July 27, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Hannah Overton on “Unspeakable Nightmare: The Horror of False Accusations of Killing a Precious Loved One”

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August 19, 2015

IRON SHARPENS IRON Radio’s guest for JULY 27:

00:02: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:24: Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:32: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:46: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,
01:06: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth, listening via live streaming.
01:13: This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 27th day of July, 2015.
01:22: And today is one of the programs that I have looked forward to conducting for a long time.
01:30: I was looking forward to this since I very first heard of the young woman that I'm interviewing today and she has become an enormous inspiration to me and encouragement to me to see the way that the
01:45: Lord has enabled her to have triumph over trials and tragedy in her life.
01:52: And I'm speaking of a name that you may recognize as soon as I say it, Hannah Overton. Perhaps you've seen
01:59: Hannah's story on 20 -20 on ABC television or Dateline NBC or another program but in 2006,
02:09: Larry and Hannah Overton fell in love with a little boy at their church. His name was Andrew.
02:15: Andrew was a foster child that the Overtons felt a great desire to provide a home for and to become his forever family.
02:22: He would be their sixth child in addition to their five biological children. A few short months later, tragedy struck and their world was turned upside down.
02:32: Andrew went home to be with Jesus when he passed away from a rare medical condition called hypernatremia.
02:39: This condition caused very high fatal levels of sodium in his body. This sorrowful tragedy was compounded when
02:46: Larry and Hannah were accused and charged in Andrew's death. On September 7, 2007,
02:55: Hannah was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to a maximum security prison for life without the possibility of parole for a crime she did not commit.
03:08: And by the way, that is a sentence that is more severe than Charles Manson received back in the early 70s.
03:17: This would leave Larry at home to care for their other five children. During Hannah's time in prison, God not only held her and her family in his hands but also used this trial in mighty ways.
03:29: After seven years of imprisonment, Hannah was exonerated and all charges were dropped on April 8, 2015.
03:37: During this span, many have come to the Lord and the ministry is continually growing and we are going to be hearing about her ministry,
03:46: Cindeo Ministries, after we get some more background from Hannah's remarkable story.
03:52: And it's my honor and privilege and delight and joy to have you for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Hannah Overton.
04:00: It's an honor to be here today. And I'm going to immediately let our listeners know that if you have questions for Hannah and you would like to email us, that's the way we receive questions here on Iron Sharpens Iron, email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
04:19: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And I ask of you to please give your first name at least, the city and state where you reside, and the country where you reside if you live outside of the
04:31: United States. And you may remain anonymous if it is involving a personal and private matter of your own.
04:39: And perhaps you have some reason that you have empathy with what Hannah has experienced and you'd rather not make your name public, that's fine.
04:46: But if you can, we ask of you to please let us know your first name and where you're from. Before I even go into the main focus of our interview,
04:57: Hannah, I want to hear something about your own testimony of coming to Jesus Christ. I don't know if you were raised in a
05:04: Christian home or if you came to faith in Christ from outside the upbringing in a
05:11: Christian home. And tell us something about that. Okay. I was raised in a
05:18: Christian home. I had a wonderful mother who was a great example to me.
05:24: And actually from age eight until I was 16,
05:29: I was actually raised on a missionary base with an organization called Calvary Commission that does ministry all over the world.
05:37: So I was a missionary kid. But through that I had seen
05:43: God through miracle after miracle. And as my relationship with Him grew, my trust for Him grew,
05:51: I was saved at a very young age. But this experience definitely grew my relationship with Him to even a new level.
06:03: And when did you become a member of Calvary Chapel of the Coastlands in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Rod Carver is the pastor?
06:15: In 2001. Well, tell us something now about how you and your husband
06:21: Larry met. Well, our parents were friends when we were really little.
06:29: And they did a Bible study together. And actually when we were about five years old,
06:36: Larry proposed to me. We were good friends. And I had told him we were too young to get married. How old were you when he proposed?
06:46: We were five years old. We were just little kids. But I saved a little bird that he had stolen from his mom to give me as an engagement gift.
06:59: His mom ended up saving that for us. And we didn't ever date or anything as teenagers.
07:09: But as we got older, we went to a mission school together at Youth With a Mission. And we fell in love and got engaged at mission school.
07:20: And praise God, and you have five biological children of your own. And when did you come to discover this beautiful young boy,
07:31: Andrew, that your husband and you immediately fell in love with? Well, he had been coming to the church for about a year and a half,
07:41: I believe. And he was in class with our girls, my girls, which are now 13 and 14 years old.
07:49: But they were little then. But he was in class with them. And his foster mom would drop him off at church and in the nursery with them.
07:59: And every day, he would pray for a forever family. And my girls came home and said, why can't we be his forever family?
08:10: So you immediately took some kind of legal direction to become foster parents?
08:17: Yes. Well, we had already kind of been praying about adopting at some point. So we had looked into what it would take to do that.
08:27: So we took all the classes that were needed and all the home studies that needed to be done and everything for the process of adoption.
08:38: And in Texas, the way that you adopt is a foster adoption. So you start off with him being your foster child.
08:45: And then we were about three weeks away from the adoption being finalized. And how old was Andrew again when you first met him and took him into your home afterward?
08:56: And when we moved into our home, he was three. When we first met him, he was two.
09:02: And what was unique about this boy? I mean, a lot of children are adorable and cute and lovable.
09:08: What was unique about Andrew that really made yours and Larry's hearts attached to him so quickly?
09:17: Oh, there's too much to even know where to begin. He just had a really sweet spirit, big beautiful eyes.
09:28: And he was craving that love so much that every little bit of attention that you gave him, he just ate up.
09:37: He just loved being with our children and just followed us around everywhere we went.
09:46: It was real easy to fall in love with him. And from what you've already said, your other children seem to very quickly become attached to him and want him to become a permanent part of your household, correct?
10:02: Yes. And what are the age ranges of your children, your biological children? I'm sorry,
10:09: I couldn't understand the question. I'm sorry, what are the age ranges of your children? Right now?
10:14: Yes. Well, actually then and now, I guess you could say. Okay, right now my oldest is 16.
10:23: His name is Isaac. And the next one down is 15, I mean 14.
10:29: Sorry, her name is Isabel. And Alicia is 13. Sebastian is 11.
10:36: And Emma is 8. And so how long ago was it that they all first met
10:42: Andrew and started to be very excited about the possibility of him becoming one of their siblings?
10:50: Well, when Andrew moved into our home, Isaac was 7. Isaac had just turned 7, the oldest.
11:01: And actually, I was pregnant with Emma when Andrew first moved into our home.
11:06: Wow. As my baby. So between 7 and still in my tummy.
11:16: And so when did you first learn that Andrew did have some kind of a unique eating disorder or a unique physical problem?
11:31: Well, before he moved into our home at all, we knew that he had some behavioral issues and some issues with like eating things off the floor and things like that.
11:45: Because he had had some problems in church and in Sunday school with getting into things and stuff like that.
11:53: But that's what we had known. We had been told by others who had dealt with him in the
12:01: Sunday school class or in the church setting that he had had some issues with some things.
12:08: But of course, at that time, we thought that it was probably all just due to what had happened in his past.
12:18: So this was something more than just the average precocious child that, especially boys, getting into mischief.
12:27: And I have been around quite a number of my friends' children and grandchildren to know that they are constantly putting things in their mouth and trying to eat things that they're not supposed to.
12:38: This was more than the normal, you're saying? Yes. Yes, a lot more than normal. But you decided that you were still going to welcome this child into your home and do what you could do to raise him in the love of Christ and show him and cover him with that love and enable him to enjoy the normal, healthy, and joyful life of a
13:06: Christian family. And did you get the advice of doctors beforehand on how to deal with these unique situations or any kind of specific counseling in regard to Andrew's behavioral problems?
13:22: No, we didn't. Okay. And so let's go to fast forward to that horrific day.
13:31: I hate to even mention it, obviously, but it's a part of your story. How did this accident occur where Andrew wound up sick and unconscious from some kind of ingestion of an overdose of salt, etc.?
13:51: Well, I have shared that on multiple other stories, shows, and things like that, but my attorney would rather me not talk about it too much at this point.
14:02: Oh, okay. That's completely fine. Sorry. I'm sorry.
14:10: No, that's quite all right. I'm not here to have you do anything that makes you uncomfortable or anything like that.
14:18: But the fact of the matter is that Andrew did, unfortunately and tragically, as even your website says, be passed away because of basically a salt overdose.
14:28: Yes. He ingested something himself and that later caused the salt overdose.
