Stephen Owens - Set Free: Discover Forgiveness Amidst Murder and Betrayal

Set Free

Based on Print Edition

Copyright 2013 by Stephen R. Owens with Ken Abraham

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4336-8023-6

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: 234.5

Subject Heading: FORGIVENESS \ HOMICIDE \ MOTHER-SON RELATIONSHIP

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations marked ( hcsb ) are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible Copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing an emotionally charged book such as Set Free could have easily imprisoned me once again had it not been for the help and encouragement of so many people. Others, while not actively involved in the process of producing this book, have invested in my life in ways that I can never repay, yet for which I will always be grateful.

At the risk of missing someone, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to:

Gaile Owens Thank you for taking these steps with me and moving forward. Thank you for believing in our future one day at a time. I admire your courage and strength displayed in the incredible progress you have made during this transition. I am grateful for your support, love, and encouragement as we both walk through healing and reconciliation.

John Seigenthaler Thank you, John, for embracing Moms case and for writing the initial articles that moved her story out of the prison and into the newspaper, and for your friendship and fatherly support to me.

Katy Varney For putting your heart on the line, as well as your time, energy, and the resources of your company; for your support and tireless work on behalf of my mom, I will always be indebted.

Kelley Henry Thanks for your hard work on Moms case, and for never giving up!

Gretchen Swift Thank you for your heartfelt work on Moms case, but most of all for your sincere friendship with Mom.

Carolyn Hensley Thank you for having the faith and courage to take in two little boys, raising us as your own, and instilling Christian principles in us. Thank you for your unwavering love.

Ken Abraham For your hard work on writing this book. And for your compassion to tell it in a way that was respectful but powerful.

Bob Starnes You believed in this project from the beginning, and your unrelenting perseverance helped turn our hopes and dreams for a book into a tangible reality. Thanks, too, Bob, for your incredible friendship and support.

Trevor Starnes For your incredible research on the front end of this book to help shape the direction that will impact lives.

Brock Starnes For your attention to detail with design and marketing and behind the scenes support that added so much to this book. You are truly gifted!

Dawn Woods Thank you for believing in this project, Dawn, and for your willingness to take a chance on my story.

The entire B&H Publishing Group editorial, marketing, and sales team thank you for believing in and taking my story to the world.

Drew Maddux For your great friendship and support as I went through this chapter in my life.

Steve Wilson Thank you for befriending my mother and ministering to her long before I was ready to be reconciled with her. Thanks, too, for challenging, supporting, and encouraging me to follow what I thought God was calling me to do.

My elementary school teachers: Mrs. Orman, Mrs. Gann, and Mrs. Lawrence You were there for me during some of my darkest days, and you refused to let me fall through the cracks. Thank you for your continuous support and the significant roles you have played in my life for more than twenty-eight years.

My brother, Brian Owens Weve lived through a nightmare together and have come out stronger. Though we grew up without our dad, weve always had a heavenly Father, and my prayer is that He will continue to guide our stepstogether.

My wife Lisa, and sons, Zachary and Joshua Thank you for loving me throughout this process. To Lisa, especially, thank you for walking with me in the good times and the bad, and never wavering in your love and support for me. God has truly blessed me through you.

Most of all, I give thanks to God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus.

Then Peter came to Him and said, Lord, how
many times could my brother sin against me and
I forgive him? As many as seven times?
I tell you, not as many as seven, Jesus said to him,
but 70 times seven.

Matthew 18:2122 (hcsb)

Foreword

S tephen Owens is my close, relatively newfound friend, a fact, I suppose, that surprises us both since I am old enough to be his grandfather.

Stephen is too young to write an autobiography. But, fortunately for readers of this book, he has decided to relate the story of how the events that shocked and shaped his boyhood, and shadowed his adult life, finally moved him to confront and resolve the emotional inner conflict that always haunted his heart. It is the story of his conflicted spiritual journey. It has relevance for many who have faced adversity, perhaps burdened in reaction with anger, hatred, confusion, frustration, and mistrust.

Imagine Stephen as a lad of ten, eleven, and twelve years of age who sees his life at that interval as near-idyllic: He and his little brother, three years his junior, live with parents who love them in a comfortable suburban home in Bartlett, near Memphis, Tennessee. Ron Owens, his father, is an administrator at a leading community hospital; Gaile, his mother, works as an aide to a medical doctor.

The family, devoutly Christian, attends church faithfully. It is a close-knit congregation of friends, almost an extended family.

On a February Sunday evening, the viewfinder through which twelve-year-old Stephen has seen this happy home life is shattered by a mind-numbing act of criminal violence: His father is brutally murdered.

Five days later comes the searing, sickening understanding of a betrayal that finally destroys the near-perfect world young Stephen thought he knew. His mother is arrested by police and charged with hiring a stranger to kill his father.

Less than a year later, Stephen finds himself in a courtroom testifying against his mother, who is on trial for his fathers murder. He tells the jury about discovering his father, his head bloodied and bashed, as he gasped his last breaths. At trials end, his mother and the stranger she promised money to kill her husband both receive death sentences.

Stephen does not see or speak to his mother again for almost a quarter century.

I was asked by Stephen to write this foreword because he knew I had been part of a small group, mostly lawyers, who came together to try to devise a strategy to save Gaile Owens from the jurys death sentence. Our circle met often, constantly evaluating possible initiatives that might persuade the judicial system to spare her life, or move the governor, who had the power to commute her death sentence.

Initially, I participated in these strategy sessions because I believe that the death penalty is an offense against reason and religion; an affront to the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment; a rejection of the biblical mandate that begins, thou shalt not... To those of us who oppose capital punishment, elongated incarceration, even life without parole, seems more rational than snuffing out a citizens lifeeven one who commits unspeakable crimes.