Inmate sentenced to 48 years in prison helped an unfamiliar BOY, who came to PRISON regularly

People who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law for a variety of reasons, some of them even beyond their control. Of course, most of these people serve their well-deserved punishment, but there are also those who have ended up in detention facilities due to some unfortunate circumstances. After you hear this story, be sure to express your thoughts in the comments. Do you think this kind of person deserves to get a second chance?

This story happened in 2015. A nine-year-old boy named Zach couldn’t adapt at school. Parents racked their brains but couldn’t understand what was causing his problems. So, they decided to turn to a specialist who ran some tests and diagnosed Zach with autism. Little Zachary Tucker stopped communicating with his peers, suffered from regular panic attacks, and almost never slept through the night. The boy’s parents were desperate to find some options to alleviate their son’s suffering.

Zach wouldn’t allow anyone to come near him when he was having his episodes, and all his parents could do was cry themselves to sleep, feeling completely helpless. The search for a way out of this situation wasn’t giving any results; the doctors were useless. They only shrugged and couldn’t help. “You have to accept it and learn to live with it,” Zach’s mom, Susie, couldn’t come to terms with such fate.

She spent her days searching for any possible options and was ready to grab at even the most unlikely possibility. It was this despair that led her to a man named Chris White. The boy’s parents read about him online on one of the forums. Many people were very grateful to him. Chris used to work as a dog handler. He trained dogs, which then helped people with autism handle their symptoms.

That’s when the parents finally felt there was at least some hope. However, it wasn’t all that simple. It turned out that Chris had been in prison for 17 years since 1998. He got sentenced to 48 years in prison for murder. But what’s most surprising is that he didn’t abandon his work even in prison. Voigt still trained dogs, and he got extremely good at it. Although his dogs were rarely used as was intended by their training, for the most part, they just helped deaf and blind inmates. But Zack’s mother refused to give up.

She was determined to go through the long and difficult bureaucratic path to get what she needed. And she did succeed. Almost six months later, she was finally allowed to visit Chris in prison. By the way, the first meeting didn’t go all that well. Seeing Chris for the first time and in prison out of all places, little Zach was very scared. But little by little, the child began to express interest and even joy at their subsequent visits. And a few visits later, he even began to bond with the dog and its owner.

The dog’s name was Clyde, and Chris trained him to respond to Zach’s every impending panic attack. The dog’s main task was to distract and calm Zach down when his episodes were about to begin. Distracted by the animal, Zach felt much better, and slowly the attack would subside. This went on for several months. Clyde has become Zach’s true and most loyal friend. He didn’t leave the boy’s side for a second, and Chris didn’t take a penny for his work. He always rejected any financial assistance. A little later, Zach said he had almost no episodes since his first visit to the correctional institution. Over time, he learned to calmly communicate with people and become part of the life around him.

He’s sincerely glad that he has friends now, and his best friends, Clyde the dog, and of course, Chris. By the end of his therapy course, Zach was doing much better, and the Tucker family decided to thank Chris for his amazing work. The last meeting between the dog handler and little Zach was truly heartwarming. The boy embraced Chris with tenderness and warmth. For the first time since they met at that moment, the inmate couldn’t contain his emotions and began to cry. It is with a heavy heart and sadness in his voice that Chris remembers the day he committed his crime.

There was a brawl which seemed to have gotten out of control, and at one point, things went too far. As Chris explained, he was too afraid to do the right thing. He doesn’t justify his actions and believes that since he took a person’s life, he deserves to be punished. He sincerely hopes that working with dogs and helping people who need it will give his soul at least some peace and atone for the guilt that prevents him from moving forward with his life and sleeping peacefully at night.

Zach’s life has certainly changed for the better. The dog became his loyal companion and helped the child become more like the other kids. He started sleeping better, Zach was finally able to talk to his classmates, and it just so happened that it was a murderer who helped the boy. It often happens that help comes from where you least expect it. A person’s past might not matter if their soul hurts and strives for atonement. Chris was sentenced to 48 years in prison, but 17 years later, a little boy gave him hope.