{"id":3309,"date":"2025-12-27T09:16:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T09:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2025-12-27T09:16:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T09:16:44","slug":"my-son-was-brutally-attacked-in-prison-why-wasnt-his-killer-punished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=3309","title":{"rendered":"My son was brutally attacked in prison \u2013 why wasn\u2019t his killer punished?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Sandy Ray went to see her dying son Steven in hospital, she was in such a hurry, she had to leave her oxygen tank at home.<\/p>\n

61-year-old Sandy, who is awaiting a lung transplant, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and has to wear a nasal tube at all times. So as she stayed up all night holding on to Steven\u2019s hand, she hooked up to his oxygen supply.<\/p>\n

Steven, who was on life support, had already taken his last unaided breath.<\/p>\n

Steven, 35, had been brutally beaten by guards at the Donaldson Correctional Facility in 2019 and, as doctors confirmed there was nothing more to be done, Sandy was told the machines would need to be switched off.<\/p>\n

\u2018But I didn\u2019t get to make that decision. They had to call the prison warden. Steven belonged to the state of Alabama. So they called her, she wasn\u2019t there, and we had to wait around until they found her. She called back and said \u201cDo it\u201d\u2019. It was shocking. Horrible\u2019, Sandy tells\u00a0Metro<\/a>\u00a0over Zoom from her Texas home.<\/p>\n

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Sandy had to say goodbye to her son when he was only 35 years old (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A disturbing photo taken by Steven\u2019s brother Brandon as the officers guarding the room slept, shows him bruised and intubated on the hospital bed. With blood crusted around his mouth and nostrils, his eyes so were so black and badly swollen that he was unrecognisable.<\/p>\n

Sandy says she will never get that image out of her mind.<\/p>\n

\u2018It wasn\u2019t just his head they stomped on. His whole body had footprints on. It was so bad, we had to have a closed casket. He didn\u2019t deserve that.\u2019<\/p>\n

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The rest of Stephen\u2019s family were not permitted to be in the hospital room as Stephen\u2019s life support was turned off (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the machines were turned off, Sandy was comforted by a nurse. Her brother, Randy, and Steven\u2019s dad \u2013 also named Steven \u2013 were not permitted to be the room.<\/p>\n

\u2018They didn\u2019t want us in there, to have our\u00a0phones<\/a>\u00a0in there. I realise now that it was all part of the cover up,\u2019 Sandy says.<\/p>\n

The family weren\u2019t initially told what happened to Steven, but saw on the news that he had rushed out his cell and attacked the guards with plastic shivs \u2013 improvised knives \u2013 and that they had had to resort to deadly force.<\/p>\n

Later, an anonymous member of staff from the prison called to tell Sandy that he was\u00a0murdered<\/a>\u00a0by a prison officer. Inmates who witnessed the attack corroborated this and that internal investigators had told them they could be eligible for transfer if they claimed ignorance.<\/p>\n

The William E.\u00a0Donaldson Correctional Facility have not responded to Metro\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

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Sandy misses her son every day and says the circumstances around his death have been covered up (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Roderick Gadson,\u00a0the officer alleged to have beaten Steven to death<\/a>, was cleared following an internal investigation and has been promoted twice since.<\/p>\n

\u2018A dog wouldn\u2019t be treated in that way. To lose a son like that \u2013 I was just in disbelief. It was hurtful, and frustrating and there were so many lies. I didn\u2019t know what to do \u2013 to cry or be mad.\u2019<\/p>\n

Remembering Steven as a child, Sandy tells Metro: \u2018Stevie was on the get go from the time I went into labour. He was born in four hours and always on the go.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Sandy says Stephen was \u2018on the go\u2019 from the minute he was born (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018He stayed that way for the rest of his life. He was very energetic. He loved to play jokes on people, was always happy,\u2019 she remembers.<\/p>\n

A talented athlete who played football and baseball for the city leagues, Stevie struggled with\u00a0ADHD<\/a>\u00a0and oppositional defiant disorder.<\/p>\n

