The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose

Wilson’s mother is named Charlene, but her father calls her “Mona Lisa.” When Wilson is in elementary school, Mom has a job as a paramedic and a home in Temple Hills, Maryland. She has four children with Wilson’s biological father, who is no longer in their lives. She teaches Wilson about managing money, entrepreneurship, and how to treat people with respect. Wilson adores her.

Mom falls in love with a police officer who turns out to be a violent abuser. She experiences addiction to alcohol and drugs. She begins to appear distant, even insensible. She says cruel things, even telling Wilson that she wishes he had never been born. Her experiences of addiction and depression mark the beginning of Wilson’s criminal activity.

After Wilson goes to jail, Mom cuts him off, telling him that he has a life sentence so there’s no reason to talk to him. While Wilson is in prison, Mom raises Darico, but she abuses him. Wilson next sees Mom at Darico’s custody hearing in 2006, where, he says, she “had aged so much her face was different” (215). For a while thereafter, she is homeless. After his release into a halfway house, Wilson talks to Mom on the phone. She tells him she loves him. Wilson does not reciprocate. That night, Mom kills herself.

The Master Plan is dedicated to Mom.

Steve Edwards is Wilson’s best friend and inspiration inside Patuxent prison. Like Wilson, Steve is serving a life sentence for a murder committed when he was a teenager.

Wilson first encounters Steve in the prison dayroom, where Steve is reading a book. Wilson believes it is curious behavior considering Steve’s life sentence. Steve tutors Wilson in the GED program. After Wilson creates his Master Plan, Steve helps by providing him with reading material. Steve also encourages Chris to stop focusing his Plan only on himself and start thinking about what he could do to help others.

Eventually, Steve shares his full story. As a boy, he was bullied by his older brother (as Wilson had been). At 14, he was drawn into gang-related violence and beaten with a crowbar. He suffered severe brain trauma, experienced paranoia, and committed a murder.

Steve grew up in a middle-class family. His parents, both professionals, offer Wilson support both during and after his incarceration. With his parents’ resources, lawyers use medical research to prove that Steve’s brain trauma is a mitigating factor in his crime. Like Wilson, Steve escapes a life sentence and wins release from prison. Steve is a cautious and private person. He lacks Wilson’s social consciousness and commitment to Baltimore. He does share Wilson’s courage, however.

Tooky is a veteran of Patuxent prison when Wilson, at 19, meets him in the carpentry shop. By then, Tooky is in his 20s. Wilson says he is calm, cool, and deeply respected by other inmates. Like Wilson, Tooky is serving a life sentence for a murder committed when he was a teenager. Wilson says that everyone loves Tooky, including women, for Tooky appears to be at ease with himself, and “[i]t’s hard, in hell, to find peace” (122). Tooky also serves as president of the Inmate Advisory Council. When Wilson returns to prison following his successful sentence-reduction hearing, COs cheer, and inmates celebrate, but Tooky remains in his cell, silent and somber. Wilson realizes that the life sentence weighs on Tooky just as it weighed on him.

Years later, when Wilson returns to Patuxent as an invited speaker, Tooky, now in his mid-40s, is the first to arrive. In the book’s Epilogue, we learn that Tooky’s name is Arthur Miles, that “he’s a good man, and we need him out here,” accompanied by the hashtag #FreeTooky (390).

Steve’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, are middle-class professionals with a strong Christian faith who take Wilson under their wings and support him while he is incarcerated. They treat Wilson with respect and even send him care packages. Their approval tells Wilson that his Master Plan is working, for good people now can see that he is changing for the better.

Mr. Edwards, in particular, plays an important role throughout the book, perhaps because Wilson had virtually no relationship with his biological father. While Wilson and Steve remain in prison, Mr. Edwards shares with them a vision in which God promises that both men will go free. After Wilson’s release from prison, Mr. Edwards encourages him to make a budget and ask the University of Baltimore for scholarship money. Mr. Edwards also helps Wilson repay a bad loan. Wilson sits next to Mr. and Mrs. Edwards in court when three judges rule that Steve must be released from prison on medical grounds.

