Ronald Olivier’s story reached its climax when he was able to seek forgiveness from the mother of the boy he killed.
Mr. Olivier was only 16 years old when he shot and killed a 14-year-old who grabbed his jacket while he was boarding a bus. He didn’t recognize the boy, but he did recognize some other guys who were there with the kid, and they had been following him. Without thinking, he pulled out his gun and fired, killing the boy instantly—sadly, a not-so-rare scene in the crime-ridden New Orleans of 1991.
While serving his prison sentence, Mr. Olivier turned to God, which changed him fundamentally from the inside out. After decades of living a spiritual life behind bars, he was praying for a chance to talk to the mother of his victim.
It finally happened during a 2016 parole hearing, 25 years after the murder happened. He was granted a parole hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that condemning a minor to life in prison, like in Olivier’s case, was unconstitutional.
When he arrived in the courtroom, he was told that the mother of the victim wanted to talk to him. “Just when she looked at my eyes, I burst into tears,” Mr. Olivier recalled. “I said, ‘I have absolutely no excuse. … I’m just really sorry, it was a very idiotic decision I made.’”
And that’s when she said she didn’t hate him and instead forgave him. “I would have understood if she would have just spat in my face. But this was supernatural stuff.”
The judge granted him parole that day, although due to the slow turning wheels of justice, it would take another two years for Mr. Olivier to be released. But that day in court, he was free.
“Even though I was handcuffed and in shackles, it felt like they came off,” he said. “It was a new level of freedom that I was experiencing, being forgiven by her.”
27 Summers
Ronald Olivier spent 27 years in prison, during which he underwent a profound transformation, documented in his recently released book, “27 Summers: My Journey to Freedom, Forgiveness, and Redemption During My Time in Angola Prison.”
It began on the night of April 12, 1993. The jury was deliberating if they would find him guilty or not for the murder of the 14-year-old. In Louisiana, first-degree murder was punishable by a death sentence. For the first time in his short life, “Ronnie Slim”—as he was known on the streets—was really scared.
When his father left abruptly to Florida, Mr. Olivier became unmoored, and he started spending his time stealing cars and running from the police, getting into the worst areas of his neighborhood to get drugs to sell. He saw teenagers like him being murdered almost on a daily basis amid gang wars. But none of that scared him so much as the fact that there were now 12 people deliberating on whether he would live or die.
It was then, while he awaited sentencing in a small cell in court, that he recalled what his mother had told him a couple of years prior: “Baby, if you are ever in a trouble that I can’t get you out of, you call on Jesus.”
“I got on my knees and began to cry,” Mr. Olivier said. And then he proposed a deal to God: “If you don’t let them kill me, I promise you I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.” The jury found him guilty, but of second-degree murder, which is a lesser offense that meant instead of being sentenced to death, he was sentenced to life in prison.
“I really received two life sentences that day,” he said. “The state gave me a life sentence with no benefit of parole, but God gave me a life sentence with so many benefits.”
Transformation in Angola
He was sent to one of the most dangerous prisons in the country, Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola Prison, a former slave plantation spanning 18,000 acres and bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River.
At first, he approached prison with the same philosophy he had on the streets: Don’t let anyone mess with him, and be ready to strike if necessary. Especially with inmates who preyed on the younger prisoners, he had to act tough so no one would touch him.
But something had already changed within him. After his deal with God, he no longer felt comfortable with thoughts of harming others. Later, he wasn’t even comfortable with the curse words he constantly used. Eventually, he stopped listening to rap music and its lyrics glorifying violence. “My mindset began to change, my perspective began to change. I began to see things from God’s perspective.”
Mr. Olivier compared his spiritual process to a baby just coming out of the womb. “They don’t look like the Gerber baby, all dressed up and cute. They have some ugly stuff on, and we have to go through a process to be clean.”
Prison is one of those places where faith is most tested to the core. Violence and abuse were a constant. Mr. Olivier was sent to solitary confinement several times. Once, he was punished after being accused of helping an inmate commit an offense (though he wasn’t). Another time, he accepted metal tools from other inmates that could be used to unlock handcuffs, but he just wanted to fix a radio with them.
But he also met chaplains and other members of the religious community in prison who guided him on his spiritual journey, mentored him, and were like father figures to him. He met the woman who would eventually become his wife, after a fellow inmate arranged a blind date with one of his acquaintances on visitation day.
Despite being held in a dangerous prison, he felt a new sense of purpose based on his faith. “I started walking in this unbelievable peace and joy that I had never experienced before,” he said. “It’s almost like a natural high.” During his time in Angola, he enrolled in Bible college and received a bachelor’s degree in Christian ministry. The college is run by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and offers the same classes to seminary students outside prison.
Since his release in 2018, he got married and had a son, who is now 4. He is currently working for the Louisiana Parole Project, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting the formerly incarcerated to reenter society. He went through that program when he was just released from Angola, and now he is taking part in helping others.
Mr. Olivier wrote a book about his experience in order to encourage people who are going through hard times. “The purpose of my book is to fill hope ‘buckets,’” he said. “If I could do it, I believe everybody could do it.”
Fatherhood
Thinking back to what led to his period of teenage crime, Mr. Olivier goes back to a major turning point: the fact that his father moved away to a different state when he was just 15, an age when boys turn into men. Though Mr. Olivier’s parents divorced when he was young, his father remained in his life until the move to Florida. It took only a few weeks for Mr. Olivier to turn to the streets, looking for the guidance he was lacking. “When you have that absence in your life, someone’s gonna fill it,” Mr. Olivier said. “That’s why a lot of guys join gangs.”
He recalled visiting his father in Florida about six months after he left. As a young teen, he felt out of place in a wholesome environment with rules and structure, which he didn’t have while living with his mother. “I got accustomed to chaos. … The norm had become abnormal.” So he quickly returned to New Orleans.
A year later, he killed a boy. Because of how fast his downward spiral happened in his father’s absence, he now wants to encourage men to be present in their sons’ lives. “I really needed him. And it just took that little small gap to make me go left. And so I think that’s what they [teenage boys] need—a father figure, somebody that’s teaching them the right things.” It’s why Mr. Olivier wants to spend as much time as he can nurturing his young son.
The Power of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a central part of Ronald Olivier’s story. Not only did he feel free when the mother of his victim forgave him, but he also learned to forgive people who got him in trouble or weren’t there for him when he needed them.
He recalled one time when he was in his prison cell, praying to God to be released. And then he had a vision of his own heart: he saw a cell block full of people. He realized that those were the people he wasn’t forgiving and had bitterness and resentment toward.
“And God told me: You want me to let you go, but you don’t want to let them go.” He understood that he had a choice, and he chose to forgive those people. He learned a lesson that day: “If you sow forgiveness, you’re gonna reap the harvest of forgiveness. And if you sow bitterness, you’re gonna harvest that. So … I made a decision. I’m gonna choose to forgive,” he said.
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
