Lifelong Friends on Death Row

Dear Governor Newsom. When Jarvis Masters first entered the walls of San Quentin State Prison four decades ago, he was, by his own admission, angry and bitter, filled with vitriol, pent up from a lifetime of abuse, neglect, and hopelessness.

Were it not for the foresight and compassion of a singular woman at a very pivot dull time in his life, Jarvis admits he would have likely continued along the seemingly preordained pipeline cradle to prison to casket melody irma child, Chavez was so much more than a defense investigator on Jarvis's murder trial. He credits her support encouragement is vital

to altering the trajectory of his life. In the forward of his book Finding Freedom, How Death Row Broke and opened My heart, he writes that Melody quote guided me through the many steps from extreme anger to the clarity of my Buddhist practice. She created a bridge for me to the outside world, bringing people into my life and giving passage to my voice. I recently spoke to Melody, who is now living in Germany, and I asked about her memory of Jarvis. When they first met back in

the early eighties. He just sat there, glum and silent and glowering at me, and he had on this blue watch cap, you know, kind of a ski cap that they're allowed to have, and he pulled that way down almost over his eyes, and crossed his arms and slumped way back in his chair and stuck his legs out and crossed his ankles and had nothing to say. He just was a completely shut down and defended kid. Were you intimidated by him? No, he didn't scare me, but

I I felt a lot of compassion for him. I thought, oh boy, you know, he's just not in touch with his feelings and he's he's very scared. I thought that he he's very strong, you know, fortress defenses he had going where because he was probably like most of my clients, really shocked to be facing the death penalty. Do you have to understand when I met Melody, I was something like that. Jarvis Masters recalls his first meat with Melody

over thirty years ago. I went out there with my beanie and I did my little mug thing, and I didn't like her. You know, she was too small, she didn't know what the hell she was talking about, and you know I didn't have to listen to her. But she recognized my anger in a way where she connected it to masculinity and connecting with that child inside you. You know what it is you know a man and not be a follower, you know, and what it is to hold some guidance and direction to your life and

not be scared of doing that. And she filled myself up with books like that. What was it about her that made you trust her? She was a lot tougher and what I thought she was. And she knew more about prisons than I thought she did. She had visited my mother. It I was, I was too angry to hear myself, and she starts shedding that away. You know, I try to run her away from me very many times.

You know, I didn't think she was serious at thought it's all about the dollar, and I thought, you know, I'm not gonna sit out here and try to be can't like you know, I'm getting something from her. You know. I was also scared about what she would write about my mother, So I hung out with her just to figure that out. Um. I mean, this is the first time I ever said that. But yeah, she was a very is she is today a very, very dear friend of mine. You know, I hope I can be that

for her. What is it about Jervish this Well, first of all, you are basically credited with introducing him to meditation, which changed the entire trajectory of his life. To recommend meditation to all of your clients, or wasn't there something about Jarvis that made you think that it could really benefit him? Well, first of all, the ante the part about what was special about jervis I thought when once he once he sort of opened up, you know, I

got gained his trust. One of the things I did is I just did go and see some of his family, and they liked me, and I reunited him with all his family he had nobody, had no visitors. And slowly, you know, I got him back in touch with his sisters, his brothers, and then finally his mom, you know, communicating writing back and forth, and that he began to really

see the the benefits of having an investigative. You know, I had many young guys being just as reluctant, you know, just saying I don't need no desfinitely trial, you know, get me out of here kind of that, just get me out I don't want to do is also a big one. And Jarvis had this too, is don't go anywhere near my family, leave my family out of this.

You know, he knew he felt he'd led his mom down, and he thought she probably didn't want anything to do with him, and he didn't want her also to be bothered. But eventually, you know, I got him think, well, look, you know, the government is paying me to write your life story. You might as well take advantage of it. Let's write your life story. Why not? You know, this is just something we can do together while you're waiting for your trial. And I'll go and find out some

stuff and I'll come back and let you know. And he got more and more involved in it. Can you tell me, like, what is the process of being a criminal investigator? Well, later on we called that social historians for capital cases, and that's a life history based on documents.

