Loretta Pierre describes her appearance over the three way phone call: “Long hair, long dark dark brown. Some people say black hair but it’s almost to my knees. I have an olive complexion. I think my eyes are almond shaped, too. My complexion’s like honey color. I’m sitting here in a gray T-shirt on my bed in prison. I got a gray T-shirt on, some white boxer shorts, no shoes, and I’m sitting cross legged on my bed drinking coffee. I’m 60 years old but a lot of people say that I look like I’m about 40. I don’t know about that. But they say that prison has preserved me because I’ve been in prison for almost 38 years.”

Loretta is one of the “Mississippi Five,” all women who were charged a life sentence with the possibility of parole in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, they range in ages from their 60s to 80s and collectively have been imprisoned over 200 years and denied parole 50 times. Loretta is the youngest of the five at 60 years old. 

Saiyare: Thank you, I’m also sitting cross-legged. So maybe we look a little similar in our poses. I’m really grateful to Garrett for connecting us, and it’s really good to hear your voice, Loretta. I’m wondering, how would your family and your friends describe you?

Loretta:  I think my friends and family would describe me as loyal, real faithful. They would probably say I’m smart. They would probably say that I’m a good student. The teacher’s pet. I’m always a teacher’s pet. Because I interact a lot. I talk a lot. They would say that I’m strong. That I’m honest. Reliable, trustworthy. That I got a good personality. That I’m very open. Does that give you a picture of what I’m like? 

Saiyare: Yeah, definitely. Thank you. And my understanding is that you have a son named Damien and grandkids. And that family is really, really important to you. Would you be able to describe your family a little bit? 

Loretta:  Well, my son is 39 years old and he has 3 little girls. My son is very, very handsome. He’s got dark skin, and he’s got green eyes. He’s very beautiful to me.

And then there’s my sister and my brother. My sister is very very strong. She’s very determined.

She works real hard. She sometimes works 12 hour days. She is probably one of the smartest women I know. And she’s just real. She’s real honest, too. 

She was 10 years old whenever I got this charge. Now she’s fixing to turn 50 in September. Although I was there for the first years of her life. (I was there at the hospital when she was born.) I’ve not had the opportunity to be around her very much. But we do talk all the time. She’s very beautiful.

My brother was 24 years old whenever I got this charge. He’s like the backbone of our family. He’s 64 now. And he’s real funny. He’s always telling jokes. He doesn’t ask people a lot of questions. He just listens and takes things in. He’s just real funny. He’s handsome.

Saiyare: Sounds like you have a very beautiful family. You said you’ve been incarcerated for 38 years now. And you’ve been denied parole 14 times, which is more than anyone else [any other woman] in the State of Mississippi. Where do you find hope, in all of these instances of being denied parole and [experiencing] prolonged imprisonment? Where do you find hope in that space?

Loretta: I find hope by being released from here and being with my family again. That’s it.

That’s where my hope comes from, getting out here and being able to be with them. Because if it wasn’t for them. Prison, it just goes. It just seems to go on and on and on. It would be much easier for me to just slit my throat and be done with it. And because death is final, right? But this just keeps going on and on and on. Because of them, I’ve been just doing this time. It’s time to get out of here. 

Saiyare:  Definitely. And I heard you have a running bucket list of things you want to do when you are released. Would you mind sharing some of those?

Loretta: You mean the first things that I want to do? 

Saiyare: Yeah, what are some of the first things you want to do upon being reunited with your family? 

Loretta: First of all, I’m from Gulfport, Mississippi. That’s right on the Gulf of Mexico. It was a great place to grow up, and I loved it there. I was fishing all the time, swimming, doing all types of water sports all the time. And so I most definitely would like to be able to go there again. But the first thing that I want to do is see my family and my friends. I want to see people who helped me get out of here. That’s probably gonna be you soon.

Saiyare: I would love that. 