14:38: That's about all I can really say. There's a bunch of stuff on the website and stuff that you can find. Okay. And let's repeat your website.
14:48: And it is syndaoministries .com. Am I pronouncing that correctly?
14:54: Yes, you are. syndao, which is S -Y -N -D -E -O, ministries .com.
15:00: S as in Sam, Y -N as in Nancy, D as in David, E -O, ministries .com.
15:07: And after the program, you could look up further information. So we now are in this nightmare that you and Larry are experiencing where you're both being charged for a crime that most of us cannot even imagine what it would be like, first of all, to have a precious child that you love die as a young child.
15:36: But on top of that, being accused of something that you know that you did not do,
15:43: I can't even imagine what kind of horrific nightmare this must have been for you and Larry.
15:50: Can you tell us anything about the first time you realized that you were being seriously considered as suspects?
15:58: It was the worst nightmare of our lives. We were taken from the hospital and not able to be with Andrew as he was really sick in the hospital.
16:12: And we were taken and interrogated. And at first we thought we were just supposed to be helping them figure out what may have caused what was going on with Andrew because none of us knew why he was so sick.
16:28: And then quickly we realized that they were accusing us of doing something.
16:37: And then our children were taken into CPS custody, the rest of our children, and we were not able to go back to the hospital.
16:46: It was the worst night of our lives. And were you told by anyone in law enforcement or anybody that would know about such things that this may have been initially just routine because of the fact that it seems that family members are always the first to be considered suspects in some fashion, whether it be a spouse when it comes to the death of another spouse or when it comes to the death of children.
17:14: Parents are very frequently initially suspects, especially with young children in the home.
17:21: We weren't told that we were suspects at all. We were told it was just routine, getting a statement to try and find out what.
17:30: And when did you absolutely know that both of you were basically being accused of this?
17:41: And I assume that you were at some point arrested for this. Yes, throughout the interrogation, it became aware that we were being accused by the way that we were being interrogated.
17:58: But we were not arrested that night. We weren't arrested until 10 days later. And you must have been absolutely out of I don't want to say out of your mind as if you lost rationality, but it's just so hard to comprehend what that must have been like for you, knowing of your own innocence and having that level of a slanderous accusation come to you to the point where you're actually being arrested for it.
18:34: And when did they realize that they wanted to rule out Larry as a part of this?
18:42: Well, they didn't actually rule out Larry until Larry was charged as well.
18:48: We were both going to all the way up until I went to trial.
18:55: We were both facing capital murder charges. It wasn't until after my conviction that they were willing to drop his charges down to the negligent homicide.
19:08: And we're trying to get him to take that deal. He did.
19:16: He did. He pled no contest to negligent homicide, mainly because that put the because we were charged together.
19:26: We were waiting. My case was somewhat on hold with my appeal process and everything.
19:34: Well, until they got his case. Completed and also that that ensured that he would be able to stay home with our children.
19:46: Oh, great. So he was united with them after that. And how were how was the comfort, encouragement and outreach from the church?
20:01: People have all different kinds of stories from absolutely breathtakingly wonderful to nightmarish in the way that their local churches have treated them and behaved during trials and tribulations in their lives, even when it's something that's not even close to what you have encountered.
20:22: Was there was there apparent and obvious, steadfast support and belief in your innocence and honesty from your pastors and your church members?
20:34: My church was amazing. I couldn't have asked for more money during the time when we were grieving
20:41: Andrew and awaiting trial. My family actually moved in with my pastor and his wife just so that they could support us through that time.
20:51: We were they were at every trial, every hearing. You know that the ministry that we started for their ministries is based off that scripture.
21:04: Remember those in prison as if you were there with them. And my my church lived up to that. They they were with us the whole time.
21:12: Every step of the way. Well, praise God for that. And how about your own family?
21:19: Were your own family supportive and steadfastly believing in your innocence and honesty?
21:27: Yes. Yes. My my mom and my stepdad moved in after I was convicted.
21:33: They moved in with my husband, dealt with the kids for the first year that I was gone. And then even after that time, they had them every weekend so that he could come and see me.
21:43: He brought them once a month, but it was five hours each way. So it was a 10 hour drive.
21:49: Five kids couldn't make that every weekend, but he came every weekend. And during while he was driving up to see me, my mom and stepdad watched my children.
22:00: Well, it's the the comfort and encouragement that God's people can bring to you in the midst of darkness and in the midst of pain and suffering and trials is immeasurable.
22:13: What that does for us. I mean, I'm not putting anything that I've been through on the level of your experience, but I just know personally that if it were not for the the mercy and grace and love and compassion of brothers and sisters in Christ, I I fear that I might be in a mental institution or worse.
22:36: And it's just so encouraging to hear of the body of Christ surrounding you with such love. And I'm so delighted that I had already developed a friendship with Pastor John Otis, who
22:49: I know you're familiar with. And he was pastoring in Corpus Christi at the time,
22:56: Presbyterian Church. And I had already been involved in interviews with John Otis prior to your arrest and conviction.
23:07: And he was beating the drum of your innocence from the moment he first learned about you.
23:13: And in fact, we conducted several interviews giving our listeners updates about your case.
23:22: And obviously, we were all heartbroken and in disbelief when the conviction came in.
23:31: Can you tell us something about that moment in the courtroom? Did you feel utter hopelessness or were you fixed on in some way of a confidence that the
23:41: Lord was going to bring you through this? I know that even the most seasoned
23:47: Christians have moments when they doubt, not necessarily that they doubt the existence of God, but they doubt they're going to be able to mentally and emotionally and spiritually cope with something that is horrific beyond their wildest dreams and expectations.
24:07: What was the experience in your heart and mind at that time, if you don't mind sharing that with us, when you first realized you were convicted and sentenced?
24:16: Well, I was in complete shock. As I shared a little bit earlier, I had been a
24:22: Christian most of my life, and I had seen God step in and save the day so many times that I just expected he was going to do that on my time schedule.
24:34: I didn't even say goodbye to my kids that morning. I kissed them goodbye in the morning, but I didn't wake them up and tell them goodbye.
24:43: I didn't expect that there was any way that I could be convicted, and when that happened,
24:53: I was devastated and I was in shock. I never doubted
24:58: God's sovereignty or that he was God, but I had a hard time understanding how he could love me and allow this to happen to me, and I did go through a time at the beginning of depression in trying to understand how this could be part of his plan for my life.
25:22: Yeah, well, I go through depression frequently now, and I've never experienced anything even remotely close to what you've gone through, and I'm assuming there would be a similar answer to that from Larry, your husband.
25:40: Hello, Hannah? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. I was just saying, I was asking you about your husband
25:46: Larry's reaction. Was it very similar to yours or perhaps even identical as far as his? Yes, it was.
25:53: It was very, very similar. And you don't have to answer this if you don't feel comfortable, but was there any stress on your marriage?
26:04: Was there any moments when either you or Larry thought that the marriage would be over, or there was a suspicion or distrust at all going on there amongst the two of you?
26:18: You know, by the grace of God, there wasn't. When I was first transferred to the maximum security unit, the officers were very quick to tell me that it wouldn't last.
26:32: You know, he'll come visit you for a couple of weeks. You know, he'll write you for a while, and then slowly it'll come to an end.
26:40: And they told me just be prepared because he will divorce you. He will not last. Nobody does.
26:46: Wow. Now, do you? That would be what everybody thought was going to happen, you know, and it was such a ministry to those officers to watch him come every week for seven years, because that's not what happened.
27:02: By the grace of God, we held strong. Now, do you get the impression that these officers were doing this just to be cruel or unkind or sarcastic, or do you believe that they were really trying to, like a doctor would, prepare you for the worst out of genuine compassion, which might have been a mixture of both from different people?
27:30: It depends on the officer. There were some that were truly trying to prepare me out of compassion, and there were others who were telling me that just to be cruel.
27:39: You know, there were a little of both. And we're going to be going to a station break in a minute.
27:47: If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Hannah Overton, as I mentioned, our email address here is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
27:59: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please, if you can, if you feel comfortable, please include your first name, at least the city and state from where you're writing, and the country from where you're writing if you're outside of the
28:15: USA. Please only remain anonymous if it involves a personal matter that you feel less comfortable identifying yourself by first name and location.
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31:23: This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in, today we have a very remarkable young woman as our guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron, Hannah Overton.
31:33: Many of you, if not even most of you, have heard about her story on 2020 and Dateline NBC and some of the other news broadcasts, perhaps local to you, where she was falsely accused of the death of her foster child,
31:55: Andrew. And she and her husband were both arrested for this.
