CNN&Time

Don't Ask Don't Pay; Life and Death; Hillerman Country

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME. Tonight, don't ask, don't pay. He was in and then he was out, but not before the military footed the bill for a very expensive education.

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DR. JOHN HENSALA, CHILD PSYCHIATRIST: I don't believe it's fair to ask gay men and lesbians who are discharged solely for being who they are to pay back the cost of their education.

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ANNOUNCER: But payback is exactly what the military wants.

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RETIRED MAJOR GENERAL ANDREW EGELAND, JR., FORMER AIR FORCE DEPUTY JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL: I think the government, the United States taxpayers, have a right to get the money back.

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HENSALA: I don't see this as being between myself and the taxpayers.

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ANNOUNCER: "Life and Death": They're convicted murderers, rapists and thieves doing hard time and learning harder lessons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES WEST, ANGOLA INMATE: I learned a valuable lesson and that was, how to show emotion. And it was hard for me for a long time.

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ANNOUNCER: Growing old behind bars. How death is changing life in America's prisons.

"Hillerman Country": The best-selling mysteries of author Tony Hillerman don't take place on the mean streets of New York or L.A. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HILLERMAN, AUTHOR: I love empty places. I love to be places where you can look out 63 miles over there, you know, a cliff with a shadow on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Breathtaking landscapes and Navajo traditions. Recipes for crime novels with a conscience.

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HILLERMAN: I don't have any Indian blood in me as far as I know. I guess I've been trying to say that I like them, admire them, and they're just plain folks.

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ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME, with Jeff Greenfield and Bernard Shaw.

BERNARD SHAW, CO-HOST: Good evening. And thanks for joining us.

When it comes to gays in the military, the policy is don't ask, don't tell. But what if the military does not ask and a recruit tells anyway but only after that recruit has received a top notch education on the taxpayers' dime?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CO-HOST: In the case of Dr. John Hensala, the Air Force showed him the door and then sent him a bill. But Dr. Hensala says he shouldn't have to pay back the tens of thousands of dollars that it cost to put him through school.

Why? Here's Art Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: OK, so how's it been going?

ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Hensala is a child psychiatrist in San Francisco.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just feeling kind of heavy. And it was kind of hard to think. So I didn't like that.

HARRIS: From the time he was a child, he says he wanted to go into medicine like his father, a small town psychiatrist.

HENSALA: OK, so does it feel like the lithium is at a good level for you?

HARRIS: Hensala graduated with top grades from Stanford University. When it came time to apply to medical school, money became a problem. Hensala couldn't afford the medical school of his choice.

HENSALA: OK. How many hours are you working?

HARRIS: Then he heard about a deal too good to pass up. Hensala marched into an Air Force recruiter's office and signed a contract. The Air Force would pay for four years of medical school. In return, Hensala promised to serve four years as an Air Force doctor.

HENSALA: And I thought the Air Force program was a really good fit for me. I also liked kind of the mystique of planes and working with pilots. One of the positions as an Air Force doctor which you can have is to be essentially what they call a flight surgeon where you work with the pilots.

HARRIS: So the Air Force put John Hensala through medical school. And it deferred his active duty twice while he did his residency then a fellowship to specialize in child psychiatry. Finally eight years after he signed the contract, the Air Force said it was time for Hensala to make good on his end of the bargain.

HENSALA: The first notice came in August of '94. The Air Force sent a notice saying, "You're scheduled to start active duty in the summer of 1995," which I knew, because my training program was over, and I got a deferment for the training program while I was at UC San Francisco.

HARRIS: There was one problem. Hensala was living an openly gay life in San Francisco. At the same time, the military had just adopted its don't ask, don't tell policy. And Hensala says he doubted he could hide his homosexuality.

HENSALA: I knew that there was a new policy in place, which was don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue. And I knew that it was a policy by which I couldn't abide at that point in my life.

I'd grown to a place where I was out to people in my program. I was out to professors. I was out to everyone. And I really felt it was important to think long and hard about whether I could go back into the closet for four years to go into the Air Force.

HARRIS: Before the don't ask, don't tell policy, the military screened recruits and banned homosexuals from serving. If discovered, they were discharged and sometimes prosecuted. Afraid it could happen to him, Hensala says he consulted a lawyer and decided to be up front with the Air Force.