Loretta: Yeah, cause we’re gonna probably be best friends. But I wanna see the people who help me get out of here. I want to eat some crawfish, some shrimp, some filet mignon wrapped in bacon. I want to go shopping. I want to take a long, long bath, maybe with some candles around my bathtub. Maybe with a glass of wine. I might want to have somebody in my bathtub. I might eventually wanna have sex. I haven’t had sex since 1991. I want to play with my grandchildren. I want to get in the backyard and barbecue. Get back there and set up a propane stove and cook crawfish, and fresh fish. I just wanna do these things that people do every day.

Saiyare: That makes a lot of sense, and a lot to look forward to, for sure. I also read that you are a writer. I read one of your articles that you’re an abolitionist, and I’m really curious how your journey to abolition came about. And what is your vision? What does that work look like?

Loretta: Ultimately, I would love to be able to be instrumental in shutting these prisons down. But I think that’s gonna have to start with young children. Because prison is like school, it’s like a hospital. It’s just always been there. And these people come to prison but don’t realize that they’re legalized slaves. Racism is a learned behavior that has to be unlearned, just like ideas about punishment and prisons.

I don’t know if these people are going to be able to unlearn everything that they’ve been learning all their lives. I think it would be good to start. You know, some abolitionist villages, some abolitionist schools. I think people are gonna have to have to teach our children really, really young, about these prisons, about the consequences of their actions. It’s gonna be hard. Obviously, it’s been hard, right? But something is gonna have to take a different approach, because it’s still going on. And people’ve been fighting this battle for so long. Something’s got to change. I think it could happen. But I think it’s gonna have to start with the children for the next generation.

Saiyare: Thank you. I also read that when you were initially imprisoned, you were still pregnant with Damien, and you also met Anita. I’m curious if you are connected with anyone else who is part of the Mississippi 5 campaign, Evelyn, Lisa and Linda, as well as Jackie Barnes, who’s been recently added to the list. I’m curious if you’ve been able to be connected with any of them, or what that looks like being connected to a campaign with all of these women? 

Loretta:  Well, whenever I first got my charge in 1985, that’s when I was pregnant with my son and that’s when I met Anita. The judge revoked my bond in 1987, when Anita got her charge I was at home laying in the bed with my baby, and I heard it over the radio what was going on with her and her charge partner. A few months later the judge revoked my bond, and I went to jail and that’s when I met Anita. I had never been to jail before I got this charge. I’ve never been in jail before, and… 

[Automated recording: YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE REMAINING.] 

Loretta:  But that’s whenever I met Anita and we’ve been friends, you know, ever since, but Anita, she’s kind of not open and friendly like me. She’s kind of reserved. She wasn’t from the coast where we got our charges. Not that I knew anybody in jail. But you know I was familiar with the places. But Anita and I have always been friends. Our entire family used to go to the family house together.

[Automated recording: THANK YOU FOR USING GLOBAL TEL LINK. Call cuts.] 

Saiyare: Loretta, you were saying that you and Anita have been good friends ever since you met. Right?

Loretta: When I finally did go back to prison, that’s when they kept people sentenced to life imprisonment in the maximum security unit [MSU or solitary confinement] for a year. Whenever I got to prison they only kept me for 28 days, and then I went to population. Back then, in the eighties, we could have our families bring food in on Thanksgiving and Easter. My family used to bring a lot of food in. I used to send plates to Anita in MSU, the maximum security unit. Also, when the judge revoked my bond, when he reinstated it. 

Anita’s a health freak and prefers everything organic. So I went to the Health Food Store and I bought her some organic shampoo and conditioner. Whenever I used to go see my bondsman every week, (I had to go see my bondsman every Friday,) the jail was right next to my parents. And so I used to drop her off packages. For some reason, she would send me money in the mail. And I told her to keep her money. But every now and then I would get envelopes with $5 or $10 in it or something. I used to go to the health store and buy her stuff. I know she appreciated that, because she didn’t have any family there to drop her stuff off. Anita’s a no nonsense type of person. She don’t have time for jokes or small talk, or anything like that. She’s always got an agenda. She’s got no free time at all. She always makes time for me, and sometimes I give her pedicures. I love Anita. I love her. She exercises every single day. She’s got a body like a 16 year old, and she’s probably like she might be like 67 now. I’m telling you she’s got a body like a 16 year old, and she’s constantly on the move. I taught her how to do yoga. I just, I love Anita. She makes pasta salads and goes outside and puts dandelions in them. A lot of people think she’s peculiar. But I just think she’s great. She thinks she’s funny, and she laughs real loud. 