32:01: Eventually, Hannah was found guilty and convicted of capital murder, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a worse sentence than Charles Manson.
32:15: Keep that in mind. And thankfully, by the grace and mercy of God, all the charges have been overturned.
32:26: Hannah is rightfully a free woman, breathing free air, and serving as a remarkable and magnificent testimony of the love and grace and power of Jesus Christ to a watching world.
32:44: How long were you in prison before you were released, Hannah? Seven years.
32:51: Seven years. Absolutely amazing. And I'm going to get to some specifics about that in a minute.
32:58: But our mutual friend, John Otis, the pastor who was at one time pastoring a church in Corpus Christi, Texas, and became familiar with your case and became very quickly one of your most ardent public supporters, who
33:17: I interviewed on a number of occasions about your case on the old Iron Sharpens Iron. He writes to us, and his question is,
33:25: I just want to say that Hannah's exoneration was one of the greatest moments in my life to see our
33:32: Lord's answer to prayer. My question is, what helped you the most to adjust to prison life and face the possibility that this may be lifelong?
33:42: Excellent question, Pastor John Otis, and please send my love and regards to your wife,
33:48: Christine. But if you could respond to that, Hannah? Well, I think it was just finding that trust in God that He had me where He wanted me, and He wasn't going to keep me there one more minute than He had planned for me.
34:07: And as I began to just really trust that and ask
34:14: Him to give me His eyes for the purpose He had for me there,
34:19: He began to give me a heart for the women that were surrounding me. That was just amazing.
34:26: You know, for the longest time, I had just seen the crimes that He committed, the actions that were surrounding me, and instead of seeing
34:35: His heart for these women and seeing their broken lives and the way that broke
34:41: His heart, as I began to see things from a different perspective,
34:49: I began to be able to look at this as my mission field. And I had told
34:56: God many times as a teenager and in my life that I would go wherever He wanted me.
35:04: Certainly wasn't part of my plan, but I was willing to be used by Him in the midst of this, and I see that as an honor.
35:17: Well, amen to that. And when people like myself and all of you listening hear this, it should be in some ways,
35:28: I think, a message from God to embarrass ourselves a little bit, because many of us don't even view our own families or neighborhoods or places of employment as mission fields.
35:43: And we have Hannah here showing remarkable conviction to bring the gospel to those surrounding her in prison, and I think that we all have a lesson to learn from that.
35:55: And Hannah, as you are probably aware, I don't know if this is more of a reality in a men's prison, but people who have been accused and convicted of crimes related to the death or harm of children are very often in a very, very dangerous place to be in that prison, because prisoners often view that person as a target worthy of bringing bodily harm to, if not death.
36:28: And this is some way, I think, that some violent criminals find superiority to themselves.
36:36: They recognize how wicked they are, so they need someone to look upon as even more wicked than themselves in their minds, and very often strike out with violence against people who have been convicted against harming a child.
36:51: Did you face any kind of fear from that in the women's prison, and did you have any real reason to have that fear from anything that was said or done by your fellow inmates?
37:03: That is true in a women's prison as well, probably not to the extent that it is in a men's prison.
37:11: And there is a real reason to have fear there in a normal circumstance, but my
37:22: God is so good. He surrounded me from the beginning with people that protected me.
37:28: People that now, just recently, one of those ladies that had protected me from the very beginning got saved.
37:37: But all those years, she was somewhat of a bodyguard to me.
37:43: Nobody could say anything to me or do anything to me. I never, ever was hurt in there.
37:51: Well, praise God. I was threatened a few times, but every time that I was threatened, there were people that stood up for me.
38:02: God just surrounded me with protection all the time.
38:08: In what ways did you make your faith in Christ immediately known to those surrounding you, or perhaps you didn't immediately, but tell us how you would identify yourself to fellow inmates as a
38:22: Christian. Well, I think that the difference was pretty obvious.
38:31: They used to tease me and tell me I must have grown up in some God bubble because my wife had been so different than theirs had.
38:41: And my way of looking at things was different. Everything was very different. And then a good majority of people, not everybody, but a good majority, and just living out my life as a
38:57: Christian, reading my Bible, treating people with love and respect, very quickly it was known that I was a believer.
39:08: Well, that's great. And again, a testimony to all of us to be more willing and eager to spread the gospel that we love and cherish and the
39:22: God that we love and cherish in all circumstances. How did a ministry actually develop in prison?
39:32: Was it just during private conversations and studying the Bible with fellow inmates one on one, or how did this come about where you actually started to develop a ministry within the walls of a prison?
39:44: It did start one on one. It started with just a couple of ladies that I had been talking to.
39:50: Prior to going to prison, I was leading a Bible study in my church called
39:57: Healed and Set Free, and it was for women who had been hurt by things in their past. And so when
40:04: I was there, I had a couple of friends, and we were talking and started talking about some things that had happened to them and some just really hard issues they had dealt with in their life.
40:17: And immediately that study came to mind, and I asked them if they would be willing to do it.
40:22: Not sure if they would be, and they accepted. And as we started to do that study, more and more people came around and wanted to know what we were doing and asked if they could join.
40:35: And the studies just kept growing, and by the time
40:41: I left, there were many, many women involved in the study. But the study that is being done right now, there are 70 women that are signed up to do it, and they're just beginning.
40:55: So more people may join. Wow. And what were the particular subjects that you would lean toward in your focus of ministry there, as far as the scriptures are concerned?
41:10: Well, I didn't necessarily pick out subjects specifically like that, but each time we would finish a study,
41:19: I would just pray about, what does God want me to do next with these ladies? And we did quite a few studies through different books of the
41:27: Bible. We'd just take a book of the Bible and go through it, and we also did multiple studies.
41:36: The one that's being done right now is called, The Power of a Woman's Words. And being that on the unit
41:45: I was on, there are 102 women in a dorm together, 24 hours a day, that words can be a big deal.
41:53: So we try to get topics that would relate to what they were going through.
42:01: The last study was called, Lord, I Need Your Grace to Make It Through the
42:07: Day. Every three or four months when it was time for the next study, we just would pray.
42:16: And not only I, but some of the other women that were involved in the study that were growing in the
42:22: Lord. And then my pastor's wife and my friend here, Kat, that was helping do the ministry from the outside.
42:30: We would all just pray about, what should we do next? And then we would choose the next study and invite whoever wanted to, to send in a request for it.
42:45: And the church would send it in. And the women that were predominantly drawn to these studies, were they from a wide ranging backgrounds?
42:59: Were they violent criminals and just less serious criminals all mixed?
43:07: Or were they predominantly from poverty and that kind of a thing in urban settings?
43:13: Or was there a wide variety of women there that were drawn to what you were doing as far as the
43:19: Bible studies? A very wide variety. And I have an anonymous email from a listener who is a male who was in prison for a number of years for dealing drugs.
43:39: And he came to faith in Christ in prison and he wants to know if the situation is similar in a female prison where one's belief in Christ and very strongly held faith are at times viewed by other inmates as great weakness and at times will cause more violent inmates to view you as a target because of this.
44:11: I don't know if that ever happened with you and at least I know that you said that you were never harmed. But did anybody specifically put fear into you and make you believe your safety was at risk because of your faith?
44:27: There were a couple of situations. But you know, the one that immediately comes to mind, that woman who was known as a more violent offender and did try to threaten me and just really try to make life difficult for me, has now become a
44:49: Christian and is leading a group with a small Bible study, because she's in a different dorm, but a small
44:55: Bible study with two women doing the study that we're doing right now. So you know,
45:02: God turned that situation completely around. Oh, praise God. Are there any specific individuals that you have anecdotes about that you care to mention, people who have become near and dear to your heart who were inmates there?
45:19: There are many that have become near and dear to my heart. The lady that is continuing the ministry inside, you know, when
45:29: I first met her, she had told me, you know, I like you, but just don't talk to me about God.
45:37: And she, you know, fast forward seven years and she's now leading the
45:43: Bible study. And you know, completely different person.
45:49: But you know, many of these women have become like family to me in the situation that we were in, and you know, completely out of your comfort zone and in a, you know, dealing with harsh circumstances, you bond with the people that you're with.
46:09: And as we grew, and as these women, many of these women accepted the
46:15: Lord and grew in their relationship with the Lord, that bond grew, and they're like family.
46:20: Like I said, there's quite a few. Oh, praise God for that. And how many have you seen actually, to the best of your knowledge, have you seen come to true, saving, born -again belief in Christ?