HENSALA: I wrote them a letter in December of 1994 that said essentially, "In light of recent policy changes concerning homosexuality in the military, I feel it is important to inform you before assuming my first active duty assignment that I'm a homosexual. I do not feel that this will affect my ability to serve as a child psychiatrist."

HARRIS: After no response from the Air Force, Hensala phoned the chief psychiatrist at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois where he'd been ordered to report.

HENSALA: And I called and asked about bringing Jeff. HARRIS (on camera): Your boyfriend.

HENSALA: Yeah. I called because I thought it was important once I found out I was going to Scott Air Force Base, I wanted to find out what the likely reaction would be if I came with a boyfriend. And so I asked.

And he said, "OK, but just don't bring him into the housing office."

HARRIS: How did you take that?

HENSALA: Well, I took it to mean don't let people on base know you have a boyfriend.

HARRIS (voice-over): After Hensala called the base, the Air Force put his active duty orders on hold and launched an investigation. Hensala admitted he was gay and provided the Air Force with a list of the gay organizations he belonged to, and personal references to verify that he was a homosexual.

(on camera): But didn't you know that by telling them that you were basically saying, "Fire me."

HENSALA: No I didn't. I didn't know exactly what to expect.

HARRIS (voice-over): Air Force officials say Hensala should have known he would be discharged under the don't ask, don't tell policy.

Retired Major General Andrew Egeland was deputy judge advocate general for the Air Force.

EGELAND: No one asked. This was a voluntary disclosure. And so the consequences should have been anticipated.

HARRIS: In November, 1997, Hensala was discharged honorably. And the Air Force sent him a bill demanding he return the money it had paid to send him to medical school, more than $71,000.

EGELAND: Recoupment has been sought for all kinds of reasons. We are complying - the Air Force is complying with the Department of Defense policy in how to handle recoupment in these kinds of cases. So there's no vindictiveness associated with it. I think it's merely a case of trying to preserve and protect the taxpayers' interests in cases where recoupment may be appropriate.

HARRIS: But Hensala says it's not appropriate and refuses to pay back the money.

HENSALA: They offered me very favorable payback terms. They offered me the ability to pay back over years at a favorable interest rate. And if I felt like that were the just thing to do, I would do it. I don't believe it's fair to ask gay men and lesbians who are discharged solely for being who they are to pay back the costs of their education because they can't help who they are.

HARRIS: The Air Force says homosexuality is not the only issue. It's the timing and possible motivation behind the disclosure.

HENSALA: I can understand that they view the timing as suspicious.

HARRIS: Defense Department guidelines require gays to pay back scholarship money if they come out of the closet to get out of serving. And Air Force investigators concluded that Hensala, who now owns an expensive townhouse and runs a successful private practice, timed his admission to get out of serving. Hensala says not so.

HENSALA: And I made the statement because I felt it was important to be true to myself and to be honest about that, especially in the line of work I'm in. And the thought of doing psychiatry and keeping that secret at the same time seemed very hypocritical and very unhealthy like I couldn't really do a good job for my patients if I was telling them to do something which I couldn't do myself.

HARRIS: To the Air Force, the issue is clear. Hensala knew his contract banned homosexuals from serving and gave the military the right to recoup his education expenses.

EGELAND: At the time the contract was entered into, there's even language in the contract that speaks to homosexuality as a basis for discharge and the consequences that may flow from that.

HARRIS: That's the law. But Hensala says he didn't realize he was gay until after medical school when he was a resident in psychiatry.

HENSALA: I think the first significant relationship I had occurred when I was at Yale. When I was an intern, I met somebody and started dating. And he and I dated for about two-and-a-half years. So I had a lot of kind of confusing and complicated feelings about.

I think it was such a gradual thing. I just remember feeling a lot more resigned and I think admitted and said, "OK, I'm a homosexual. And this is something that I can live with. It's going to be hard to live with. But I can live with it."

HARRIS (on camera): Are you thinking, "Gee, what am I going to do when I have to go in the Air Force?"

HENSALA: Yeah, it crossed my mind. And at that point in Connecticut, the answer came back, "Well, I'm going to serve in the closet like a lot of other people have done."

(MUSIC)

HARRIS (voice-over): Hensala has become the latest symbol of opposition to the government's policy on gays in the military.

(MUSIC)

HARRIS: The Air Force says most discharged gays are paying back their education costs. But Hensala is breaking ranks.

HENSALA: And I feel that it's very important to take a stand against things that are very unjust to a large group of people.