First of all, the foundation of it is the record, medical record, school records, criminal records, everything you can find, so that really establishes the dates that things happen in many many names come forward with that kind of thing. I got all of that for Jarvis, and then you

weave into it interviews with the defend that himself. So Jarvis told much of his own story over time, and then adding in quotes and recollections from everyone who knew him, so neighbors and relatives and more distant relatives and the maybe the pastor or any employer. Uh and in Jarvis's case, the foster parents and the juvenile hall, people in the juvenile prison, people who played a big role in his life. So, you know, he was vera young when I met him,

he was twenty two. I think I was also pretty young. I was about forty seven. Maybe I recognized how first of all, he's really smart and not everyone is right. I mean, he didn't have the kind of brain injuries, you know, that so many of my clients had with fetal alcohol issues or having been a born on drugs, or having been hit and beaten so badly to have like little brain injuries. He just had been spared all that, thank God. And it was a miracle because his mom,

of course, was on drugs and such. But he is well, and so he has this foundation that we all need, which is to have a functioning brain. And then he has and the whole family has sort of what the Irish called the gift of the gab. You know, he just was so articulate, and it's funny and talkative and and so many people are not, you know. I mean, I've interviewed thousands of people in an out of prison,

and so many it's like pulling teeth. You know that yourself, you'll ask something and then there you'll get mum mumble mumble, looked down at the floor, you know. Or teenagers if you've raised any of them, that they go through that phase too. Uh. I can't tell get anybody to say anything, But once he got started, he would He just would

tell stories and and entertain you. And I thought that was really a lovely characteristic and I enjoyed my time with him always, I think everybody does, you know, you look forward to it. And and also he was the one who insisted that we'd be friends. He had had some team social workers and juvenile counselors and this and that, and he said, I don't need that. You know, if you're coming here to be my social worker and try to help me and all this, I don't want anything

to do with you. I need a pal. I need an actual friend. Need you to tell me some of your life and what you're going through. Why would this be a one way street. I'm not going to do it. And I thought, okay, well why not. I guess I could open up more with him. And then as far as meditation, we learned that together. I was not a Buddhist I when I met him, I hadn't meditated ever. And I went to a course to learn meditate and I thought this is great, hard, very difficult to do.

And I came up to see Jarvis and I said, you know, I'm learning how to meditate. You want to do you want to do it? You want to try to? And he was like sure, And this was a joke that I always tell it. I said, well, but this is Buddhist, you know, like, do you want to me to find some other sort of practice like from Africa or something. Do you want something more like culturally? That's not any looks at me, it goes, well, you're not Asian, that's true. Good point. So we don't learned it in

the cell there. You know, we had contact visits prior to the trial for that, and that was several years you know, to prepare. So anyway, we we did it together. We really undertook this whole journey to calm down and pay attention to what is happening with us together. You know, it's very a very rich experience, and of course he had it much harder than a prison is no place to meditate, and there's also no place to open yourself up to your inner self, you know, to start to

feel your emotions. You can't afford it in there. You know, it's not a safe environment. It's not even safe to close your eyes. It's not safe to be quiet or you know, or to cry with be the last thing and he very bravely, very strongly, I thought, I'm I'm going to benefit of this, and I needed to get through the experience of facing his death bathing. It definitely trials a lout like you know, you like a cancer, diactosis or something. You many people think, wow, you know

this is it? What is why am I alive? And what does my life mean? And he did? He really approached it that way. Up next, how Jarvis's meditation practice evolved in Buddhism became an energizing force in his life. The practice of meditation could have led Jarvis masters down any number of paths. I asked friend and defense investigator Melody irma child, how and why Jarvis was drawn to Budism. I brought him maybe or someone else sent him a

magazine that had Buddhist stuff in it. And he saw an ad for free books from this group in northern California that had their teacher, Kasan Toku, who became his teacher. He wrote to them himself, I had nothing to do with that, and he said, send me the books. I'm on death row. And he had a whole correspondence going with them. What did not involve me? And so he sought out studying Buddhism, you know, really becoming a Buddhist scholar, sort of reading uh and learning the history of it

and such more than than I did. He just went like a duck into water or something. What would you say? You know, he really spoke to him, and he pursued it on his own. And you can tell that in David Scheff's book how deeply he went into it and how but he sought out teachers first charge, saying tookles, then Pamma. I remember one day I had a visit

with him, which was on the phone. Then after the trial he was put in solitary and for years I visited him, talking to him on the phone behind glass syd a glass window, and I visited him a lot. One time, the guy at the gate said, you know, we're going to redo our lists of all the visits. He said, I'll just give you a copy of years. And it was a hundred and ten visits at that point at some point, you know, over years, over a few years. So we're talking and he said, you know,