46:39: You know what, it's too many to count. I can't, I don't really know that.
46:44: I know that I have just seen so many that have, every time I felt like I was overwhelmed with the situation, and I was like,
46:54: God, why do you still have me here? Something, you know, God would bring another situation into my life where somebody's life was just radically changed.
47:03: You know, and still today, I continue to get letters from people who, you know, maybe, you know,
47:09: I spent all this time, all the time I was there witnessing to them and sharing with them and showing Christ's love to them, and didn't see that change until after I left.
47:20: But them watching God do miracles for me and prove my innocence was the deciding factor in their salvation, you know, and their learning to trust.
47:35: Did you experience any kind of heckling or insults from those who basically told you, much in the same way that the thieves on the cross did to our
47:48: Lord, you know, you have such faith in this God and you're innocent and you're spending the rest of your life in prison?
47:57: How much can this God love you at all? How can he even exist and be a loving?
48:04: Yeah. Definitely. And I had a, I have a friend, a sweet, dear friend of mine that, she was raised
48:14: Muslim. And she, when she first met me, she was one of those, like what you had asked about earlier, who was, who was very mean to me because of the charge that I had.
48:30: And other mutual friends that we had talked her into getting, giving me a chance and getting to know me.
48:35: And then she grew to believe in my innocence. But in her, because of her view of God, because her, of her being raised as a
48:45: Muslim, you know, her view of Allah was a very mean
48:50: God who forced his people to, you know, to be martyrs for him.
48:57: And so she looked at my faith and she would say, why would you want to trust in this
49:04: Jesus that is forcing you to be away from your children for me?
49:11: And that's what, you know, that was the way, the only way that she could understand it was through her view of what she had seen through what she had been taught.
49:21: And over the years, you know, we just, I kept witnessing to her.
49:27: I kept showing her love and others as she watched some other mutual friends of ours that had gotten saved and whose lives were changed, you know, and she, she started asking questions.
49:38: Now, why, why are you smiling all the time? You never used to smile, you know, things like that. And as she just watched the whole thing play out, you know, after I was released, she wrote me a letter and she said,
49:54: I'm starting to think that your Jesus isn't the person
50:00: I thought he was because he can't be that mean and let you go home and do this miracle for you.
50:10: This, that the justice system doesn't work that fast. Appeals don't work that fast without miracles.
50:17: And then she began to share of, you know, a mutual friend of ours that she had just seen a total countenance change in through God.
50:28: And she said, I'm, I'm interested now. I want to know who he is. You know, so I began to, you know, since I've been home,
50:35: I've been writing to her and she'd been doing the Bible study with Sonny, my friend who took over the study.
50:43: And she was a part of Ramadan this last year, a couple months ago, or like a month and a half ago, whenever it was.
50:53: And, um, you know, being raised Muslim, her dad wanted her to go to Ramadan and about halfway through it, she, um, came apart upon the part where it says that they are to kill the infidels.
51:09: And she got real upset. She's like, wait a minute. Who are the, who are the infidels?
51:15: And why are you, you know, I'm in prison for killing somebody. Why would you tell me to kill somebody? And got into an argument with her email about this scripture in the
51:26: Quran. And, um, as she began to talk to him about it, she said,
51:34: I don't want to be Muslim anymore. And, and she came home in tears and got in trouble for leaving the, um, the program early, but she left the program and she renounced her
51:47: Muslim faith and came home and accepted the Lord with my friend just recently.
51:54: Well, praise God for that. That is absolutely amazing and gives my heart a lot of joy.
52:02: I have been involved in organizing live public moderated theological debates between a very well -known
52:13: Christian theologian and apologist, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Muslim clerics and theologians.
52:24: And, uh, I have, uh, during these debates that I've arranged, I've never yet seen that I know of Muslims in the audience who have come to faith in Christ, but I have had some remarkable,
52:38: I've witnessed some remarkable reactions to when I was expecting vehement anger when their cleric or their apologist clearly was defeated by my friend,
52:52: Dr. White in the debate, who very often demonstrates that he even knows the Quran in a superior fashion to the people that he's debating.
53:01: I had people coming up to me congratulating me for a wonderful event, Muslim people congratulating me for such a wonderful event, even with their spouses who are in full burqa, which
53:14: I had never witnessed here in the United States before. There were a lot of people who are that serious about Islam there.
53:21: And to hear your story about you actually witnessing the conversion of a woman by Christ's mercy because of your ministry there in prison, that just is a great blessing to me.
53:34: Um, and, uh, I just have another email. It's not a question, but I have
53:40: Tom in West Islip, New York saying, please let this woman know what a blessing she is.
53:47: Her testimony truly touches my heart and to see and hear God's hands and feet at work.
53:53: Thanks be to God. Well, I just thought I'd share that with you, even though it's not a question. Um, and tell us about,
54:02: I know that before the charges were all dropped and you were exonerated, you were freed on bond, correct, after seven years?
54:12: Yes. And why was that? What were you told about the reason behind that? The reason behind that I was on bond?
54:22: Yeah, the reason why they were releasing you from, I mean, obviously you had been given a life sentence without parole.
54:28: What had developed that you were told was going to be a cause for your release.
54:35: And this is even before you knew that you were totally exonerated from the charges, I believe. But tell us about that.
54:42: What did you hear from either an attorney or the warden or however it came about while you were there in prison?
54:50: Well, I received an email from a friend and it just said that my case had been overturned.
54:58: And I, and I received like three emails from, from home from my mom and my husband and, you know, saying, call us, call us, call us.
55:07: And so when I, when I read that email, I just started crying. I was like, is this true? And I started packing it around with my friends and they were all reading it and starting to cry.
55:17: So I went back to, went to the phone and I tried to call and I was crying so hard I couldn't get through.
55:25: You have to do a voice recognition thing in prison and I couldn't get it to recognize my voice. So I finally got through and I was told that the case was overturned.
55:35: It was overturned. The main reason was the inadequate defense, which was, you know, my, my attorneys did everything that they knew how to do, but due to some things that they were not provided with and some factors that they were not able, that were beyond their control, they were not able to give an adequate defense.
56:04: And all the doctors that should have been presented were not presented and the, you know, there was evidence that proved that I had not forced that Andrew anything.
56:16: There was vomit that had been hidden from us that had, when tested, had the exact level of sodium in it as what
56:25: I had told them that I had given him to eat. So there was proof that what
56:30: I was telling was true, but it was not, had not been presented. And that was all sent to the court of criminal appeals in Austin and they chose to overturn my case.
56:41: So the, the prosecuting attorney knew about evidence that would exonerate you and chose not to make it known in the court.
56:50: Yes. And, you know, when you hear these kinds of things, it should strike fear in all of us who take for granted a free society that we live in.
57:03: That, that is pretty scary. Now, do you have any thing beyond your own conjecture or assumption about her motivation behind this?
57:14: Or was it, it was a female, correct? Yes, it was a female. And do you have any clue why on earth, other than her own career and preservation of her own status in the community and income and et cetera, et cetera, why she would do such a thing?
57:30: No, I can't, I don't have any, any idea really. I can't, only
57:37: God knows her motive. Has there been any kind of formal apology from her or from anyone that was involved in your incarceration and so on?
57:49: Not from her, the second chair prosecutor who was not aware of this evidence at the time,
57:56: I didn't want to say that, but she has apologized for her part in this.
58:02: And she also helped with the appeal process in, you know, helping us to present to the courts the truth about my innocence.
58:15: Wow, that's just totally remarkable. And just like with Joseph in the
58:22: Old Testament, you know, when Joseph's brothers were standing before him with terror because they'd known that they had beaten him and thrown him in a pit and sold him into slavery.
58:39: And when he had the authority, he had finally rose to the position of power and authority where he could have them tortured and killed.
58:47: He basically gave them the comfort of knowing that what they meant for evil, God meant for good.
58:54: And it's obvious that the sovereign Lord has already demonstrated ways to you and to everyone who can witness what has happened and is still occurring in your life, that there has certainly been much good that the
59:10: Lord has brought in his sovereignty through evil and deception and despicable dishonesty and selfishness and cowardice and so on on those on the parts of those who knew that they were having a woman, an innocent woman imprisoned for life without parole.
59:29: And as I keep repeating to make this sink in to our listeners, a sentence worse than that pronounced upon Charles Manson.
59:41: And it is just absolutely amazing. We're going to be going to another station break from those who make
59:47: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio possible. And if you have a question, send it in at chrisarnzen at gmail .com.