Anita and I have known each other the longest, whenever I moved to a building where she was. The lieutenant that was over the building assigned me her job, and so I got her job, and I got her private room. So I don’t think she liked me very much at the beginning. But we became friends. I got her a job there because she had always worked for administration, helping them run the prison and so when the ACA, the American Corrections Accreditation, came in and started acting like the prison had to have to live up to certain standards. They didn’t want any more inmate clerks. Anita lost her position working for administration, and so I got her another job at Mississippi Prison Industry where she could work and make money.

And then Mamma E [Ms. Evelyn Smith]. (I’m trying to see who came along next.) I think it was Linda Ross. First of all, Lisa got her charge in 1985 the same year I got mine. She didn’t bond out. You know I bonded out. She didn’t bond out. This October will mark her 40th year being incarcerated.

I know that our charges are severe, and I know we did some horrible things. But we’re not running an innocence campaign. We’re running a freedom campaign, and we take full responsibility and accountability for what we’ve done. Since I arrived at the prison 72 other women have been granted parole under the same challenges that we have. We have life with the possibility of parole after 10 years, and I’ve seen 72 other women walk out the door. And these women have multiple victims. Some of them come off a death row and got their sentence converted to the same sentence that we were sentenced to. And so I really just don’t understand why we’re being held. I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense at all.

The state of Mississippi’s parole board was established in 1972. All five members of the board are appointed by the governor. In 1995, Mississippi restricted parole with the requirement that those convicted with a felony must serve 85 percent of their sentence before parole eligibility. Those who are sentenced to life in prison must wait ten years  in prison and 65 years old for the allowance of submitting a petition to a judge for a parole hearing. Because this law is not retroactive it does not apply to Loretta or those who were charged prior to 1995. (Read more at “Prisons Grow in Mississippi as State Officials Cut Parole”.) 

Loretta: I don’t know what type of statement [the parole board] they’re trying to make. But they’re most definitely using it, for some type of is as an example occurrence. We want credit to be granted parole, like the rest of those women were. Anita just got a capital charge, because her boyfriend at the time, shot and killed a Mississippi highway patrolman. When she went to court the jury was given an option to give her life, with the possibility after ten years with parole, or the death penalty, right? And they gave her life with a possibility after ten years. Nobody has expected us to stay in prison for this long. Before this law came in, we were sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. People did like seven and a half years. It was called seven flat six and it was pretty pretty normal for people to do seven and a half years in. They grow and go home, and then once this law came into effect. It was highly unusual for anybody to be denied parole more than three or four times. We’ve done more time on our sentences than any other women in the history of the State of Mississippi. It’s unheard of. It’s been really difficult to deal with. I just don’t understand why we’ve been treated so differently than the other people. People who, since 1994 were sentenced to life in prison have to do no matter what age they are. They can’t petition their courts to go up for parole until they’re 65 years old. 

We weren’t sentenced under that law so we’re the only ones left, and you know we’re ready to get out of prison. I feel like we’ve paid our debt to society. We’ve done everything that we could possibly do. We’ve been to college. We’ve taken all these classes. We’ve done everything that we can possibly do within our power to better ourselves. And so I just don’t understand it. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what they want from us.

Saiyare: Yeah, I don’t know either. It’s so disheartening. That isn’t even the right word for just how infuriating. 

Loretta is the only one of the six of the Mississippi Five who is being incarcerated at Delta Correctional Facility (DCF). The rest of the women are being held at the Mississippi Correctional Institute for Women (MCIW). 

