Patty Prewitt (from the author)
A book of honest and heartrending letters from prison by Patty Prewitt, whose sentence was recently commuted after nearly 40 years in prison
Imagine spending nearly 40 years in prison for a crime you’ve steadfastly denied committing. It’s a nightmare scenario.
But that’s exactly what happened to Patricia “Patty” Prewitt. The Holden, Missouri, mother of five was convicted in 1985 for the murder of her husband and sentenced to 50 years with no parole.
Prewitt was offered plea bargain deals but refused them on the grounds that she wasn’t guilty.
In December 2024, the 75-year-old made headlines when Governor Mike Parson commuted her sentence. Six months later, “Trying to Catch Lightning In a Jar: Letters from Prison,” a collection of letters she’d written during her first 18 years of incarceration, was released.
The book is neither a true crime recap nor a long-winded polemic about injustice — though both topics are explored at various times in various ways.
Some letters reflect on news of the day, and its impact on her time behind bars — like the floods of 1993 and the plane crash that killed Governor Mel Carnahan.
But ultimately, what makes her correspondence so compelling is its unquashed optimism.
Whether she’s writing to old friends or public officials, her children, her parents or a new romantic interest, Prewitt’s voice is consistently even-keeled, mildly acerbic and peppered with an occasional punch line.
It’s all the more remarkable considering how quickly she’d gone from PTA meetings to random strip searches. And more than once, into solitary confinement.
She landed in “the hole” after refusing a guard’s sexual advances, and wrote of the experience this way…
Don’t worry about me. The hole is not too bad. I get “three hots and a cot.” You’d think that solitary would be quieter, but a couple of the patrons up the hall like to voice their dissension loudly. Their stamina is astounding.
Prewitt has a reporter’s eye for details, describing the oppressive gray cellblocks and the smells that cling to them. She muses about the effects of replacing the term “inmate” with “offender” and the constantly contradictory procedures and protocols that make already long, hot days feel even longer.
Rumor has it we will soon have to send out all our red or blue clothing because they are gang-related colors. I’m sitting here in a red cotton turtleneck pullover. You know the kind. All middle-aged women have one … but if the scuttlebutt is true, I will be forced to get rid of this and pay for a new one in a less dangerous color — like green. But is Greenpeace considered a gang? If you wear pink or baby blue, could it mean you’ve pledged a gang, but aren’t a full member yet?
She’s especially good at describing (and humanizing) the ladies with whom she shares so many unpleasant spaces. There are “biker chicks,” professional women dragged down by substance abuse, and a quiet figure named Em reputed to have carried her father’s severed head in a bowling ball bag.
Over the years, Prewitt worked at a number of jobs inside prison walls, in both paid and volunteer positions. She took literature and theater classes and even taught aerobics. Those endeavors, she writes, gave her a sense of purpose, and a reason to keep plugging away.
As one of the older “life-servin’ bitches,” (her words) she was generally treated well by her peers. But she learned quickly that small acts of violence could pop up at any time.
The girl who lives on the top bunk above me remarked to no one in particular, “Wow, I think Sam just poured Kool-Aid on Bobby.” I turned to see what she was talking about. Inmates aren’t prone to pouring Kool-Aid on officers. Through the back window I could see Sam standing in front of Mr. A. The blood stain on the back of his uniform shirt was growing larger. Oh my God, Sam had stabbed him!
Of course, there’s plenty of soul searching in these letters too.
Gut-wrenching ruminations on the weight that’s been borne by her family. Clear-eyed descriptions of how she could only spend time with her children (and later, their children) in short, closely monitored, contact-free settings.
She doesn’t pull punches. She revels in the joy of their visits and reels from the pain when they leave. The book’s title comes from a phrase used by one of Prewitt’s attorneys to describe the slow, grueling process of getting out of prison when innocence is your only defense.
“Trying to Catch Lightning in a Jar” moves briskly and effectively thanks to the work of Barbara Baumgartner and Elizabeth Charlebois, a pair of professors who helped prepare Prewitt’s letters for publication. They’ve crafted something “whole” from pieces and parts that weren’t made for this purpose.
And they’re not finished yet. As Prewitt continues to seek a full pardon, Some People Press has announced that a second book — 20 more years of her letters from prison — is already in the works.