HARRIS: In May, Hensala became the first homosexual to try to block the military from recouping scholarship money. He filed a lawsuit saying the Air Force has no evidence to prove he intended to provoke his own discharge.

Air Force officials declined to appear on camera because of the pending suit.

EGELAND: I think the Air Force fulfilled its deal, complied with the law as the Air Force is required to do, lived up to the terms of its commitment because it certainly funded extensive medical training to prepare him for the specialty that he now practices. And I think the government, the United States taxpayers, have a right to get the money back.

HENSALA: I don't see this as being between myself and the taxpayers.

HARRIS (on camera): The Air Force says, "So just give us the money back for your medical education, $71,000 for tuition, books." Isn't that fair that you pay it back?

HENSALA: Well, I asked myself that and I really struggled with that. And the answer that came to me was that I was discharged because of this policy. I was discharged because of a policy that I think violates a basic human right, the right to be oneself. I was discharged from the Air Force solely because I'm gay for no other reason.

HARRIS: The Air Force cites cases of people who have developed asthma after getting a medical education and they can't go on active duty, so they're out. And they're paying back the money that the Air Force paid for their medical education. So why shouldn't you?

HENSALA: I don't have a medical illness. I'm every bit as capable of fulfilling my job duties as anyone in the military. I'm very well trained. I did very well in school. And I've got a top notch education.

And I'm just the kind of person that the Air Force would love to have. I'm just the kind of person who would fit very well in the Air Force except for one thing, except for the fact I'm gay.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: The Air Force has until Monday to respond to John Hensala's lawsuit. And if you'd like to chat with Hensala, he'll be available online right after our show.

You can join the discussion from our Web site, CNN.com/cnntime.

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, a young man's tragic death. Was it suicide or a lynching?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TIMOTHY ROCHE, "TIME" CORRESPONDENT: There is no slit throat as Reverend Jackson and others have led us to believe.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Stop the violence.

CROWD: Stop the violence.

JACKSON: Stop the lynching.

CROWD: Stop the lynching.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The story behind the story.

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JACKSON: People need equal protection.

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ANNOUNCER: In "Dispatches" as CNN & TIME continues.

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SHAW: When most people think of prison, they don't picture a nursing home. But maybe they should.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got blind people here. We've got deaf people here. We've got people that are in wheelchairs, in bed, bedridden, can't get up. And there's nowhere to go.

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SHAW: At one of the nation's toughest prisons, getting out often means leaving in a box.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're all getting older. And it should be a place for predators, not dying old men.

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SHAW: The graying of America's prisons ahead on CNN & TIME.

ANNOUNCER: But next, a hanging in Mississippi. A family sees a cover-up. But is the answer as clear as black and white?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROCHE: Everybody is holding their breath just praying and hoping that this indeed was not a lynching.

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ANNOUNCER: When CNN & TIME continues.

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SHAW: Parents never want to believe their child could or would commit suicide. The parents of 17-year-old Raynard Johnson certainly find it unthinkable.

When Johnson was found hanging from a pecan tree outside his Mississippi home a month ago, his family immediately suspected foul play. But was Raynard Johnson's death a racially motivated lynching? Or did he take his own life? The story in tonight's "Dispatches."

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ROCHE: As we were going into the story, we were trying to figure out whether this was indeed a lynching in the year 2000 in Mississippi. Jesse Jackson has called it a lynching. The family has called it murder. Yet when you look at the circumstances in his life, you can see that perhaps he was suicidal or perhaps there was reason for the suspicion.

In the last few days, the Johnson family has gone to Washington, met with Janet Reno and some of her senior aides to try to persuade them to continue this investigation and look at the case as thoroughly as possible.

JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: We explained that we were going to pursue this investigation. We wanted to follow every lead.

ROCHE: If it a suicide, you want to look closely at what is the evidence is there to support that? And indeed, the body was hanging from a pecan tree. But his feet were still touching the ground.

And as many of us have learned about suicide, you can asphyxiate yourself simply by bending your knees. And around the pecan tree was a small ledge, a small border. And apparently it looks as if he just stepped off the border. If indeed this was a suicide, that's what the evidence would show.

There have been two autopsies, a coroner's examination, as well as an extensive investigation that is now approaching a month. And no physical evidence has found anything but suicide.

There is no slit throat as Reverend Jackson and others have led us to believe.

JACKSON: We reject these suicide theories.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen!

