Episode 63: A Rhodes Scholar, A Convicted Murderer: The Ultimate Twist of Fate
As a toddler, Wes, the book’s author, had a loving family, successful parents and a nice home in Maryland. Then, when he was just 3 years old, his life took a dramatic turn. His father died suddenly from a rare virus. Unable to raise three children on her own, Wes’ mother, Joy, moved her family to the Bronx to live with her parents. Crack was just moving into the neighborhood. They saw so much fighting, both dogs and people, and there was a lot of drugs- so much that Wes says that they didn’t even notice it anymore. Joy enrolled her children in a respected private school across town in an attempt to protect them from the drugs and gangs infiltrating their neighborhood. Young Wes soon discovered how hard it was to straddle both worlds. “I was very lost during that period,” Wes says. “I found myself quickly becoming too rich for the kids in the neighborhood and too poor for the kids at school.” Wes became a troublemaker. He says he set off smoke bombs in lockers, skipped school and was even picked up by the police. When Joy realized she was starting to lose her son, she decided to take action. After years of telling Wes she would send him away to military school, she made good on her threat. Wes’ grandparents mortgaged their home so they could afford to send their 12-year-old grandson to a Pennsylvania military school.
“I didn’t want to be there,” Wes says. “I ran away five times in the first four days, but I started to begin to think about why I was there and about the opportunity that this was to really reshape my identity and do something different.”Over the next six years, the troubled teen grew into an academic superstar and community leader. When Wes graduated, he was the highest-ranking student out of 750 military cadets…and his accomplishments didn’t end there. Wes landed an internship with the mayor of Baltimore and earned degrees in international relations and economics from Johns Hopkins University. Then, at age 22, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.
The semester before Wes left for Oxford, he was studying abroad in South Africa when he heard about another man called Wes Moore. On February 7, 2000, a jewelry store robbery ended with the murder of an off-duty Baltimore police officer, Sgt. Bruce Prothero. Bruce was chasing four armed robbers when he was shot at point-blank range. He left behind a wife and five young children. One of the men wanted in the police officer’s murder was also named Wes Moore. Joy says she was terrified for her son. “There are wanted posters all over our neighborhood looking for ‘Wes Moore,’” she says.
Investigators were on the hunt for four suspects, including a man named Wes Moore and his brother Tony. After 12 days on the run, the Moore brothers were captured. To avoid the death penalty, Tony pled guilty to the shooting and was sentenced to life in prison. The other Wes Moore, a career criminal, claimed he was not at the murder scene, but he eventually was found guilty of first-degree felony murder.
That Wes Moore remains in prison, the other went on to have a very successful career and has written a powerful new book, “The Other Wes Moore.” Oprah welcomes Wes to the studio and congratulates him. Oprah asks him how disconcerting it is to know that the police are looking for someone in your neighborhood with your name? Wes says he was haunted by his criminal counterpart’s story. “It was something I couldn’t escape,” he says. “It was something that just kept on eating at me. I knew I just had to learn more, and I had to understand: How did this happen? How did two kids from similar neighborhoods, from similar type of backgrounds, end up in completely different places?”
Years later, after Wes finished his time at Oxford and began a career in finance, he decided to reach out to the other Wes Moore. “I said: ‘You know what? The fact that this is still eating at me means I need to do something about it,’” he says.In 2005, Wes wrote the other Wes Moore a three-page letter and mailed it to him at the Jessup Correctional Institution. The letter started with a simple introduction: “Dear Wes: Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wes Moore, and I learned about you through articles in the Baltimore Sun. … The coincidence of us having the same name was what initially caught my attention. But it was the other details that drove me to want to learn more.” The day after he mailed the letter, Wes says he thought he’d made a mistake. “I wasn’t sure how he’d react,” he says. “I thought, in retrospect, even after I wrote the letter I thought my questions seemed odd.”
To his surprise, Wes received a response from the other Wes Moore one month later. “He first just thanked me for reaching out to him. He said, ‘When you’re in here, you think people don’t even know you’re alive anymore,’” Wes says. “He said how much it meant for him to receive that letter, and then he just began to rattle off answers to the questions I asked.” Wes learned more about this convicted murderer’s mother, brother and children. Over time, the first letter sparked dozens more. After exchanging dozens of letters, Wes decided to visit the other Wes Moore in prison. “Having the chance to actually see and sit across from the other Wes Moore was something that was just a completely surreal experience,” he says. When he had to give his photo ID to visit Wes, it was strange to visit someone with the same name who is no relation. He says that you never forget the sounds and feel of a high security correctional facility. At first, Wes says they were cautious around each other. “We were telling each other answers that we thought the other person wanted to hear,” he says. Then, Wes’ questions got more pointed and poignant. Wes asked the other Wes Moore things like, “When did you first know you were a man?” “The time he first realized was when he felt like there were actually other responsibilities that he had on his shoulders,” Wes says. “Then, I remember him throwing the question back at me, and it was a question I hadn’t even really fully thought about yet. I think both of us were talking about … not having fathers in the home.” Oprah thought that was an interesting point- the other Wes Moore said his father chose not to be in his life, while Wes’ father died. He only has two memories of his father, once when he was 3 and he hit his sister and his mom sent him up to his room and his father came up and explained that you don’t hit women, and took him downstairs to apologize. The only other memory he has is when he watched his father die.
