It Took a Long Prison Sentence—and the Gospel—to Teach Fred Lefever the Meaning of Freedom

Fred LeFever daydreamed a lot in prison. His favorite fantasy: seeing himself riding a Harley Davidson off into a wild and open desert, a perfect sky overhead, and a road that stretched to Forever.

 

Fat chance.

 

At age 30, deep in the bowels of a century-old prison in Walla Walla, Washington, Fred was on the wrong end of an habitual-criminal sentence. He knew he was going to be there for the rest of his life.

Not that his life up to that point had been all that great. When Fred was 12, his father drowned in a boating accident during an overnight camping trip. Fred was at a cabin when it happened. And Fred was the one who discovered his father's body in the river the next morning. He had pestered his dad to take him boating at a time when his dad wasn't feeling well. Following the accident, young Fred blamed himself for his father's death. Fred tried to cope by turning to drugs. At 16, he was a full-blown heroin addict

 

Three years later, in 1960, Fred was arrested for heroin possession and saw the inside of a correctional facility for the first time—Washington's Monroe Reformatory.

 

When placed on work release, he quickly returned to drugs and committed a series of armed robberies to support his habit. Arrested once more, he received the habitual-criminal conviction and was sent to Walla Walla. He fully expected to die behind its red brick walls, forgotten by everyone.

 

God had other plans.

 

During Fred's robbery spree, he had run into Ideal Pharmacy in Seattle's Capitol Hill district. "This is a robbery," he barked, pointing a gun at store owner Floyd Pettengill.

 

"You don't scare me," Pettengill answered. "I've been shot before."