ROCHE: The governor's office there has tried to talk with Jackson to figure out what he thinks truly happened here and what they can do to move on from this. Yet Jackson is not offering much beyond speculation that he's hearing in the community.

JACKSON: Stop the violence.

CROWD: Stop the violence.

JACKSON: Stop the lynching.

CROWD: Stop the lynching.

ROCHE: Here you've got Jesse Jackson comparing Raynard Johnson to Emmett Tille (ph), the young man whose death because he whistled at a white woman so long ago helped spark the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the South.

You've got Jesse Jackson posing Mrs. Johnson with Emmett Tille's mother. And that leaves an image in all of our minds that this young man was lynched in the year 2000, when in fact that's not what we're seeing or what we're finding so far.

In the hours and days leading up to the hanging, Raynard Johnson was beginning to show some signs that he might be suicidal. At least that's what the experts say when they look back on it.

He insisted on cooking dinner for his family the day of the hanging. He also planted a garden for his mother under the pecan tree. He'd also begun to collect photographs of himself all through the years of his life.

He also from what we hear had some sort of disagreement with a young black girl with whom he did have a relationship. And apparently she rebuffed his advances only a couple of hours before the hanging.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know that there's no way. No way Raynard would do that. Raynard, he was so full of life. He was a big burst of sunshine.

ROCHE: So when you ask the family why it's not a suicide, they point out several things, one of those being that the belt that was used to hang him did not belong to him. They also point out that there had been some concern in the community because he and his brother had been dating white girls.

Down the road from the Johnsons is a white family who say that they heard some suspicious activity in the days leading up to the incident. They claim that they heard dogs barking and that they saw cars driving along the street with only parking lights on. However, on the night of the incident, they did not hear a mob that supposedly would have done the lynching. When you look at this part of Mississippi, it's very isolated and very rural. It's also an area that has been known to be home to a group called the Young Ku Klux Klan. But when you talk to folks at the NAACP and others in the community, you realize that this community is no more racially polarized than any other community.

Not everybody believes that a lynching occurred. Not everybody believes that a suicide occurred. At the same time, everybody is holding their breath just praying and hoping that this indeed was not a lynching. Not there, not now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: For more reporting of this kind, read "Time" magazine this week.

Next, America's prisons: Are they turning into the nation's largest old-age homes?

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BERLE CAIN, WARDEN, LOUISIANA STATE PENITENTIARY: We need that predator who did it last week, last month, last year. We need to protect ourselves from him, not that old man that we're getting even with.

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ANNOUNCER: The growing number of elderly inmates, when CNN & TIME continues.

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GREENFIELD: Welcome back to CNN & TIME.

A convicted child molester in Montana repeatedly violates his probation and he lands beck before a judge. But instead of being sent back to prison, the sex offender is placed under house arrest. Why? Because he's 86 years old and the judge does not want to saddle the state with an avalanche of medical bills. This is a growing concern around the nation, considering that the cost of caring for geriatric prisoners can run up to three times that of caring for younger ones.

With that in mind, we want to revisit Kathy Slobogin's award- winning look at Louisiana's Angola prison, where an aging population is changing both life and death inside one of America's toughest penitentiaries.

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KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Luther Handley (ph) was put to rest on a hot day in August surrounded by family and friends. The cemetery is in Angola, the Louisiana state penitentiary, one of the largest in the country. Luther Handley was one of five people buried at this cemetery within two weeks. Handley was a convicted rapist sentenced to life. He lived and died in prison. CHICO YANCY, ANGOLA INMATE: Five thousand one hundred and eight prisoners here, and they're never going anywhere because Angola is basically a maximum security prison, and you don't leave here.

UNIDENTIFIED MINISTER: Take solace in knowing that you'll see Luther again.

SLOBOGIN: Chico Yancy, convicted of kidnapping and a sex crime, has a 75-year sentence. He has seen the population here age.

YANCY: We got blind people in here. We got deaf people here. We got people that -- in wheelchairs, in bed, bedridden, can't get up, and there's nowhere to go.

SLOBOGIN: Prison officials estimate 85 percent of the prisoners who live here will die here. They say more inmates die at Angola each year than get paroled. Angola has one of the highest percentages of elderly inmates in the country. With the growing popularity of tougher sentencing laws, prison officials say the graying of America's prisons is becoming a reality. Already, there are about 50,000 inmates over 55 in state and federal prisons. That's more than double what it was 10 years ago. Angola's warden Berle Cane says he's worried about the growing number of elderly inmates.