The day after receiving his prestigious honor, the Baltimore Sun ran a story about Wes. “they did a piece on my life and my childhood and how I was a local kid who had just received this full scholarship to Oxford,” he says. “But the thing that really hit me was, at the same time, there was a whole series of articles about the murder of a police officer.” One day he decided to write a note to the other Wes Moore. The unlikely relationship started when Wes in prison wrote back, 5 years ago. Oprah shakes Wes’ hand and says that he is a writer too.
Wes set out to discover how two men with similar backgrounds and the same name could lead such different lives. Now, he knows there’s no simple answer. “I think raising children is complicated,” Wes says. “I think particularly in this environment, and particularly for those who grow up in the most precarious communities, it is a very challenging and daunting prospect to raise a child.” Wes credits his family and mentors for his success. “I was so fortunate and lucky to have people in my life who said: ‘You know what, Wes? We’re going to get you across that finish line, kicking and screaming if we need to. But we’re going to get you across that finish line,’” he says. “They were there for support. They were there to give my mother the leverage that she needed.”
Oprah would have thought that he would conclude that he had education and exposure. “I think education taught me critical thinking. I think education showed me a world I never knew existed,” Wes says. “My grandfather used to say that education is like a skeleton key. If you can get that skeleton key, it can open any door. The fact that his grandparents were wise enough to know how important and valuable it was to get him out of the environment. They didn’t give up, and his mom was desperate. Oprah says that she was in Milwaukee for a while with her mother and she got a scholarship to a school in the suburbs, where she was one of two black kids and had to ride the bus home with the maids. It has very hard to straddle these two lives at a time when you are just finding out who you are, she knows how Wes felt.
When Wes ran away from the military school for the 5th time, he ended up in tears in the woods. He was allowed one call home, and he called his mom to ask if he could come back. She said no, because too many people had sacrificed in order for him to be there. He decided that he could give it a shot, and here he is today.
The prison where the other Wes Moore is serving his life sentence denied The Oprah Show’s request for an interview because he’s a convicted murderer and the relatives of the police sergeant did not want him interviewed. “I certainly respect that,” Oprah says.
Oprah started the show by asking what people whose names are shared have different lives. Oprah asks how they are similar? After dozens of meetings and letters, Wes uses his knowledge to speak to the other Wes Moore’s character. “He’s is very similar to a lot of us,” Wes says. “He’s conflicted. He loves his children. He loves his mother.” In fact, Wes says he was surprised to discover how men in such different positions are ultimately more alike than they are different.
“That was actually one of the things I really discovered about Wes as I first got to know him— just how similar we were,” he says. “I realized how passionate he is about his children and how much he wants to help other people who are now in prison.”
One of the most jarring moments in the relationship was when 34 year old other Wes met his 3 year old grandchild. Wes had his first child when he was 16, and his daughter had his grandchild at 16. Wes’ mother had her first child at 15. The cycle has not been broken, says Oprah.
Wes’ book is in bookstores as of today. The Oprah Show asked their mothers how their lives came to be so different. Mary Moore, the mother of the other Wes Moore, says she lost control of her son when he was just a boy. While the single mother worked to support her family, she says her children were left home with little supervision. “I could barely afford to pay bills, nevertheless a babysitter,” she says. Joy Moore needed more support after her husband died so she decided to move to New York. Mary says that “the trouble was here. It was all around, so you couldn’t avoid it.” Joy was trying to shield her son from the drugs around but she was losing the battle. Mary was losing the battle when her son stopped going to school. Mary says her son became involved with drugs and started committing crimes when he was just 11 or 12 years old. “He figured that doing crime, selling drugs was a way out…a way to get the things that we couldn’t afford,” she says.
Joy speaks of the military school threats which became real. Mary couldn’t give her kids the supervision that they needed. Joy says that kids need to think that you care before they care what you think. That was her motivation.