59:54: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We're going to begin to be bringing up some more specific things about Sendaio Ministries, the ministry that has been born out of this trial in the life of Hannah Overton and her husband
01:00:10: Larry. So remember, if you send us an email, please include your first name, city and state where you're from, and if you're outside of the
01:00:19: USA, your country as well. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Hannah Overton. Hi, I'm Mike Gallagher.
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01:02:47: Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. For those of you who just tuned in, we have been interviewing for the last hour
01:02:54: Hannah Overton. Many of you have heard about her story on 2020
01:03:00: ABC television and also Dateline NBC and other news broadcasts and I'm sure newspapers and magazines and internet articles.
01:03:13: This is a remarkable story about how a woman was falsely and wrongly accused of being responsible for the death of her own foster child at a tender age and having been given a horrific and nightmarish life sentence for capital murder without the possibility of parole, a sentence more harsh and severe than Charles Manson received.
01:03:42: Although Charles Manson has been rejected repeatedly by parole boards to be released from prison, he still is eligible for parole.
01:03:54: This is a young woman who through everything that it even seemed to indicate from reports on television, it seemed that this woman was involved in a tragedy that was a pure accident involving her foster child.
01:04:11: Thankfully, after seven years of incarceration, she has been exonerated from all charges and has been released from prison and this is quite a remarkable testimony on the power and love and mercy of Christ.
01:04:25: If you have any emails that you'd like to send us with questions for Hannah Overton, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:04:34: chrisarnson at gmail .com and please include your first name, at least your city and state where you reside and the country where you reside if indeed you're outside of the
01:04:50: United States. We have a note from you from Stephen Bauman, the
01:04:56: Director of Development for Georgia Right to Life. Hannah, this is Steve from Cumming, Georgia.
01:05:04: Greetings to you on behalf of my family and church where Pastor Reverend John Otis attends.
01:05:10: We are overjoyed at God's deliverance of you from bondage and so many at the prison from spiritual bondage hope to see you someday.
01:05:18: So that was just another word of encouragement for you from a fellow
01:05:25: Christian in the audience of Iron Sharpener's Iron today. And in regard to the media coverage of this, it seemed that 2020's coverage was very favorable and seemed to side with you.
01:05:41: I'm not sure certain if that was always the case. Tell us something about your opinion on the way the different media outlets covered your story.
01:05:49: How many of them seem to put you in bad light rather than good, if any, and if you could just explain to your knowledge that experience of what was happening with the media.
01:06:02: Well, in the beginning, the media was horrendous. I was treated like if I was a monster.
01:06:13: But after 2020, from 2020 on, all the media had changed, except for the local media.
01:06:23: The local media took a little while. For a while, they were still showing all of the old stuff, which was full of lies.
01:06:35: But, you know, whenever 2020 first wanted to do a show, we just really prayed about it and just asked that God's hand would be on it.
01:06:45: And they were willing to investigate and tell the truth.
01:06:50: And we are so grateful for them and for everybody that was involved also in Texas Monthly.
01:06:57: Pamela Koloff wrote wonderful articles actually investigating and finding the truth of the story.
01:07:05: And Dr. Oz and Katie Kerwick and everybody that was involved after that was awesome and very helpful in getting the truth out about my case.
01:07:18: But it was a really hard thing to trust and to trust the people that had got the media that God had brought into our lives to give a true story after all of the horrible things that had been reported that were just flat out lies before in the beginning.
01:07:38: Now, when you were in prison, how were you gaining access to these stories? Were you sitting around watching television along with other inmates that were featuring stories about your case?
01:07:49: Yes, I did. I watched the 2020 programs and the Katie Kerwick in the prison with pretty much every
01:07:56: TV in the whole prison was on that show for that day and all of the whole unit, everybody watched, officers and inmates included.
01:08:05: Yeah, that's another question I had for you. Did you seem to have universal after you were in prison for at least over a year and you remained there for seven in total, but did you witness a growing trust, appreciation and compassion of you and for you and to you by the guards and so on, the correctional officers working in the prison, or were you just treated as sternly and with just as much distrust as any other inmate might be?
01:08:49: No, over the years, there were quite a few of the officers who began to see the difference and they would speak of me as a model inmate and there's quite a few officers, even retired officers, that now that I have been exonerated or that my case has been overturned,
01:09:14: I've had, contact me and been in communication with,
01:09:20: I had an officer the other day contact me and ask me to pray for his mom because she was sick.
01:09:27: So I've had a really neat opportunity to be a light even to the officers in the midst of all this.
01:09:37: Another anonymous listener wants to know if you ever during this tragedy and trial, especially during your incarceration, did it ever cross your mind to take your own life?
01:09:48: That's a very serious question, but I think it is an important one to ask in light of the fact that you're a
01:09:55: Christian and have a needed word for people listening today. No, it didn't.
01:10:02: During that time in the beginning when I was very depressed, there was a time when
01:10:08: I was not able to eat well and I was not able to sleep and I wasn't taking very good care of myself.
01:10:19: I was having health problems due to that, but I never had the desire to take my own life.
01:10:26: I trusted that God had a reason for this and that God was going to prove my innocence.
01:10:35: My issue was how long was this going to take and would I be able to make it through?
01:10:43: So even just back in, what was it, February you were released? When I was released,
01:10:50: I was released in December. December of 2014? Yes.
01:10:57: Yes, and so up to that point when you heard this news, which was obviously remarkable and cause for great exuberant celebration, it wasn't entirely a shock to you?
01:11:09: You were really confident that that day would come? You haven't reached the point of hopelessness that you were going to actually live in prison forever?
01:11:17: No, I was confident that that was going to come. I was shocked at how quickly it came because I had given my...
01:11:29: I finally came to a point where I had told God, okay, however long it takes,
01:11:35: I'm going to trust you with that. And for years, every day
01:11:41: I was like, God, are you going to get me out tomorrow? You've got to get me out tomorrow. I can't handle one more day of this and I felt where I couldn't wait another day for many years, but I had finally come to the place of rest and just resting in where He had me.
01:11:58: So when it actually happened, I was surprised, but I wasn't surprised that it had happened.
01:12:07: I was surprised that it happened then. Well, I can tell you from my own experience that even over far infinitely less important matters and even trivial, comparatively trivial matters,
01:12:24: I have a difficult time more than I care to admit forgiving people.
01:12:31: And especially if it has to do with some kind of a betrayal of friendship or confidence, something that has to do with somebody who has robbed me financially, things of that nature.
01:12:44: I struggle with forgiveness and struggle with anger. How do you cope with any lack or I was going to say lack of forgiveness, but how do you struggle with having the ability to overcome any vindictiveness, any bitterness, any possible hatred towards those that had you spending possibly the rest of your life in prison and who knew that you didn't belong there, that knew you were innocent and were not only robbing you of freedom knowingly, but robbing your husband of a wife and your children of a mother knowingly?
01:13:31: How do you get through that without hating people? Even as a
01:13:36: Christian, it's always remarkable to see people who are able to do that by the mercy of God.
01:13:43: Just tell us something about that if you could. Well, you know, being in prison,
01:13:50: I had the opportunity of seeing quite a few people who were very bitter and angry due to things that had happened to them in their life.
01:13:59: You know, people don't just wake up one day and decide they're going to be a criminal. Usually there's a lot of circumstances that led to that.
01:14:05: And there's a lot of hurt and a lot of pain. And in watching these ladies who were just eaten up by their bitterness,
01:14:13: I couldn't allow myself to become like that. I couldn't be bitter and angry.
01:14:20: And I had to give that over to God. I wrote a letter at one point to somebody that was involved in my prosecution and I told her, you know, my anger towards you, my frustrations with what happened aren't doing anything to you, but they're eating me up.
01:14:44: So I have to give them over to a higher court. And I told her, I said, just like you have, you know, my case is now in a higher court and it's not in your hands anymore.
01:14:54: I'm putting your case in a higher court. And whatever, you know, God knows what you did and why you did it.
01:15:01: And that's between him and you. But I'm not going to allow it to tear at me anymore.
01:15:10: I had to make that choice, you know, and as I did, I had,
01:15:16: I found so much peace in that. Hopeful praise God for that.
01:15:22: A lot of people, as you know, when there is a separation from not only spouses, but from children and there is a reuniting taking place, there is a sometimes a difficult adjustment problem.
01:15:39: You have, we've all seen things on documentaries or perhaps even in our own lives where because of divorce or for some reason that parents are separated from their children, sometimes due to circumstances totally beyond their control.
