wondered what to comfort. Instead, when Litchfield asked how she was, Lewis said, “Can’t you see the peace? The best way I know to describe it is like the way a little child feels when the go to bed at night knowing Mommy and Daddy are in teh next room. That is how I feel. Jesus has me.” Lewis read Scripture and sang several songs to her.
“When she sang, ‘His eye is on the sparrow,’ I lost it,” shared the chaplain with voice shaky with emotion. “Standing in a prison cell, facing execution, she radiated, ‘I sing because I’m happy.’ Then, raising her arms, face lifted toward heaven she continued, ‘I sing because he set me free. ’At this point, I’m sobbing because I’m so deeply moved by her faith. Tears are streaming down my face. Teresa reached through the bars, cupped my face in her hands and wiped my tears. I had gone to comfort her, but she comforted me. She ministered to the minister. The person who participated in those heinous crimes in 2002, she was dead long ago. The person who stood before me was a new creation in Christ.”
Those two precious hours are etched forever in Litchfield’s memory. She recalls Lewis’ final words to her: “Fierce love!” an expression they had often used.
“It means the kind of love that God has for us — strong, powerful and lasting,” the chaplain explained.
Litchfield, and her successor at FCCW, Chaplain Julie Perry, grieve the loss of their sister in Christ who ministered to her fellow prisoners at Fluvanna. But Litchfield grieves for other reasons as well.
“What surprised me about this process,” Litchfield said, “was the hatred that people spew at me and at my family for advocating for Teresa. Others were just silent, withdawing their friendship and support. Those of us who knew and loved Teresa on the inside and have tried to advocate for her on the outside, all of us have lost friends over this.”
Litchfield is disappointed that some seem to believe that to advocate for Lewis’s sentence to be commuted meant becoming an adversary of the victims’ families.
“As a clergy, my faith was shaken — not my faith in God, but my faith in people over this,” she laments. “Through this experience, I have seen intimately the unfair application of the death penalty. How can a man who tomahawks four people to death get a life sentence while my Teresa got death? I have also observed the hatefulness of those sitting in distant seats of self-righteous judgment against those who become entangled in the legal system’s grasp. I see clearly that capital punishment is far more about a political agenda than it is about justice.”
Thinking theologically, Litchfield offered, “In my faith, Christ teaches that God can bring good out of even the worst of circumstances. I hold to that. I am forever changed by my experience with Teresa Lewis. I grew to love her. She taught me about the resilience of the human spirit, about making the best out of a horrible and tragic situation and about light in the darkest of places Teresa showed me a peace that surpasses understanding and love in the midst of hate.”
As a final tribute, Litchfield reflected, “First, she was my sheep, then my disciple, then my friend and then, my teacher.”