Mary and Joy hug each other on the Oprah stage. Joy says that she has wondered about Mary since the first letter that was shared with her. Joy says the fact that Mary got accepted into John Hopkins as an African American woman and couldn’t go, was a terrible thing to learn. Mary was curious when she heard Wes was trying to find out about her son. Oprah asks her if there were things she could have done differently. Looking back, Mary says she wishes there were some things she’d done differently. “I just wasn’t aware of the options that were out there,” she says. “I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have the education. I didn’t have the support.” She says that her son is doing well in prison, He is now a muslim, he is mentoring, he has ideas. Mary says that she does think what could have happened to her son if he had turned out more like this Wes. Wes has always claimed that he wasn’t at the crime scene, says Wes in the studio.
Wes in the studio was reluctant to write the book and dig into both of their lives, but he thought about the phrase, “all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing.” Wes in jail said that he had wasted all his opportunities. Oprah thinks about how the family of the police sergeant, and what they will feel in this. “I think when you read the book and you understand the stories, you see that in no way is this a glorification,” he says. “There are important lessons that can be learned from this story,” says Wes. The facts that Wes gets one hour of visitors, two hours of outside time, and is away from his family is not glory.
Wes says he certainly learned one chilling truth—the other Wes Moore’s story could have been his. “After doing 200 hours of interviews with Wes and his family and my friends and my family, I realized how little separates us from another life altogether,” he says. “Had it not been for some significant and pretty creative intervention in my life and a lot of luck and support, and quite honestly, some tentative steps in the right direction, I could have easily gone down the wrong path.” Oprah thanks them all.
Oprah asks how much your name changes who you are? Would Oprah still be Oprah if her name was Susie or Jane? Does the name Oprah have anything to do with who she has become? Jim Killeen, an out of work actor, Googled himself, found 24 others with the same name around the world and decided to seek out some of them. He thinks there is something in the human condition that unites them. He hired a camera crew and producer to follow his journey. He meets a retired detective called Jim Killeen in New York, a CEO Jim in Australia, Jim a Catholic priest in Ireland, an engineer in Scotland who also looks like him, St Louis Jim, a father of 8, Jim a self-proclaimed swinger in Denver. In all he met 6 men and asked each of them, what is man’s purpose? Jim in Australia says to find soulful ways of living and being, Jim in St Louis says to serve others, Scottish Jim says to be the best person he can be for his family, Irish Jim says our purpose as human beings is to love.
Oprah asks why that question- Jim says that he asked 30 questions. Oprah asks if he feels a special connection to other people called Jim, and he says yes, he feels like there is a Jim club. Oprah says Jim, John and Mary are all big clubs. He says that Jim Killeen is great because it is a small club. Oprah asks what he learned about himself in the process? He was single and his father had just passed away and along the way he found that people are basically good- it was a self-selective group because the nasty Jim Killeen’s maybe didn’t reply. Oprah says that the journey is a documentary, Google Me, and that anyone can Google themselves.
He asks them about religion, their favorite drink, their age and weight. Oprah asks if it was difficult to track them down. Jim says that it starts off as a rope that gets thinner to a thread and then it breaks and you can’t track down any further. Jim feels that there are universal thing that people have, all the Jims’ wanted to make the world better place. And they were all generous enough to allow him and the film crew into their homes and lives. All seven Jim’s gathered in Killeen, Texas, confusing the receptionist considerably. They didn’t expect to feel such a great connection but they did. They found it was magic. Jim had everyone’s DNA tested and found that the person that he looked least like, the Priest, he was related too. What a world, says Oprah, thanks Jim Killeen.
Oprah had never met anyone called Oprah except for one time in a mall when someone said that her daughter was called Oprah but she didn’t know how to spell it. A few years ago, Oprah met a 12 year old girl, “the other Oprah Winfrey.” Linda Winfrey, her mom, said that she was named after a positive role model. Oprah said that she didn’t like her name as a child, but little Oprah likes her name because Oprah is a great role model. She says that she has always liked her name and she loves school. Little Oprah is now 15 and she still loves her name.
Oprah has a No Phone Zone Pledge check in. Teresa from Boulder Colorado signed last week, and she has started singing in the car again. She thanks Oprah for starting the campaign. Oprah says that we should all sing. Anyone can upload a video with a tip to Oprah.com. Goodbye everybody.
WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:
Oprah reveals that you can Google your name to see if anyone else has the same name.
Support your children and educate them: education is like a skeleton key. If you can get that skeleton key, it can open any door.
Kids need to think that you care before they care what you think.
Would Oprah still be Oprah if her name was Susie?
Maybe the Oprah Show producers have never heard of Dave Gorman.
A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:
Other people share your name! Google them! They are just like you! Or you know, maybe they are not.