01:16:00: When there is a reuniting, there is a sometimes a thing, a distance, a coldness and a difficulty returning to that warmth and that inseparable connection and that heart affinity that was there in the household before the separation occurred.
01:16:22: Has anything like that been a challenge for you and your children and even your husband,
01:16:27: Larry? I can't say that there's not an adjustment because there is an adjustment that needs that's made there.
01:16:36: My children were, my oldest was eight when I left and now he's 16, so there's a big adjustment in things.
01:16:47: But by the grace of God, that bond has not changed, that love has not changed and it has been amazing.
01:16:54: It has not been hard to make that adjustment. You know, we all love each other very much and we have, we are thoroughly enjoying our, you know, being back together.
01:17:10: Well, praise God for that. That's a great encouragement to hear. I'm going to repeat our email address here again.
01:17:18: If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Hannah Overton, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com,
01:17:25: chrisarnson at gmail .com. We do have another anonymous listener who wants to know, and I think that you kind of hinted that this is probably, the answer to this is going to be no, but I'm not certain.
01:17:43: They want to know if you have had any opportunity for personal interaction with anyone that has been involved in your dishonest, deceitful, and wrong incarceration who you've been enabled to give the gospel to and extend forgiveness to in a personal way where the people actually are hearing or seeing or reading something from you.
01:18:15: Only the second -tier prosecutor that I mentioned earlier. She's the only one that I've had any personal interaction with.
01:18:25: Okay, and so tell us about Sendeo Ministries.
01:18:31: Tell us about what that word even means and how it came to be. Is it the identical ministry that was born in the prison, or is this something different that subsequently came after your release?
01:18:44: Okay, Sendeo, it means bound with them. In Hebrews 13, it says, remember those in prison as if you were bound with them.
01:18:54: And the word Sendeo is a Greek word, and it has two meanings.
01:19:01: One is bound as a prisoner is chained to another prisoner, like I was.
01:19:07: And the other is connected in a heart, and that's as all believers should be.
01:19:16: The ministry did begin while I was in prison, but it didn't have a name yet, or anything like that.
01:19:24: You know, it began with the Bible studies that we've talked about. And also, my friends at home began writing letters to some of the ladies that were doing the
01:19:35: Bible studies and began a ministry sending cards in on the holidays to women that were involved in the
01:19:41: Bible studies with some other ladies from the church. And when my case was overturned and I was leaving, one of the things that was really hard for me was that so often, so many people make promises that they're going to keep up and keep contact with these people that are in prison, and they are so often forgotten.
01:20:08: And very, very few of these women have connections with people from the outside.
01:20:15: There are so many who were actually a part of a church family when whatever happened happened that put them in prison, and they were ostracized because of that, and they never received cards or letters from their church, and they never have anybody that's willing to care about them.
01:20:35: And so, one of the things I was telling people is that I would not forget them, that I was going to continue to write them and to be a friend to them and to show
01:20:49: Christ's love to them. And it broke my heart because these people who had been with me for all these years hoped for that but didn't expect it because they had been forgotten by so many.
01:21:11: And when I got out and I started Sundale Ministries, one of the big pushes for that was that I don't want them to be forgotten.
01:21:22: My church made national media for supporting me, but something's wrong with that because that Scripture wasn't just written to people that had been in prison.
01:21:33: That Scripture was written for all believers. And in Matthew 25, Jesus says, you know,
01:21:40: I was imprisoned and he visited me. And then he says, I was imprisoned and he didn't visit me.
01:21:46: And what you do for the least of these, you do for me. There are so many different Scriptures where we are called as believers to minister to those in prison, yet there are so few who do.
01:22:03: The years that I was in there, the majority of people that came and did programs in the prisons, they did no discipleship whatsoever.
01:22:12: They would come in and give either a salvation message or condemn them for some sin in their life or do a show where they just sing songs or something like that and then leave.
01:22:28: And nobody ever was willing to come and show them how to live out a
01:22:35: Christian life and show them Christ's unconditional love.
01:22:42: And that's my goal. You know, I have people that are all over the world that are wanting my husband and I to come and share our story of what has happened and how
01:22:54: God has carried us through it and the ministry he's done with it. But there's so much more. We don't want to just stop there.
01:22:59: We want to continue the ministry and see what all God can continue to do. You know, our goal is that whenever we go and we speak at a church, that we will be able to take a packet to them of this is how you can get involved in prison ministry.
01:23:13: Get involved in the places that are close to you and take care of the family members of the people who have gone to prison who are grieving the loss of a loved one and often have no support whatsoever.
01:23:29: You know, we want to have a camp for kids whose parents are in prison where they can go and they can feel comfortable to know that they're not alone and the way they can possibly receive
01:23:46: Christ's love for the first time as many of them come from backgrounds that they don't even know anything about that.
01:23:56: I want to have a, you know, we're starting out with having a pen pal ministry for all of the women that are involved in the study that I started in there and trying to connect people with somebody that can mentor them from the outside that can write just maybe once a month and just show
01:24:16: Christ's love to them. You know, we're asking people to commit to one year once a month and see where that goes.
01:24:24: You know, another ministry that we're doing is providing Bibles for kids who have moms in prison that have accepted the
01:24:35: Lord and want their children to have that relationship with the Lord that they have but don't have any way to provide a
01:24:42: Bible for them and connect with them. And we're going to have, we're working on getting a Bible study together that they could do with their kids.
01:24:52: Another thing that we're doing is we have, or we will have on the website, we're in the process of getting them put up there.
01:25:01: My daughter made bracelets that say, I remember on them. And you can purchase a bracelet and it'll help you just to remember to pray for them and you can actually sign up to be on the prayer team and, you know, get prayer requests from this
01:25:18: Bible study group that is, you know, in the prison. But these are your sisters in Christ that are growing and that are, you know, often, you know,
01:25:29: I see more strength in those ladies than I do in some of the people that you see at church on Sunday morning in their walk with the
01:25:40: Lord, probably due to the things that they're experiencing and the hardships in their life, but they cling to Christ, you know.
01:25:48: Anyway, the bracelet, anybody who purchases a bracelet is also purchasing a bookmark that will go into the prison and invite a new lady to become a part of the
01:26:01: Bible study. The bookmark will say, you know, you are not forgotten and give them information on how they can get involved.
01:26:10: Another thing that we're hoping to do and that's really dear to our hearts is to start a transitional home.
01:26:19: You know, we would like to be able to have a place, a ranch somewhere where we can have ladies come when they get out and go through that transition of coming back out into the real world from the prison, because the reality is that it's hard.
01:26:35: It's a transition even for me, and I have support all over the place. Everybody is loving and supportive to me, but most of them don't have that.
01:26:44: They come out to the same situation that they left in, or they don't have any family left by the time they come out.
01:26:51: You know, I have a friend that's been in there for 20 years, and when she comes out, she's scared because, you know, when she left, there wasn't a microwave.
01:27:03: There wasn't a cell phone. There wasn't, you know, even little things like that are going to, they have to learn how to do, and then they need that support system during that time and that discipleship during that time as they're making that transition.
01:27:19: So, we'd like to have a transitional home for them, and our hope would be that we could have it up close enough to where most of the women's units are so that we could provide a meal as a ministry out of that, maybe once or twice a month for the officers, and use that to minister to them and to love on them and to thank them for what they do.
01:27:44: And, you know, a lot of officers get very cynical and do get mean because of all that they have to experience in a day, but those officers that are believers are such a light in that dorm, and I don't think that they even realize the impact that they have on the people that they are taking care of.
01:28:09: And so, we want to encourage them to continue to do that and continue to be that light and hopefully get more officers to be a light in that place.
01:28:22: Well, praise God. We're going to be going to our final break right now, and we still have about a half hour of content with Hannah, and we want to hear more specifically how you can help
01:28:35: Sundeo Ministries, you in the listening audience, how you can be of assistance to Hannah and the ministry,
01:28:44: Sundeo Ministries, and also how you perhaps can invite Hannah and her husband,
01:28:51: Larry, to speak at your church or parachurch or other organizations, civic organization or otherwise, to let those that you know hear the testimony that is truly remarkable testimony of endurance, of patience, of forgiveness, of trust, and the remarkable love and mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.
01:29:19: And as you can already see, my guest Hannah would be a wonderful spokesperson for the gospel at any type of an outreach meeting, especially perhaps even to women, and the poise and the composure and the sweetness that you can hear from her are just added extra touches to what the
01:29:44: Holy Spirit has just remarkably done in this young woman's life and heart. And I look forward to the remainder of our program.