CANE: They're all getting older, and it should be a place for predators, not dying, old men. It's consequences for what you did 30 years ago, but we need that predator who did it last week, last month, last year. We need to protect ourselves from him, not that old man that we're getting even with that did it 30 years ago.

SLOBOGIN: They are the state's worst criminals -- murderers, rapists, armed robbers -- and they do hard time, working in the fields eight hours a day for four cents an hour. Angola was once a slave plantation and has a long and bloody history of prison brutality. In recent years, reforms have improved conditions here, but Louisiana has a history of tough sentencing. According to prosecutors, inmates here serve some of the longest sentences in the country.

Twelve years ago, James West was a drug dealer. One night, he followed a couple home and held them up at gunpoint, while he robbed them of their credit cards and jewelry. He was convicted of armed robbery. It was his first offense. His sentence: 50 years without parole.

WEST: I thought in the back of my mind, "With 50 years, I'll do 10 years. I'll do 10 years, and I'll be back." Ten years passed a few years ago.

And there's two types of death: a sudden death and a terminal illness.

SLOBOGIN: The long sentences and the prospect of inmates dying in prison has brought a change in the way of life and death in Angola. A year ago, the warden started a hospice for dying inmates. Angola became one of about 20 prisons in the country with its own hospice, one of the few where inmates care for their own. UNIDENTIFIED INMATE: You know, I love you.

SLOBOGIN: James West volunteers to work in the hospice. There are 30 inmate volunteers who donate their time beyond their regular prison jobs.

TANYA TILLMAN, NURSE: We expect the patient to die. I mean, that's part of the process, and the patient's preparing himself, and then we're preparing ourself to lose this patient.

SLOBOGIN: Tanya Tillman, the nurse in charge of volunteers, recruited West.

TILLMAN: And the first thing he said to me -- and he's real blunt -- and he said, "I'm not going to sit with those people."

WEST: I said, "No, I can't never do that. I can't sit with somebody in the hospital and watch him die."

SLOBOGIN: West changed his mind when an inmate he knew was admitted to the hospice.

WEST: And he was an old convict, been doing time for a long time, and I respected him a lot, and it was hard for me sitting with him and watching him go through it because I felt helpless. But I learned something from Mac. I learned a valuable lesson, and that was how to show emotion, and it was hard for me for a long time.

Luther's death was real hard. I watched Luther -- I watched Luther as he died, and it was -- it was hard. You know, you want to reach someone, and then there's nothing you can do, and it's hard.

You've got to realize how fortunate you are to still have family that's...

SLOBOGIN: Hard as it may be, West keeps coming back.

WEST: ... but you've got more than just them. You've got a big family in here. Us.

For someone to accept you and to allow you to be able to do things for him that only a mother could do, things such as bathing him, maybe changing his diaper -- for a man to even put a diaper on is humiliating, and for me to give him back a little bit dignity, to do it in such a way that I can say, "It's all right," that's an honor to me that he'll accept that.

TILLMAN: When Arizona came into the program, he was what -- everybody's idea of what an inmate should look like, you know, former biker, here for murder, really kind of -- a really hard individual.

MICHAEL "ARIZONA" SHULARK, ANGOLA INMATE: Most people looked at me and went, "Man, look at this -- look at this dude," tattoos, everything. "He -- he won't care about nothing." I got -- and I -- come to find out I got a heart of -- a humongous heart, you know. That's what everybody tells me. SLOBOGIN: Michael Shulark, known as Arizona, is serving a life sentence for murder. He never expected other volunteers would look up to him.

TILLMAN: Arizona and James West was standing there, and James was telling Arizona how very important it was to watch him with those patients, and he said, you know, "And you've become the person that I watch. You're -- you've become the person that's taught me how to do this."

SHULARK: James -- he says some stuff that just blows me away. I ain't never heard of something like that, somebody saying I'm good. It's pretty awesome.

SLOBOGIN: There was someone else impressed by Arizona's hospice work: his 24-year-old daughter. She had refused to see him since he was sent to prison.

SHULARK: I wrote her years ago, and she wrote me a letter back saying, "Hey, why are -- why are you trying to get in touch with me now?" You know, "You wasn't a father whenever I was young."

SLOBOGIN: Then last spring, Arizona got a letter from his daughter.

