The following was written by Eileen Bosshart, a friend of Durlyn Eddmonds:

I met Durlyn Eddmonds through the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He was a simple, shy man with a gift of saying exactly what was in his heart. His greatest pain in his eighteen years on Death Row was his estrangement from his family, except for one sister who wrote letters to him. According to his friends at Pontiac Prison, Durlyn was hard to get to know because when the pressures of living there became too much for him to handle, he simply disappeared into his cell until the mood swings passed. Diagnosed with mental illness from an early age, his family never knew how to get him help. Durlyn came from an all too familiar background of abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. He felt that he deserved the beatings.

Durlyn once confided in me that he was grateful to God for bringing him to Death Row because he knew he would have died out on the streets. He also said that if it was not for his time on Death Row, he would never have met his six friends who meant the world to him. He decided that he had to come to Death Row to learn the meaning of unconditional love. Calling faithfully once a week for thirteen years, Durlyn became an extension of my large and loving family. He felt intensely my pain at the loss of a little granddaughter, a husband, a son, and a foster son, and experienced such joy when hearing about the accomplishments of my children.

During his clemency hearing, the state’s attorney reviled Durlyn as a monster without any shred of decency that deserved mercy. The truth was that he could never mention his crime until the last month of his life when he finally revealed that his crime was so horrible that even God Himself could not forgive him. He had carried that guilt around for over eighteen years. Eventually, Durlyn came to believe in a God who was so loving and merciful that there was nothing that couldn't be forgiven, and he was able to begin peacefully to prepare for his death. He was baptized into the Catholic faith by Father Jonas Callanan just three weeks before his execution.
At the end of my last visit to him, a week before his death, Durlyn stood up, very formally. I could tell he had prepared a speech. His last words to me were:"Thank you Eileen for sharing your family with me."

I am the one who should thank Durlyn Eddmonds for his loyalty and friendship during those long and difficult years. I couldn't have found a better friend or brother in Christ.

Durlyn was sentenced to death under a flawed system:
Durlyn suffered from schizophrenia, alcoholism, delusions, and desires to mutilate himself. Six doctors, on 14 occasions, had diagnosed Durlyn with mental illness, usually schizophrenia. Though a fitness hearing had been ordered to determine whether Durlyn was mentally fit to stand trial, it had never been held. Durlyn’s lawyer conducted a one-minute sentencing hearing in which he told the jury that the law favors a defendant who has a mental disturbance. But the lawyer never presented any evidence of Durlyn’s considerable mental illnesses.

Photo description: Jim Free (executed by the State of Illinois on March 22, 1995), Patty Kersey (friend of both Jim and Durlyn), Sister Josephine Migliori, and Durlyn Eddmonds.

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