Loretta: I wish they [the other Mississippi Five] would come back here [to DCF] because a lot of their programs are being cut out. Anita’s in seminary school. I think she’s got a couple more years left in seminary school, and so she’ll probably be there until she finishes with that at least. I mean, unless she gets out of prison. The last time Anita went, she got an unheard of year 8 year set off. No other woman has ever got that long.

Saiyare: An 8 years set off means her case won’t come up for another 8 years?

Loretta: Yeah, she got that 8 years set up in 2023. Her case is not gonna come up till 2030. 

Saiyare: Wow! That’s ridiculous.

Loretta: Jackie, came along. I guess in the mid nineties. Jackie’s real real sweet. She’s real tiny. She and Lisa work together and…

[Automated recording: YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE REMAINING.] 

Loretta: Jackie is just real sweet, you know, real friendly. But I haven’t spent a lot of time with her since probably the late nineties. I’ve not had the chance to be housed with her since then. But you know, whenever you’re out of class they are always happy to see me. She lived at the family house one time, and they got special privileges and special incentive for being over there. She brought me these toothbrushes and stuff like that. But she’s definitely real, sweet, real, helpful. And her and Lisa are best friends.

Saiyare: Oh, great! I mean, it sounds like y’all have been so sweet to each other, too. Our time might cut out in a moment.

[Automated recording: THANK YOU FOR USING GLOBAL TEL LINK. Call cuts.] 

Saiyare: Okay, Loretta. You mentioned the family house. Could you describe what that is? I’m not familiar.

Loretta: When we had one it was like apartments, and there were 4 apartments. 

Our families can come and stay with us from Monday to Friday or Friday from Monday, and so my family can come up from the coast and stay with me. Sometimes it would just be my son. Sometimes we can see my mom and you know there was like a queen size bed in there. It was like a little dining table. There was a full kitchen in another room. There was a bunk bed, a toy chest, rocking chairs. There was a little love seat and a chair in the room with the Queen size bed was real high. You had that little step to get up on the bed stand on the side of the bed. There was, you know, a bathroom with a shower and outside there was a playground the children went to. Big 65 gallon barbecue grill, smaller grills. A basketball goal, a merry-go-round swing like a jungle gym. You know we could go outside anytime we wanted to.

Saiyare: How long could you stay together when your family came to the family house?

Loretta: From Monday til Friday or Friday til Monday. They brought everything. They brought all the food. Every single thing that you had while you were there they had to bring. I could sleep in the bed with them. Go outside, cook on the grill. Me and my son would slip and slide. We have a phone over there.

Saiyare: Currently, the facility that you’re in, are you in isolation? Or are you with other women in a shared space?

Loretta: I’ve got 45 other roommates and right now I’m out of school for summertime. I go back to school at the end of August. I go to Mississippi Valley State University. I’m studying Business Administration. I just completed the reentry program, which is just another program you know, that they come up with for funding. Because I completed the pre-release program. I was in the pre-release program for an entire year before the last time I went up for parole. They just come up with these programs under different names to get different funding. And then they have inmates teaching all the classes, so you know it’s a win for them. I don’t know what they do about this money. I don’t know why they have us going through all these classes if they want to hold us. It seems like they don’t have any faith in their program.

Saiyare: Well, I’m wondering, thinking about your campaign for your release. What would you like people to know? And what are some of the ways that we can all support? You have a hearing coming up in December. Is that correct?

People could go to the website and Instagram. But I always tell people to Google, “Free Mississippi Five.” They could write letters. They could sign the petition. There’s a petition on the website. They could donate whatever they could afford to donate. I don’t care if it’s just a dollar because this campaign cost a lot of money. It’s going all over the United States. They could donate whatever they could afford to donate. And most definitely sign that petition. Then they can host events if they want.

Saiyare: In particular to your case, as you’re anticipating this hearing in December, is there anything else in particular regarding your case, or that you want folks to know about and support you in that way? I don’t know if you need people in Mississippi to show up for your hearing, if that’s allowed, or all of the other things you said.