SHULARK: "I know you're probably shocked to hear from me finally. I heard about all the work you've been doing at the hospice, and I'm glad to say I'm very proud of you. I'm sure you have a lot to offer if you would just set it free." So I was so proud of that letter, you know. It closed the gap in -- a big void in my life right there, just to hear those words right there, you know, "Hey, I'm proud of my father."

SLOBOGIN: Arizona's daughter visited him in prison last April, the first time he'd seen her in 12 years.

CANE: People can change. We do every day. Hospice teaches you to care for somebody other than yourself, and so when you start to give and think of someone else, that's the beginning really of rehabilitation.

SLOBOGIN: The hospice was also the beginning of an emphasis on dying with dignity at Angola. Inmates here used to be buried in cheap coffins sent in from funeral homes.

RICHARD LIGGITT, ANGOLA INMATE: What we had were mostly styrofoam, cardboard, or packing crates. The coffins fell apart when they put them in the ground. You put the dirt on them. The top caved in.

EUGENE REDWINE, ANGOLA INMATE: My (INAUDIBLE) fell out the bottom of one.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): During his funeral?

REDWINE: Yes. (INAUDIBLE). SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Eugene Redwine has a 119-year sentence. Richard Liggitt is a lifer. When the hospice started, Redwine and Liggitt taught themselves how to make coffins. Now every inmate buried at Angola gets a handmade pine coffin complete with upholstery and white lace.

LIGGITT: I promise you you can put one of these in the river and it will float.

REDWINE: I'm 71 years old, and I guess my partner's going to have to make me one of them one of these days. If he goes first, I'll make his.

SLOBOGIN: In Angola, families are welcomed to visit the hospice. But here long sentences can cause families to fade away.

YANCY: How are you doing?

SLOBOGIN: Chico Yancy, 53, is a volunteer who has been in Angola for 16 years.

YANCY: When I first got arrested, everybody was there every week. After a while, it was once a month, every other month, then every third month, and after a while, maybe for Father's Day, maybe for Christmas.

You're doing good today, man.

SLOBOGIN: Other inmates may be the only family patients have. Volunteers here say they also feel a connection to their fellow prisoners that family members don't.

Larry Landry (ph), a sex offender sentenced to 105 years, was drawn to hospice work because he identified with an AIDS patient, who has since died.

LARRY LANDRY, ANGOLA INMATE: They were scared of him because he had AIDS, and -- and looking at him, it really broke my heart because that's how I felt, you know, when society threw me away. They told me I wasn't fit to be in society. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with me. And the same way this guy felt, and I know how he felt.

SLOBOGIN: Landry says the patient who touched him the most was a man they called Dray.

LANDRY: He woke up at 3:00 that morning, and he couldn't speak no more, and he was blind already, and he made signs. I thought he wanted me to raise him up and rub his back for him, you know. So I -- I did, I raised him up, and he hugged me, and he whispered in my ear that he loved me. I can't even explain in words what that means. I mean, to know that you affected somebody else's life when they needed somebody, when they was in their last hours.

YANCY: It makes you feel good. It makes you feel sad. It lets you know that you're really still human, that there's still good in everybody. So, yes, convicted criminals can be good people to do things for each other. Who else is going to do it? We have to do it for ourselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MINISTER: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: In case you were wondering, those who volunteer at the Angola prison hospice receive no compensation and their work does not count toward parole or pardons.

We'll be back in a moment.

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, it is the trademark of a Tony Hillerman mystery, the sweeping majesty of the Old West.

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TONY HILLERMAN, AUTHOR: I'd like to feel like I did a little bit of good with these books.

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ANNOUNCER: Mysteries, cultural and criminal, as CNN & TIME continues.

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ANNOUNCER: Next on CNN & TIME, vivid landscapes, page-turning mysteries. Tony Hillerman writes volumes about a labor of love: Native Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HILLERMAN, AUTHOR: It kind of bothered me that so few Americans, fellow Americans, seemed to understand them.

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ANNOUNCER: When CNN & TIME continues.

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SHAW: The literary world is full of mystery writers, but Tony Hillerman is unique among them. Not only does he tell a darn good yarn amid the majestic settings of the American Southwest, he does it from the perspective of the Navajo. With 16 novels to his credit, Hillerman has come a long way from his days writing ad copy. Yet even Hillerman admits, his own success is a bit of a mystery.