Erick Wright is the boyfriend of Wilson’s sister Leslie. At Patuxent, Wright pays Wilson a surprise visit, for Wright is also a friend of Steve’s, and Wright learns through Steve that Wilson is doing good things in prison. Wilson is shocked: “of all the people from back in the day to step forward, it still amazes me that it was Erick Wright” (159). Wright confirms that Wilson looks different, as if his anger is gone.

While Wilson is still serving out his time in the halfway house, Wright sets up a phone call between Wilson and his mother—the call that proves to be the last time Wilson ever speaks with her. Following his final release from prison, Wilson stays with Wright and his wife Camille for four months.

Wilson’s son Darico is born in June 1995, when Wilson is only 16. A year later, Wilson commits murder on Darico’s first birthday. Mom raises Darico, who does not see Wilson again until a 2006 custody hearing, where the 11-year-old boy rushes across a courtroom to hug his father. Wilson sends Darico into foster care to protect him from a dangerous situation in his grandmother’s home, and Darico makes regular visits to his father in prison, at least for a while.

Tests prove that Darico is not Wilson’s biological son after all, but the biological father is in federal prison and wants nothing to do with the boy, so Wilson continues to treat Darico as his son. By the time Wilson reaches the halfway house, however, Darico is 13 and often skips their visits altogether. Darico is drawn to a life of gangs and violence.

When Wilson is released, Darico is nearly 17 and serving time in prison. After Darico is released, Wilson gives him a job, puts him in charge of a crew, and Darico shows promise. Before long, however, Darico is back in prison for punching his girlfriend. On January 6, 2017, Darico is shot and badly wounded. He recovers, but the book concludes with Darico facing an uncertain future.

Leslie is Wilson’s sister and one year his senior. When Mom experiences depression and addiction, Leslie, a high school student, takes care of the family, including her baby brother Korey. When Wilson is sent to prison, Leslie reminds him that she tried to warn him about where his behavior would lead and insists that the family cannot be responsible for him.

Wilson feels abandoned by his family, so Leslie does not play a central role in the book’s story. At Mom’s funeral, Leslie reads from Mom’s “journal” (in reality the suicide note). Leslie invites Wilson to Grandma’s 90th birthday party.

Big Daddy is Wilson’s maternal grandfather. Along with Grandma, Big Daddy lives in the home on Division Avenue. He calls Wilson’s mom “Mona Lisa.” Big Daddy is also a problem solver. When trouble starts at Mom’s home in Temple Hills, Big Daddy arrives to pick up Wilson, take the boy for a drive, and try to distract him with conversations about football. Big Daddy also encourages Wilson to finish high school and acquire skills that will help him find work. Shortly after Wilson is incarcerated, Big Daddy dies from cancer.

Wilson’s maternal grandmother. After Big Daddy’s death, Grandma remains in their home. She seldom leaves the house for any reason besides church. Wilson describes Grandma as a solid woman but, like everyone else in his family, someone who never really believed in him.

Wilson’s older cousin. In a good-natured way, Eric uses his younger cousin to approach girls. Wilson remembers “nights at the go-gos with Eric” as “the best of my young life” (28). After Wilson brandishes his gun at a group of football players, Eric is shot and killed outside Grandma’s house, most likely in retaliation.

Wilson’s older brother, six years Wilson’s senior, Derrick appears in the book as a bully. Derrick beats his younger brother and calls him soft. Although he is present on the night of Eric’s death, Derrick tells Wilson nothing about what happened or why. Derrick later gives Wilson a gun and hints at revenge for Eric’s murder.

After he is convicted, Wilson regularly calls home. One day, Derrick answers and mocks Wilson, promising to wear all of Wilson’s clothes and hook up with Wilson’s girlfriend. When he compiles his original Master Plan, Wilson lists payback against his brother, but he later deletes this item from a newfound belief that revenge poisons the mind. At Grandma’s 90th birthday party, Derrick avoids Wilson.