Loretta: [People aren’t allowed.] I’m normally in there by myself, but hopefully this time I’ll have an attorney. And my case manager said that she would be in there with me but I mean, I guess the best way that they can support me right now is to get on that website, and make this known. Sign a petition. And also I invite people to communicate with me. I love getting mail. Everybody loves getting mail in prison and so they can write me. They can go to the meeting app [GettingOut] and I could email them, video chat with them. All of our names, MDOC numbers and our facility addresses are on the website. But me, personally. All they have to do is go to this app, and put my name in there, and my MDOC number 7-1-8-4-3 and they could contact me that way. Because, although I like getting mail, I like getting messages. They could send me pictures. Twenty second video for twenty cents. That would be nice.

Saiyare: Great. Thank you. I’ll make sure to include that. Is there anything else that you would like people to know about your experiences or hopes? That’s kind of the last question I have for you.

Loretta: My experience is, it’s been really bad. I just never thought I would be in prison for this long. I never wanted to be away from my little baby. I had 6 trials before I was ever convicted. They just would not stop until they put me in prison. And you know, my little baby, that I was pregnant with then is 39 years old now. At some point I would like to be able to be with him, be with my little sister and my brother. 

We miss our families. Our families love us and they want us home. They want us out of here. I hear people talking all the time about how better things used to be then when and but to me it’s never been good. It’s always been crazy. I’m just ready to get out of here. You know, Mamma E is 83 years old now. Anita’s 66.. I’m 60. Linda, is turning 63 in September.

This is my one and only felony. I have no prior felony conviction. You know how I committed. It’s not like I’m going to get out there and do it again. I have a huge support network whenever we all do have a huge support network whenever we get out of prison. It’s not like we’re going to get out of prison and commit more crimes and come back to prison. Although I know it’s a revolving door system. It was designed for people to come back to prison.

But that’s not happening. No, the majority of people who come back to prison are nonviolent drug offenders who don’t have a support system, who don’t have jobs or families, or anything waiting for them. And you know they’ve been set up for failure. They get out of prison, they get $25. They sent them on their way. People don’t have any other choice but to turn around and commit crimes. I mean, if they want to eat, some people don’t have work fields, or education. They don’t have any choice but to commit more crime and come back to prison.

But us, you know, we’ve taken all the classes, we’ve gone to the colleges, we have support networks, so there’s no chance of us ever coming back.

SUPPORT Loretta and the rest of the Mississippi Five the following ways:

SIGN their clemency petition. 

DONATE to the campaign. 

Write them a letter or email. 

Mobilize with this social media toolkit.  

READ and DISTRIBUTE: 

• Loretta Pierre’s zine
• Linda Ross’s zine 
• Anita Krecic’s zine
• Lisa Crevitt’s zine
• Evelyn Smith’s zine
• All the zines together!
• You can read more about the specifics of Loretta’s case in her own words published in The Appeal with Christopher Blackwell in “Why the Mississippi Five” Deserve Parole after 40 years in Prison.” 

ORGANIZE a viewing of “Calls From Home’ in solidarity with the Mississippi Five. Email your interest to studystruggle2020@gmail.com. 

This interview from June 27, 2025 with Loretta Pierre was made possible thanks to the coordination of Garrett Felber, who is a writer, educator and organizer. Garrett serves on the committee to Free of Mississippi Five, organizes with Study and Struggle and is the author of the forthcoming biography, A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre. You can hear Garrett speak on the Beyond Prison podcast about the campaign to free the Mississippi Five. I first met Garrett last December at a screening of “Calls From Home” in Solidarity with the Mississippi Five with representatives of Look2Justice, Study And Struggle, and Working Films. We met again during an online book club culminating in a reading group for “All Our Trials” by Emily Thuma with an online conversation with Dean Spade in early June of this year. Our break out room conversation delved into “participatory defense campaigns” and brainstorming around how to amplify the Mississippi 5 campaign. The impetus for this phone call for freedom. 

The main blog image was digitally drawn by Saiyare Refaei. The paintings below are by Corey Devon Arthur. Saiyare compiled and edited the blog with support from Garrett Felber. Any errors are Saiyare’s alone.