We first introduced you to this 75-year-old novelist back in January. For that, here is David Lewis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLERMAN: I love empty places. I love to be places where you can look like 63 miles. Over there, there's a cliff and a shadow on it. All that empty space; nobody out there. Looks like nobody ever's been out there. I like that. It appeals to me.

DAVID LEWIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tony Hillerman is headed out to research his next mystery, set on the Navajo reservation.

HILLERMAN: Always kind of stop here and do reverence to that mountain.

LEWIS: Over the last 30 years, Hillerman has written 16 novels: all but two placed in this reservation landscape in the Southwest: at the "Four Corners" where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet.

HILLERMAN: That's the Turquoise Mountain. Beyond that is Dennyka (ph), "the land between the mountains," see.

LEWIS: And the novels explore the values and traditions of the Navajo nation.

HILLERMAN: I think we think we're so damned important; they're smart enough to know they're not really. I guess I've been trying to say that I like them, admire them, and they're just plain folks. And it kind of bothers me that so few Americans understand them. I mean, they look (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sort of a strange cult, strange segment of society.

LEWIS: For three decades, he's been introducing this world to his readers through the eyes of his two key characters: Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. There are officers in the Navajo Tribal Police: cops like Calvert Sosee (ph).

Like Leaphorn and Chee, Sosee works on the vast reservation that is nearly the size of West Virginia, trying to find people when roads have no names, trying to solve problems like any cop.

(on camera): Do you identify with the Navajo?

HILLERMAN: I don't have any Indian blood in me, as far as I know. And I -- I wouldn't claim to. But I identify them as I'm in the same class of people they are.

LEWIS (voice-over): Hillerman himself was raised in simple surroundings in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma.

HILLERMAN: I estimated the population at 50. I mentioned that to my older sister, and she said, no, no, that's too much. It's 34, she said. She named them for me.

I'd say we were rich in everything except the material stuff. We didn't have indoor plumbing, or you know, the stuff rich folks have like running water or electricity or -- or -- we pulled our water out of a well.

LEWIS: Even as a child, Native Americans were part of his life.

HILLERMAN: Our neighbors were Patowatomi mostly and some Seminoles, and some Sackenfox (ph). A lot of -- mostly Indians. LEWIS: And for the eight grades, he went to a Native American school.

HILLERMAN: When we played cowboys and Indians, we would be the cowboys usually. And they saw some of the cowboys in Western movies, and they found out the Indians always lose. So they wanted to be the cowboys, and we had to be Indians.

LEWIS: In 1941, those battles gave way to battles in France in World War II.

HILLERMAN: I was eager for that big adventure. I was scared to death they'd get her over with before I got in.

LEWIS: Fighting with the infantry in France, he won a Silver Star. Later wounded, he returned home a hero with a Purple Heart.

HILLERMAN: A reporter at the "Daily Oklahoman" had done a big piece about my -- what a big hero I was. And she collected all these letters from my mother that I'd written. So I went down to the "Daily Oklahoman" and talked to her, and she said I should be a writer.

So I thought: "OK, that's a good idea; I'll try that." So I -- I enrolled in journalism school.

LEWIS: But after he graduated in 1948, he couldn't find a job as a reporter. There was too much competition.

HILLERMAN: I took a trial job with an ad agency writing Pig Chow commercials for radio. Pig Chow and Cane's Age-Dated Coffee (ph) and Purina Pig Chow commercials, which talk about intellectually challenging jobs. It doesn't sound like it, but imagine making pig chow interesting to sleepy farmers.

LEWIS: Ten years later, he was editor of a daily newspaper in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But he dreamed of another career.

HILLERMAN: I decided I was going to write the "great American novel," but I don't know if I can go the distance yet, see? I've been writing, you know, 250-word stories. I've been writing short and tight. So I think I'll writer a mystery, which has a skeleton, a plot.

I decided I will pick a really interesting, intriguing background. I'll set it on the Navajo reservation.

LEWIS: His first visit to the reservation was just after World War II, when he was still recovering from his wounds.

HILLERMAN: We're driving on this dirt road, and here comes about 20 or 30 Navajos on horseback and in ceremonial regalia.

A couple of local Navajo boys were back from the Marine Corps, and they were having a curing ceremonial. And so I saw a little bit of that, one part of it, fascinating I thought. Why don't somebody have a curing ceremonial for me, right? Bring in all your friends and relatives. It was really nice: restore them to harmony with their people, with their culture. Good idea.