I'm I'm corresponding with this little lady. She's so nice and she lives would in the woods someplace. Oh, that's interesting. And he said, and her name is Pinma, something like Pina. Oh. And I said, wait a minute, Jervis are you talking about Pemma Children. Yeah, that's her name. She was way on in the woods. And I said, Josh, she is one of the most well known Buddhist teachers there is. You know, this is amazing, and and he said, oh, well, I didn't know that. I just thought, you know, she

was like to write. May be she had written him because of his book. You credit Buddhism for Jervis's transformation. I think he would say yes. So I would say yes, Buddhism and the way it opened him up to the world and to kindness and to his own you know, loving heart, which then drew in all these other people's Buddhism, and also the support of dezens and hundreds of people all around that have carried him forward to these Such a wonderful person who so many people really depend on

his friendship. He's a really good friend too many people. ID just has to be one of the most famous person right now on denth Bro you know, as far as having followers and having an international presence. U his book was translated all around in Europe. And yeah, I'm very proud of him. He's got his own two books. Amazing. And then and then David Cheff's book now, yes, yeah, David Cheff's book is so great, and you you are the first person even mentioned in that book. You are featured,

featured so prominently. I'm I'm so grateful and honored in sort of odd by the way Jarvis has given me credit. It was saying, you know, been grateful to me and talked about me, and also all of the other people, you know, Pamma and Payma children, and also Susan Moon who published him first in Buddhist publication up Turning Wheel.

And you know, I just didn't forget the people who have helped to him, and I just think that's so nice, you know, I mean the first is of kind of I was kind of embarrassed to be featured that way, but that also Dan, I realized, you know, this really

is a lovely honor for me. I'm retired now and an old kind of an old lady, and to feel that work I did have been recognized, and it's more like a symbol of all the many cases I have thirty five people who are living on death or who were my clients, and then you know, way way more than that who did not get death and or even were acquitted or you know, got terms of years and such and and some doing life without parole. You are

also the impetus for Jarvis to start writing. From what I understand as well, you too would sit together and write. That's true. I always thought jarvis use of language was just great, so he didn't have a formal education for stuff like punctuation or even spelling. I thought that it would be great if he could write down the way he talked uh and write down his stories. So I started doing these little exercises with him because he had been talking to me all about noticing the child abuse.

We talked all about child abuse, what it is, and how it happened to him, and the effects of that. Most prisoners, many, many, you know, younger people think, well, I was I was a bad boy, and my parents disciplined me. You know, my father beat me and and I deserved it, you know, that's just how it is. And I would I would also beat my kids. And I helped Jovis to see that that you could raise

kids without beating them. And it leaves these terrible wounds, psychic wounds, emotional wounds, and even on your bodies and body. And he told me about the scars you saw in the prison Yard. All of that we sort of developed together, and I said, well, why don't you just write the whole thing down? And that went to at least twelve publications. It was anthologized, and then finally made its way into Finding Freedom. So it's all his own talent, right, I mean,

he does have a unique writer's voice. He has an actual voice, and it's unique, and I think it's so great. I really like his writing. And no, we would we would go do all these little things when he was behind glass. We would have both have paper and he would have the inside of a a ballpoint pen, you know, just the inside because they take away the metal outside or hard plastic outside. And we would say, well today, let's write about the ball game, or let's write about rain,

or let's write about sleep or whatever. So we we both developed as writers together. I would say, then would you read those like you give yourself tendent? Yeah? Then read them aloud? Yeah, okay. We would be let's go so many minutes and I'd look at my watch five minutes and then and then read them to each other. Was he ever, because he did not have the education that you had, was to be finned that decide intimidating at all. I never saw that. He just goes ahead.

See that's another really great quality he has is that he doesn't he knows, he doesn't have a mastery of or didn't these of course he's learning, learned all these twenty years punctuation or spelling every word. But he doesn't stop, you know, he doesn't get it, gets intimidated or ashamed. Nothing. He just goes ahead and puts it all onto paper that all that stuff could be fixed later. Will you be participating in any way, shape or form in the

federal appeal? Not that I've been contacted, I know, I really I'm retired party. I feel like I've been healing myself the last five years or so with nature. Kind of enough murderer, Enough with murder, enough with prisons. You know. I do go to see Jarvis, and when we're in California, we go to see Chad Rhodes also, And I've been in touch with him all the time, all the years he's now been there over twenty years, mostly in the

