A man served 34 years for killing another teen. Now he mentors Baltimore youth to avoid his mistakes

BALTIMORE -- The buzz in the hallways at Patterson High School in Baltimore drowned out Earl Young’s voice as he answered a phone call one morning.

“Go to class,” Young could be heard telling a student. “The bell has rung. Go to class.”

It was a routine interaction for Young, 54, a full-time mentor to youth in Baltimore. But he’s grateful for every opportunity to help teens avoid the mistakes he made when he was their age. The work is part of his redemption.

“I’m conscious of what could’ve been, what should’ve been if not for a senseless act of violence. I’m constantly seeking forgiveness,” Young said. “Despite all the ups and downs, the sideways and the not so sideways, it becomes my continued mission to bring about change to the best of my ability. To deter any other youth from traversing the path that I chose.”

About four years ago, he was walking the corridors of Jessup Correctional Institution, a state prison. More than 30 years into a life sentence for murder, there was no indication he’d leave soon.

In 1984, a 16-year-old Young took his mother’s car one night with two friends. They drove up to a pair of teenagers, jumped out and chased them in an attempted robbery. Nineteen-year-old Irvin Jones was shot in the back.

Young and the two others were arrested in Jones’ death, but only he was convicted. Court records show Young denied being the shooter. But the judge who sentenced Young said there was ample evidence he blasted Jones with a sawed-off shotgun.

While ashamed of his actions, Young grew to learn the experience was his biggest asset: Who better to lecture about the consequences of one grave mistake? And who better to speak of perseverance than someone who went to prison as a child, spent decades incarcerated and returned to society as a productive citizen atoning for his crime?

“I can’t bring back my victim, but I’m trying to do everything possible to give the rest of my life some meaning,” Young said.

It’s what makes him a “credible messenger” for New Vision Youth Services, an organization that contracts with Baltimore City Public Schools and Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott’s Office of African American Male Engagement to deploy counselors to help “high-need” youths.

“While we’re not proud of our past, our past has given us authority and understanding of what our young people are going through today,” said Bishop Billy Stanfield Jr., New Vision’s founder and executive director, who served time in federal prison. “We can’t go back and change the past, but we can do something about what’s going on right now.”

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News of a little girl’s killing in 1988 penetrated the Maryland Penitentiary’s granite walls and permeated.

Murderers, drug lords, gang bangers: The disappearance and death of 11-year-old La-Tonya Wallace shook even the most hardened criminals. Some were so moved they resolved to donate money to Wallace’s family and the Park Avenue branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library she frequented.

Among them was Young, who had been in prison for about four years.

He was convicted of first-degree murder in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison at 17. Entering the adult prison system that year, he was overwhelmed by avoiding assault, robbery and worse.

“We’re talking about some of the worst of the worst and they thrive pretty good at the bottom and you easy pickings. You are ill experienced and ill equipped to deal with that mentally. It’s either fight or flight,” said Young, recalling that he got into trouble frequently at first.

He said Wallace’s death was his “awakening moment.” Although he didn’t know Wallace or her family, the tragedy helped him begin to process the ripple of destruction his actions had caused and to start changing his life.

“I’ve always been conscious of the act of my crime, but I didn’t understand the layers of my crime,” Young said.

Around that time, Young said, another inmate told him to go to the prison library — which, unlike their cells, had air conditioning — rather than sweltering in the summer heat.

“He tricked me into going to the library, thinking that I’m getting me some air conditioning,” Young said. “He knew if I kept going, eventually I would pick up a book.”

Soon, Young read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” chronicling his time in Nazi concentration camps, and said he was moved by the compassion Frankl found despite dire circumstances. Though Frankl had no control over his environment, he had the power to choose to help others — a lesson that resonated with Young.

Young joined a program called Project Turnaround, founded by John Woodland, who was serving two life sentences for two murder convictions.

The program trained inmates to be counselors. They shared their stories with children in juvenile detention and city schools. Teens would be brought to the penitentiary to meet with inmates and hear their stories.

Woodland, 67, who recently came home to Baltimore after 39 years in prison, recalled that Young, who was occasionally his cellmate, quickly became one of the most effective counselors.

“He was there every day training and he had a powerful message,” Woodland said.

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An avid Boy Scout from West Baltimore who relished every opportunity to go camping or fishing as a child, Young started cutting class to experiment with drinking and drugs come high school.

He was exposed to older guys who carried guns and sold drugs for quick money. At some point, he said, his group of friends acquired a firearm. They shot at old refrigerators in the alley — nothing too sinister — until the night before Thanksgiving 1984, when Young participated in the botched robbery that left Jones dead and sent him to jail.

Jones was an only child and a relative told The Baltimore Sun in 1996 that Jones’ father and namesake “never really got over Little Irvin’s death.”