LEWIS: The ceremonies and traditions of the Navajo became an inspiration for his books, but his first mystery, "The Blessing Way," was initially rejected, even by his own agent.

HILLERMAN: She didn't show it to anybody. And I said, Why not? And she says, bad book. Woman of few words. She didn't like the Indian stuff.

LEWIS: Hillerman's first book sold to a small audience, but as the public gradually became more aware of Native American issues, the books began to sell. Today, there are 120.5 million in print.

HILLERMAN: I'll turn around somewhere. Where will I turn around?

LEWIS: And at age 74, he isn't slowing down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you looking for?

HILLERMAN: As you may have noticed, I'm lost. I'm looking for the old Army base.

LEWIS: Hillerman recently explored an old U.S. Army ammunition depot to come up with plots for his next mystery.

HILLERMAN: Hi, this is Tony Hillerman. Hap Stohler (ph) had invited me to come out and take a look at the work you're doing with the bunkers and stuff.

This book is just a bunch of bits and pieces I haven't put together yet, but you're always looking for places to have stuff happen.

Oh, look at that now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, this one has propelling charges in it.

HILLERMAN: This is what makes a rocket go up.

LEWIS: The bunkers give Hillerman ideas...

HILLERMAN: You find this decomposing corpse.

LEWIS: ... ideas for crimes his Navajo investigators can solve.

HILLERMAN: The only think he has in his jacket pocket is a little piece of paper carefully folded. And on it, he has written B1O11. And my detective says, what could that possibly mean?

LEWIS (on camera): Why are people so fascinated with these characters and your settings and the Navajos? What is it that puts you on the best-seller list?

HILLERMAN: I wondered about that a long time, because there's some people, frankly, who write, I think, better mysteries than I do. And I sell better than I do. So what's the answer? And I think I know -- I thought about it a lot. I think I lucked on to a sensitive nerve or something, that the American people are ready to learn about Indians.

LEWIS (voice-over): Hillerman says treating the Navajo with dignity has always been his goal. And of his many awards, the one that means the most is from the Navajo nation.

LEWIS (on camera): Why does that award mean so much to you?

HILLERMAN: Because I admire them and I respect them, and I was hoping they would recognize that I did. They couldn't have done anything nicer for me than give me that plaque.

LEONARD BUTLER, CHIEF, NAVAJO TRIBAL POLICE: I appreciate what he has done and the fact that he has given name recognition to the Navajo nation and the Navajo Police Department through his writing.

Morning, ladies and gentlemen.

LEWIS (voice-over): Leonard Butler is the actual chief of the Navajo tribal police. But his opinion of Hillerman is not shared by all the Navajo.

TOM ARVISO, EDITOR, "NAVAJO TIMES": He's capitalizing on something that's not his.

LEWIS: Tom Arviso is the editor of "The Navajo Times."

ARVISO: He's not Native American, he's not Navajo, and he's presenting something that doesn't belong to him. He's presenting something that he has no way he could possibly understand the significance of what it is he's writing about.

BUTLER: I think we all have critics. There's always going to be people we can't satisfy. Whether he's made money or not I believe is beside the point. It's the fact that he's been able to get us on the map, so to speak. And I personally appreciate that.

HILLERMAN: I don't think it's fair because I think I have given them something back.

I think I've made a piece of the world, at least, aware of what a wonderful culture they have.

LEWIS (on camera): Can you write about the Navajo if you aren't one of them?

HILLERMAN: If you want to write about the Amish, do you have to be an Amish? I think not.

LEWIS (voice-over): Whatever the debate, Hillerman's desires are simple.

HILLERMAN: OK. You get born and you die, right? Everybody, whether you like it or not. And I -- my mother taught us, don't -- you know, all you got to do is get from A to B, from birth to death, and get their in such a way that when you die you've lived a good life. And don't worry. Don't be afraid of anything. Just live it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHAW: Since that report aired, Hillerman has been busy on a new literary effort, as a book editor. "The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century" is a collection of 55 works of fiction by some of the finest mystery writers in American letters.

That's this edition of CNN & TIME. I'm Bernard Shaw.

Jeff, I'll see you next week.

GREENFIELD: Thank you, Bernie.

Coming up next, CNN's encore presentation of "MILLENNIUM" continues.

I'm Jeff Greenfield. Thanks for joining us.

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