Pelican Bay Shoe and now in a better prison. And so I just have the two Jarvis and Chad Road and I thought, well, all right, I'll just stick with you guys until I'm not alive anymore, you know, I'll I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life with them, and that it's very helpful to me, making my life more meaningful. I wouldn't be the person I am without no ide that's a fact, sound story. So I think let's call and your telephone number will be

monitored and recorded. She came into my life at the most angerious point I've ever been, and slowly she was the person who said, you know, you don't need to be that to be you, and she found that a lot of books to support that, you know, and she hung out with me. She stayed with me while I went through that process. So you know, you can never forget something like that, you know, Yeah, I certainly won't. Was she like a mother to you? No, no, no, no,

not not at all. She was more like a a teacher who not let you leave the classroom until you did your homework. That kind of person, you know, Yes, So yeah, that's how that's how who she became. That's

the kind of person she's always been to me. Up next, Jervis's own words on Melody, his introduction to Buddhism and how his fraught journey to self acceptance led him down the Buddhist path after Dion Graham, who voiced the audio book Finding Freedom, How Death Row Broke and opened my heart on how Jarvis managed to find his path in the darkness of San Quentin's death Row. For a long time, I've been my own stranger, but everything I went through and learning how to accept myself brought me to the

doorsteps of Dharma, the Buddhist path. During my death penalty trial, Melody, a private investigator working on my case, send me books on how to meditate, how to deal with pain and suffering, how to keep my mind at rest. She had broken her ankle and was trying to keep still. She and I were both trying this meditation gig, and like me, she was confronting a lot of things in her past. She was also writing and encouraged me to do so as well. I began to get up early to try

to calm my mind so I wouldn't panic. It was as if my whole life was being displayed on a screen during the death penalty case. Things I never realized about myself in my life were introduced to me and the jury at the same time questions I never asked my mother, like how long she'd been abused on the street,

and added, we're being asked now. Through meditation, I learned to slow down and take a few deep breaths, to take everything in, not to run from the pain, but to sit with it, confronted, give it the companion it had never had. I became committed to my meditation practice. While I was in the holding booth during the jury's deliberation on whether I should get life without parole or the death penalty, I started leafing through a Buddhist journal

Melody had left there. In it was an article called Life in Relation to Death by a Tibetan Buddhist lama Choga Tokul Rimpachey. I thought, wow, this is right up my alley. I sent a letter to the address in the journal and got a reply from a woman named Lisa, one of Rimpa Chase close students, with a copy of his booklet Life in Relation to Death. At the time, I got into some kind of trouble and was in isolated confinement, stripped down to a pair of shorts and

a T shirt with only two blankets. In her letter, Lisa asked if I needed help. I always needed help. I still need help, and because the help she offered, we began corresponding. Then she began to visit me and eventually brought Rimpachey to San Quentin. When I first saw Rimpa Check through the glass in the small visiting room booth, I thought, oh ship, I'm in trouble. Now I'm messing around with a real lama. He's from Tibet. Check him out that everything he's got on is blessed. I figured

there were two ways I could introduce myself. I could greet him in an ordinary way, or I could bow. I bowed, then he bowed. Why do I think he wouldn't He's been bowing all his life. I thought, I've been reading about llamas for the last three years, and now I have a real one in front of me. I knew that all I could do was tell him exactly what I think. If I lied or shot away from him, he'd know it. I fell in love with him for the same reasons everybody else does. His life

history was my key. He had been a rebellious kid. He wasn't born with a silver spoon. He was a feisty guy who would discipline me when I needed it. He knew what he was talking about and would say it in a way that I'd get it. He had a certain shrewdness, compassionate ferociousness. He was a lama who ate beef, jerky, got upset, and had jewels of compassion in him. The only thing he didn't do was say all this to me. I just felt it. I thought, here's a guy who can take me out of prison

even as I remain here. He won't dress me in Buddhist garb, but except me as I am, I knew he was a tough character. Next week, how, with the help of a Buddhist chaplain, Jarvis managed to implement Buddhist services to shed a little light into the Row. The audiobook of Finding Freedom, How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart by Jarvis j Masters can be found at Shambala dot com or Audible. We'll link to both sites in our show notes. This episode was written and produced

by Donna Fazzari and myself Cornicole. Our theme song sentenced is compliments of the band Stick Figure from their album Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach composed the original music. Nate Dufort did the sound design. For more information on Jarvis and to find out how you can follow his case and support his cause, please visit free Jarvis dot org. For more podcasts. For My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.