Mom’s boyfriend in the early 1990s. He is a police officer who proves to be a violent abuser experiencing addiction to alcohol and drugs. He regularly assaults Wilson’s mom and even rapes her. Police officers appear at the house but do nothing when they realize that the cop is one of them. On one occasion, the cop repeatedly punches Wilson’s mother in the face, breaking her orbital bone. He goes to prison but before long is out again, stalking her. When the abuse began, Wilson felt powerless to stop it. As he gets older, he amasses as many guns as possible, in part to protect his mother. He says that Mom’s relationship with the cop “shattered our family” (20).

Wilson’s prison therapist, Mr. Mee appears in the book as a caring man who helps inmates overcome trauma, but he also betrays Wilson’s trust by withholding the information that Darico is not his biological son. Mr. Mee leads group therapy. To complete his Master Plan, Wilson resolves to take therapy seriously. As evidenced by the chapter entitled “Remorse,” Wilson succeeds. At times, Mr. Mee appears complacent. When the caseworker torments Wilson during his stay in the halfway house, however, Wilson reaches out to Mr. Mee. Wilson never fully trusts Mr. Mee, but he trusts him more than anyone else associated with Patuxent prison.

A young and ambitious lawyer from working-class South Boston, Showstack takes Wilson’s case and secures him a hearing, where Judge Serrette reduces Wilson’s sentence to 24 years.

Wilson’s descriptions of Showstack provide a measure of comic relief in the book. Sporting slicked-back hair, and oozing swagger, Showstack reminds Wilson of Robert Downey, Jr. A new hire at the law firm of Harry Trainor, Wilson’s original attorney, Showstack appears at Patuxent after reading Wilson’s file, which includes updates on Wilson’s Master Plan. Intrigued, Showstack promises to work pro bono and help Wilson get a hearing. Every few months, Showstack appears at Patuxent with updates proclaiming “good news” where none existed and encouraging Wilson to be patient until the right judge comes along. At the hearing, Showstack tears up while telling the judge how much Wilson is respected and how much support he has inside the prison. Wilson sees this as the crucial moment in his hearing. By the time Patuxent’s administrators turn on Wilson and he reaches out again to his young lawyer, Showstack has left the firm and is no longer willing to work pro bono.

Judge Cathy Serrette presides at Wilson’s hearing on November 6, 2006. She reduces his sentence to 24 years.

Years later, Judge Serrette invites Wilson to speak at Patuxent’s women’s prison. Afterward, he speaks to her for the first time since his hearing and asks why she reduced his sentence. She replies that she had faith in him.

Following the epilogue, the book includes a Q & A between Wilson and Judge Serrette.

In the halfway house, Wilson endures his caseworker’s open hostility. She tells Wilson that he will be lucky to get a job in a gas station. She reduces his allotted hours away from the house, which prevents him from attending evening events at the University of Baltimore. She denies his request to talk to Mr. Mee. When Wilson’s mom dies by suicide, she blames him. Wilson then experiences what he calls the worst depression of his life, which gives the caseworker the excuse to send him to Patuxent’s mental-health ward. Wilson pledges to get revenge by becoming more successful than she is.

Years later, the caseworker sees Wilson dressed in a suit and leaning against his Corvette. She asks if he works at the construction site. He replies that he owns the company. “Oh,” she says, and walks away. One of Wilson’s employees asks who she was, to which Wilson replies, “That was nobody” (344).

Dean of Student Affairs at the University of Baltimore, Kathy Anderson meets with Wilson in her office while he is serving out his time at the halfway house. She welcomes him, asks what he needs, and promises to keep his background a secret. Two years later, when he finally leaves prison for good after an ordeal that included his commitment to the mental-health ward, Wilson is released into downtown Baltimore, where no one is there to greet him. He walks half an hour to the university, where Dean Anderson greets him: “Welcome home” (272).

Wilson’s boss at the Greater Homewood Community Corporation, Karen Stokes not only hires Wilson but shows faith in him after learning that he had been convicted of murder. She promotes him, puts him in charge of a program, and gives him a raise. For more than a year and a half after Wilson’s final release from prison, Stokes is one of only two people who know his full story.