01:29:52: If you have any kind of an email to shoot us with a question for Hannah, we're going to be running out of time in about 28 minutes, so please email it now if you can at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,
01:30:05: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and give us your first name, city and state of residence, and your country of residence if outside of the
01:30:17: United States. We'll be right back with Hannah Overton, so don't go away.
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01:33:45: So what do you do when you leave your house with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?
01:33:51: And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.
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01:34:24: That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.
01:34:32: This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in for the last hour and about 34 minutes, we have been interviewing
01:34:43: Hannah Overton. And she has a remarkable testimony of having been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole and then being mercifully and miraculously freed from prison and having all charges dropped against her.
01:35:01: And many of you have seen her story on 2020 and Dateline and other major television programs and other media.
01:35:10: But I'm so privileged and honored with the real joy and the rare opportunity to have someone like this on Iron Sharpens Iron to demonstrate the love of Christ that enabled her to get through an unspeakable and unmanageable nightmare.
01:35:34: And one last time, I'll give our email address. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. If you have a question, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
01:35:42: If you have a question that you'd like to ask Hannah, please give us your first name, city and state, and country if outside the
01:35:49: USA. I imagine that writing to people in prison must be very crucial because something that I had to go through in my life that was nothing compared to your experience.
01:36:07: But I had to go to or chose to go to a alcohol rehab ministry in North Carolina, Hebron Colony Ministries, when alcoholism, after 18 years of sobriety as a
01:36:21: Christian, came back into my life and was destroying it and probably would have literally destroyed my physical life if I had not, by the grace of God, repented of that and ceased in that behavior.
01:36:37: But I can remember in the short two and a half months being in this facility that I was starving for contact from the outside world and to hear from friends and Christians with words of encouragement.
01:36:54: That must be something that really must be drummed into the hearts and minds of our listeners to write to prisoners.
01:36:59: Isn't that a very important element of their mental survival in that element? It definitely is.
01:37:08: Every day they have, well Monday through Friday, they have mail call and they make, on the unit at least that I was on, everybody has to come up and the officer gives out the mail.
01:37:19: Well, out of 102 women, maybe 15 get mail and the others hope and pray every day that they will.
01:37:30: And I saw, you know, I mentioned earlier that a friend of mine began to send mail on the holidays, send cards on the holidays to the ladies that were involved in the
01:37:39: Bible study and when she did that, I had the privilege of watching those ladies receive those cards and cry just because somebody cared enough to send them a card for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and they would put these cards up on their table and they would keep them up there for months to prove to people that somebody cared enough to write to them.
01:38:06: And it was so impactful in so many ways that I can't even begin to explain it.
01:38:16: Every time, I know that without the mail that I received that I don't know how I would have made it.
01:38:21: Now, I was blessed. I received mail from all over the world. There were a lot of people that wrote to me and encouraged me and I would often get that mail and sit at a table with many other women and read my mail to them and they would live vicariously through the mail that I received because it was something that they could at least look forward to at mail call because they knew
01:38:47: I would share that mail with them. Yeah, I can remember the dejected feeling of having mail call at the alcohol rehab and not having anything and seeing other people with joy ripping open their mail and so on.
01:39:02: But thankfully, that was usually the exception to the rule that I didn't have anything.
01:39:07: And again, please forgive me for comparing a brief two -and -a -half -month time in an alcohol rehab.
01:39:15: There are many of these women that don't have anybody that sends them mail. You know, I have a friend whose all her family is in Mexico and they don't even know where she's at and she doesn't have any way to contact them.
01:39:29: So, she's been in prison now for 21 years and has never had anyone write her until people from my church started writing to her.
01:39:38: Well, praise God for that. We have a listener in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, CJ, who writes,
01:39:45: I know that people often when they are faced with an opportunity to help a ministry or organization, sometimes they just use it as an opportunity to unload the garbage in their own home that they don't want anymore.
01:40:04: Rather than people wasting their time and yours with that kind of thing, what specifically do you request at your ministry from the listeners in addition to the obvious, which is money, and what is the type of thing that you recommend other than letters to mail to prison inmates that is even permitted by the prison staff?
01:40:33: Those are very good questions. Well, as far as what is permitted to be mailed, it really is only, you can only send letters.
01:40:45: You can send books through a bookstore or through a ministry, but you cannot send anything like that personally.
01:40:56: We don't suggest that anybody would ever send any money to anybody that is incarcerated.
01:41:05: I do have a list of people, and I will eventually have on my website where you can donate to provide hygiene.
01:41:11: Right now, you can purchase cards right now, and the money will be used to provide hygiene for people that I know of who do not have those things, but we don't suggest that you do any of that.
01:41:29: Right now, as far as the pen pal ministry goes, all we're wanting you to do is just write a letter once a month.
01:41:39: Other things that we will have in the future to get involved in at this point, the ministry is just beginning, so we're just looking for people that would be a part of a prayer team that would be willing to mentor an inmate through the mail and be willing to help to support us to build up these other things.
01:42:01: And as we start getting the camp going and the transitional home and all that, we will have other needs. But at this point, we're just in the process of trying to get these things started, so we don't have a lot of other needs right now for actual things that you can do.
01:42:19: Am I answering the question? Oh, yeah. Yeah, but certainly you do need money. Yes, certainly we do need money.
01:42:26: None of this can be done without money, so we definitely need that, and you can donate on the website for Sundale Ministries, www .sundaleministries
01:42:38: .com. Yeah, and you said something interesting, because I don't know if these types of rules vary from prison to prison, but I struck up a pen pal relationship years ago when
01:42:49: I was working for a major Christian radio network. My church had a weekly program on the station, and my pastors gave me the responsibility of communicating with anybody that would write to the church from the radio program.
01:43:10: And I developed a pen pal relationship with the man that was spending a fairly long sentence for armed robbery in several prisons.
01:43:21: He started out at Sing Sing, and he went to Mohawk Correctional Facility, and I'm not sure what happened to him, because unfortunately,
01:43:29: I lost contact with him. And I hope that if Ira, if you're listening, if you remember
01:43:34: Chris Arnzen, who used to communicate with you via the mail, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,
01:43:42: and let's get in touch again. I feel very embarrassed and guilty for somehow letting that relationship lapse.
01:43:49: But I used to send Ira Bibles, genuine leather -bound
01:43:54: Bibles and Christian books on subjects that I thought were worthy of his attention.
01:44:00: And I would actually send him even multiple copies that he gave away to friends in prison, and they permitted that.
01:44:07: They don't prevent it anymore from an individual. You can, like as a ministry, we can send in books, and we can send in Christian books and Bibles and those things.
01:44:19: But from an individual, you cannot. Now, you can, as an individual, go to a store like maybe
01:44:24: CBD .com and send something, but you can't just send it directly to the prison. Oh, so that was actually something that changed in a nationwide policy with that?
01:44:34: I believe it did. I know it did in Texas. I believe it was nationwide, but I can't tell you that for sure.
01:44:41: Okay. And I really... Like I said, they're still able to get them.
01:44:46: They just have to come through a store or through a ministry. Okay.
01:44:52: And that's a good thing to know. And one of the things that struck me, I was really shocked one year.
01:44:58: I remember it was Christmas Eve, and I was overnighting books and Bibles to this prison inmate years ago, and I believe he was at Mohawk Correctional Facility at the time.
01:45:11: And the person who I was speaking with on staff at the prison said to me, what are you doing wasting your time sending stuff to people in here?
01:45:23: Don't you have family and friends that really deserve these kind of gifts that you're mailing? I was actually totally shocked by that reaction.
01:45:33: Do you think that that was a rare kind of attitude from a prison staff member, or was that pretty typical because you mentioned earlier that people do get hardened when they're surrounded by criminals, and many of whom who are incarcerated are not pleasant and repentant and so on.
01:45:51: So what do you have to say about something like that? Well, unfortunately, there are quite a few officers that feel that way.
01:45:58: Now, it isn't everybody. Like I said, in every profession, there are going to be people who are going to think one way and people that are going to think another.
01:46:11: You're going to have good correctional officers. You're going to have bad correctional officers. You're going to have good reporters, bad reporters.
01:46:18: It really boils down to integrity in your walk of forward. And so there were officers there that were a blessing every time they came in the dorm, and then there were officers that when they came in the dorm, people were sick to their stomachs because they knew the things that we were going to have to endure for those six hours while they were there.
01:46:40: Now, obviously, we've all heard about conversions that have become to be nicknamed as foxhole conversions and jailhouse conversions, where people just to be treated better, at least in their mind, they think they're going to be treated better by the prison staff and the and so on by faking a conversion.
