"I just hugged the man that murdered my son."
StoryCorps is always superb, but the latest story had me fighting back tears this morning. If this pair's story doesn't prove the power of forgiveness and the capacity for growth and rehabilitation, I don't know what does...
While most StoryCorps interviews are between family and friends, this conversation comes from two people who easily could have been enemies.
In 1993, Oshea Israel was a teenage gang member in Minneapolis, Minnesota. One night at a party Oshea got into a fight, which ended when he shot and killed another boy.
Now 34, Oshea has finished serving his prison sentence for second-degree murder.
At StoryCorps he spoke with Mary Johnson, the mother of the boy he killed.
Mary Johnson founded From Death to Life, an organization that supports mothers who have lost children to homicide, and encourages forgiveness between families of murderers and victims.
Recorded in Minneapolis, MN.
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