\u2018He wouldn\u2019t be quiet at school and couldn\u2019t sit in the classroom. He spent a lot of time in the principal\u2019s office. He was labelled a bad kid, but he wasn\u2019t. He was very smart\u2019, Sandy recalls.<\/p>\n

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Stephen was a very energetic child who suffered with ADHD (Picture: Stephen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sandy tried to get help managing his conditions, but Stevie hated medication and by the 12th grade, dropped out of school and moved from their home in Texas to\u00a0Florida<\/a>, and then on to Alabama where he made a terrible mistake that eventually cost him his life.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stevie and his girlfriend were in the car with another couple who went into a house to get some drugs. They went in and they shot him and they come back to the car running with their\u00a0gun<\/a>. They told Stevie: drive. What do you do? You drive. Then he and called me and I told him to call the police.<\/p>\n

\u2018So that\u2019s what he did and he was charged with murder.\u2019 Steven was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2009.<\/p>\n

Sandy is telling Steven\u2019s story as part of\u00a0HBO<\/a>\u00a0documentary The Alabama Solution, directed and produced by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman. Andrew tells Metro he wants to expose the brutality, corruption and inhumanity that takes place behind prison walls.<\/p>\n

\u2018Wardens can basically deny journalists access to prisons and that has always bothered me. We\u2019ve got two million people incarcerated in the\u00a0US<\/a>.Why aren\u2019t we allowed to see what\u2019s going on inside?\u2019<\/p>\n

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Stephen with his grandparents and brother, who he was close with (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using footage filmed on contraband phones, the documentary shows horrific scenes that the authorities have tried to keep under wraps. Reports of men beaten so badly they defecated themselves, of daily stabbings that go on unreported and of men leaving the prison in body bags.<\/p>\n

In the course of his six-year-long investigation, Andrew said he had conversations with prison guards and inmates alike that \u2018made my hair stand on end\u2019. He cited one chat with a former officer who dropped into conversation that he had put people in\u00a0solitary confinement<\/a>\u00a0for up to five years.<\/p>\n

\u2018The\u00a0United Nations<\/a>\u00a0says that that\u2019s torture. I asked him if he had to ask someone or appeal to a board. He said \u2013 no you don\u2019t really have to ask anybody.\u2019<\/p>\n

Footage from the documentary shows flooded and filthy corridors with rubbish piled up, evidence of an attack, blood mopped up with napkins, an emaciated man close to death \u2013 or perhaps already passed \u2013 and a corpse in a bunk bed.<\/p>\n

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Stephen was subject to extreme violence from the prison guards which cost him his life (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alabama\u2019s 14 prisons have the highest murder and the highest suicide rate in the nation and Andrew says\u00a01,400 people have died in state custody<\/a>\u00a0since they began filming in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was shocked by the level of brutality and the lack of justice we saw\u2026Everybody wants to to to not have\u00a0crime<\/a>\u00a0on their doorstep. But there are very few people out there who are just serial killers, dangerous from one minute to the next.<\/p>\n

\u2018Most people who are in prison are there for some form of a crime of poverty, people who are trying to feed their families. And so there, there ought to be a better way to address all these issues. In the US and in the UK.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Sandy now campaigns for prison reform, despite her ill-health (Picture: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five years on, and in ill health, Sandy is fighting for prison reform.<\/p>\n

\u2018People are killing our family members like they are nothing. They are not nothing. They are human too. People have done wrong and they deserve punishment, but lets try to steer them in the right direction. They are just dying left and right for no reason.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sandy still gets calls from other\u00a0bereaved mothers<\/a>\u00a0who have lost their sons and are struggling to uncover the truth.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m on a mission. They can\u2019t knock me out. I\u2019m going to get justice for Stevie, and then we\u2019re going to change things within the system. That way other mothers don\u2019t go through what I went through.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Alabama Solution is available on HBO, Sky and Now TV.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sandy Ray went to see her dying son Steven in hospital, she was in such a hurry, she had to leave her oxygen tank at home. 61-year-old Sandy, who is awaiting a lung transplant, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and has to wear a nasal tube at all times. So as she stayed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t