Eleven years later, on New Year’s Eve, Jones’ parents were brutally killed at their Edmondson Village home. That leaves close friends like Michael Singletary, 57, a classmate of Jones, to tell their son’s story.

Singletary described Jones as his best friend, saying he was a “gentle giant” who was raised by a loving family and stayed out of trouble. Jones graduated from high school the year before he was killed and dreamed of going into computer programming. Singletary said Jones loved martial arts almost as much as he enjoyed dancing, particularly at the club he left the night he was gunned down.

“He would’ve been well into his career, like all of his friends that graduated,” Singletary said. “He just didn’t get an opportunity to begin that career.”

Young opened up about taking Jones’ life in a letter sent to children in juvenile custody.

“Had I not stole my mother [sic] car, Irvin wouldn’t have died and Earl wouldn’t be in prison. Lives were wasted because I made a very poor decision,” Young wrote. “Hopefully my story will prevent anymore wasted lives. I want y’all to know that today can be the turning point.”

Retired civil rights lawyer Merle Morrow, who volunteered in Maryland prisons while Young was incarcerated, arranged that letter and others Young gathered from inmates into a book titled “Letters to Youth: From Men in Maryland State Prisons.”

In an interview, Morrow recalled meeting in 2013 with the “lifers group” at Eastern Correctional Institution on the Eastern Shore, hoping to convince them to write to youths in the criminal justice system.

“Earl, as the vice president, gave an opening speech. And in that speech he told the group they had an obligation to speak to the youth and help them,” Morrow said. “It was a powerful presentation. ... I just thought, ‘If these men don’t reach out to youth, they’re never going to do it after that.’”

Young’s message to those he counseled grew to include that he couldn’t be there for his family while he was incarcerated. His mother, father, sister and half brother all died of health conditions while he was in prison.

He always thought he eventually would be released. But he recalled many “lifers” losing hope when Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening in 1995 issued an executive order barring inmates serving life in prison from seeking parole.

“He never gave up,” Woodland said. “He kept becoming somebody that did positive things.”

In 2018, he petitioned the Baltimore Circuit Court to reconsider his sentence in light of a pair of U.S. Supreme Court opinions establishing that sentencing a juvenile to life without parole is unconstitutional. Judge Phillip S. Jackson denied Young’s request.

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The letter from then-Gov. Larry Hogan is dated Jan. 10, 2019.

Accepting the recommendation of the Maryland Parole Commission, the Republican governor commuted Young’s life sentence, making him immediately eligible for parole.

“While nothing can replace the life that was taken because of your actions, I expect that you will continue to demonstrate that rehabilitation and reintegration are possible,” the letter read. “Please make the most of this second chance.”

Young came home July 19, 2019.

By August, he had a job with New Vision, mentoring students in city schools and working for the mayor’s office.

He also attended Mothers of Murdered Sons and Daughters United meetings, and supported other returning citizens in his spare time, leading to a certificate of appreciation from the Baltimore Police Department.

During the coronavirus pandemic, he made sure his mentees had laptops for class and checked on them at home, when he was not on the streets approaching young squeegee workers.

“Little bro, I want you to be safe,” he recalled telling the window washers.

In the schools, Young said, he intervenes in problems — a conflict in class, a scuffle in the hallway, a child overheard talking about drugs or guns — before the principal’s office gets involved. He seeks to connect with teens and understand the source of their behavior, whether it’s home life, school or social. That might mean studying with someone, or a serious conversation about the path they’re headed down.

“You can see the wheels turning, but they’re looking at you like, ‘I’m still going to do what I’m going to do.’ Every time I encounter one, I’m like, ‘That’s me,’” Young said. “But how intelligent are you with limited information? They don’t know the decisions that they’re making have multiple layers to them.”

Tyon Robinson, 18, met Young through a program from the mayor’s office. He said he fell behind in school during the pandemic, with some family problems exacerbating his stress.

Robinson said Young became a shoulder to lean on. He calls Young to ask how to handle a conflict at his job at Panera Bread or a hiccup at school. He said Young taught him to analyze a situation by considering multiple perspectives. Robinson’s been accepted to several colleges and aspires to be a therapist.

“[Young] can have a huge impact, just from being an inner city kid himself, just showing people you can bounce back, even from the worst of crimes or financial situation, you can do better. And he’s living proof,” Robinson told The Sun. “I’m proud of him.”

Young and his wife, Janet Jones Young, who married while he was incarcerated, own a house in Baltimore County. He’s working toward a criminal justice degree at Coppin State University. His mentoring work shows no signs of slowing.

As painful as Jones’ death remains for those who were close to him, Singletary hopes some good can come from it through Young’s work with youth.

“If the loss of Irvin’s life can save another at the hands of the individual that took his life — reach one, teach one — hopefully, that’s the case.”

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(Baltimore Sun librarian Paul McCardell contributed to this article.)

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