01:47:04: Was that something that you believe you witnessed to any great degree, or did you sense that the women that were involved in your
01:47:13: Bible study and who seemed to be reaching out to you, did you sense that there was truly a drawing of the
01:47:20: Lord taking place in the majority? Well, I did see that, but not necessarily in the women that were involved in my
01:47:31: Bible study, because I lived with these ladies, and it was a day -to -day discipleship with these people.
01:47:39: You know, the jailhouse religion, if people that are going to do that, they're going to go to that one service a week at the chapel that's going to get their, you know, they're not going to be committed to that day -to -day,
01:47:55: I'm going to walk out my face every day. What they're going to do is they're going to be, you know, show up at all the services at the chapel and tell the
01:48:05: Lord, you know, I've accepted the Lord and I'm a new person. But that's not, that wasn't something they could realistically do in my situation, because I was living with them.
01:48:19: And, you know, it's still, even though I've come home, you know, I have, you know, discipled women who are continuing to disciple them and living day -to -day and continuing that Bible study and that discipleship on a daily basis inside their unit.
01:48:35: I have a friend who is a former gang member who was incarcerated for drug trafficking, and he became a
01:48:43: Christian in prison. And when he became a really strong student of the
01:48:49: Bible and became very theologically astute, he found one of his biggest conflicts in the walls of a prison were actually with the prison chaplains who are far more liberal than him, and sometimes even silenced him and barred him from participation in certain events because the particular chaplains that he was having problems with were letting people of non -Christian religions participate in the worship services, even though the chaplain professed to be a
01:49:26: Christian, and when he would as politely as possible protest, they would get angry.
01:49:32: What kind of experience did you have in that regard in the women's prison where you were incarcerated?
01:49:39: I was blessed. The majority of time that I was there, the woman that was the chaplain, she's no longer the chaplain there now.
01:49:46: She still volunteers a couple days a week, but she was a believer, and she was a wonderful lady and a wonderful encouragement.
01:49:57: The majority of the stuff that I did, I did in the dorm, and she knew that I was doing
01:50:03: Bible studies in the dorm, and she would tell me, I'm praying for you, but she couldn't get regulations and restrictions of the state on, if we were doing the study in the chapel, it would be a completely different thing.
01:50:18: And the reality, just like your friend told you, in order to be a chaplain, the reason that this lady left being a chaplain at that unit is because now,
01:50:31: I don't know how this is everywhere, but I know in the state of Texas, chaplains are hired as interfaith chaplains.
01:50:37: They're supposed to facilitate all faith -religious activities, and they're supposed to not give any more privileges or freedom to one faith than to another, and they're supposed to be involved in every activity that's there.
01:50:59: So, say if the Muslims are having Ramadan, the chaplain is supposed to participate in Ramadan, and so on and so forth.
01:51:05: So, in Texas at least, that's become the way that it's supposed to be.
01:51:14: So, a chaplain has to kind of go against the grain in order to even share their faith.
01:51:21: Yeah, what a tragedy. And for people like me, a Yankee like me, who's originally from New York, we are very often stunned by that because we look at the
01:51:29: Bible Belt as a place where things like that you wouldn't think would normally occur.
01:51:34: And it's disturbing to see when you have somebody who is pretending to be a representative of all faiths, they are like a jack of all trades but expert in none, as the old saying goes, and they wind up really not representing any of those faiths that they claim to.
01:51:54: I want to spend the rest of the time, we have seven minutes, I want you to really unburden your heart to our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds.
01:52:05: I want you to make sure our listeners know all of the contact information that you want to provide so that they can help
01:52:12: Sundeo Ministries and be of great support to you, and any kind of scripture that has been of great value to you, and other
01:52:24: Christian resources that have helped you through the dark valleys. If you could just speak for a while about what is most pressing upon your heart for our listeners to know.
01:52:38: Well, in talking about scriptures and resources that have been a blessing to me,
01:52:43: I can't even begin to share all of them in seven minutes.
01:52:50: I, during the time that I was there, I read probably a book a week, I was blessed by so many different Christian authors,
01:52:58: I did multiple different studies, I did devotionals,
01:53:03: Dreams in the Desert was a devotional that I held on to and read over and over again. I spent hours and hours, that's one thing that I really miss, during my time when
01:53:15: I was incarcerated, my friends and I would spend hours out of every day just studying the scriptures, and I don't have time to do that anymore.
01:53:25: But, it's, I've been blessed by so many different resources and so many different scriptures, and that was amazing and faithful to provide me with scripture after scripture, promise after promise that He was going to restore, and that He was going to carry me through each step of the way, and I watched as He just changed lives.
01:53:53: When I look at the lives that were changed inside and out, and I can't begin to thank
01:54:02: God enough, I'm honored to have been used in this way. Of course, it's not what
01:54:08: I would have chosen to be away from my family for all those years, but I look at it now and I'm honored that He chose me.
01:54:18: And I thank everybody that prayed for me, and I pray that you would continue to pray for those that I left behind and for others that, you know, hopefully we can grow this ministry to multiple other prisons.
01:54:36: The contact information for the ministry is www .syndeoministries .com,
01:54:43: S -Y -N -D -E -O, ministries, and on the website there's a place where you can contact me and email me, a place where you can donate to the ministry if you want to become a pen pal or if you want to purchase cards to help support just the basic needs of those in there.
01:55:04: In the state of Texas, they don't provide all the hygiene that are needed. They don't even provide deodorant or shampoo, so there are people that I know that don't have any support and I would like, you know, want to help to support them.
01:55:19: But the vision is so big, but we're just beginning and we just need, you know, people to pray with us and people to help and support us to get this off the ground and to get these things rolling.
01:55:34: You know, we have ladies already that are beginning to come out and we don't have a place for them.
01:55:39: We hope within the next few years to be able to have that transitional home to where they can come and just have a safe place to make that transition.
01:55:54: There's just so many things that we want to do, the camps for the kids. You know, my kids were so blessed to be in a support group of, you know,
01:56:06: Christians and just to have a church family that loved them and cared for them and just continued to, you know, take care of them and love on them daily and share
01:56:15: His love with them daily. But so many kids don't have that and I watched so many mothers' lives be changed and then them pray and were burdened for their children who they couldn't reach because they didn't have any way to get to them to share
01:56:36: His love with them. And really the main thing that I want is just for people to just pray for this ministry, that God would give us guidance, that God would give us strength, that He would provide everything to do all the things that He has called us to do, and that He would give us wisdom in what exactly to do and how to proceed with the different things that we want to do.
01:57:00: I also have opportunities to help with getting some things changed in the way that things are done inside the prison, and I pray for wisdom in that.
01:57:12: You know, I feel like I can't ask people to look at that scripture in Hebrews 13, through you remember those in prison, as if you were there with them, if I'm not actively taking those steps, those opportunities that I have to help change things as well.
01:57:30: I just, I thank you for the opportunity that I've had to be on this show. It was an honor to be here and to be able to answer your questions and, you know, any time that you want to talk again,
01:57:43: I'm thankful for you being willing to talk to me. Well, believe me, the honor and privilege is all mine and my listeners, and I also want to let you know that I have been so touched today by speaking with you that I am going to give a permanent advertisement for Sundeo Ministries on my website.
01:58:05: I'm going to ask my webmaster to put that on there so we'll have a hyperlink directly to your website, and if you want to speak with your husband and get together with people who have talent and equipment to record a commercial for Sundeo Ministries, or if you want me to do that for you,
01:58:27: I would love to air for free a commercial to help spread the word about Sundeo Ministries on my broadcast on a daily basis.
01:58:35: Oh, that would be awesome. Thank you. And once again, the ministry website is
01:58:41: Sundeo Ministries, s -y -n -d -e -o -ministries .com,
01:58:48: s as in Sam, y -n as in Nancy, d as in David, e as in Edward, o -ministries .com.
01:58:56: Hannah Overton, please extend my gratitude to your husband and your children for allowing me to borrow you for this program for two hours.
01:59:06: Thank you. Extend my prayers and encouragement, my pledge for prayers and encouragement to the pastors of your church, the
01:59:18: Calvary Chapel there in Corpus Christi, Pastor Rod Carver and all on staff there. And I want to thank you again for being a part of this broadcast.
01:59:27: I want everybody listening to just always remember for the rest of your lives, as I repeat at the end of most of my broadcasts, that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater
01:59:38: Savior than you are a sinner. And I hope those in prison hear that echoing in their hearts and minds forever, especially.