Ian Manuel was 13 when he shot Deborah Baigrie during a stickup in a parking lot of the Cold Storage Cafe in downtown Tampa nearly 20 years ago. The bullet entered her mouth and ripped out of her cheek. She lost her gums and teeth on the left side of her mouth.
Manuel had committed his first robbery at age 11. At sentencing, the judge told him: "There is no second chance available."
He is 32 now, in solitary confinement in Florida State Prison, by reputation the state's toughest. He has been sanctioned repeatedly for fighting, exposing himself to guards, disobeying and other infractions.
"The last time I shared a cell with someone was in 1998," Manuel wrote in a letter. The DOC would not allow him to be interviewed.
He said he gets out of his cell for three hours of recreation per week, in a small area "that everyone even the officers call 'dog cages.' "
His worst moments came in 1996, when his mother died of AIDS and he was unable to attend the funeral, and last year, when he was resentenced on one of his charges but still kept his same overall release date: Never.
Some say he is a sociopath. Possibly. He's also a human.
Ian Manuel
I'm the Genie in a bottle
The world has forgot.
They put me in this abyss
And closed the top.
I was a little boy
When they did what they did,
But time continued to tick,
I'm no longer a kid.
My mother is dead,
So is my father.
I've been abandoned by family
While trapped in this bottle.
But I hold on to hope
That someone will open the top,
Answer my prayers
And help me out.
Sometimes people pick-up the bottle
Put their eye to the hole,
But instead of compassion
Act indifferent and cold.
I suffer sensory deprivation,
A loss of sense of direction.
There's no mirror in the bottle
For me to see my reflection.
They say being lonely and alone
Are two different definitions,
But it's only me in this bottle,
So I fit both descriptions.
What I need is a friend.
Someone to extend a hand.
It can be as simple
As picking-up a pen.
Someone who cares,
Accepts me for who I am,
My magnetic personality
And my baggage from the past.
Someone who helps heal the sorrow
Will work on building our tomorrows.
Someone who refuses to
Leave me to die in this bottle.
Please
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Personal Information SEX: Male RACE: Black D.O.B.: 3/29/1977 HEIGHT: 5'9" WEIGHT: 170 lbs. CURRENT RELEASE DATE: N/A |
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