I have known about Javon Coulter since he was 14, after he was arrested and charged in a fatal shooting. Because he was so young, I wanted to know more about him, about why he was involved in robbing and killing a man who was walking home from a White Castle with less than $60 in his pocket.
I followed Coulter’s case from juvenile court to adult court, where in 2017, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and robbery charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
During that 2017 court hearing, I witnessed something that I had never seen before – the mother of the man Coulter had just admitted killing hugged Coulter in the courtroom and forgave him. I still remember waiting outside the courtroom with photographer Liz Dufor − both of us were stunned by what we had seen − to talk to Rukiye Abdul-Mutakallim about her act of forgiveness.
But forgiving Coulter was only part of Abdul-Mutakallim’s promise to him. She also wanted him to leave prison a better person. She encouraged him to read and get an education. And in the fall of 2024, she told me that Coulter had earned a high school diploma and that he was planning to get a college degree.
Javon Coulter is currently at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution.
I wanted to hear about all of this directly from Coulter, so I emailed a request to interview him at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. That request was granted in early December. On Dec. 17, Dufor and I drove to the prison, which turned out to be a low-security institution.
The interview took place in a prison classroom – there was no guard. Coulter, wearing eyeglasses and a light blue, short-sleeve shirt that he buttoned all the way up, walked in and out of the room, unshackled and unaccompanied, as if it were a boarding school. He was polite and soft-spoken.
And even though he’s 6-foot-4 and more than 300 pounds, there was no concern that he’d be a threat.
Javon Coulter speaks during a Dec. 17 interview at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution.
Among the things I found out – Coulter, now 24, had been transferred to the low-security prison three years before because he had been such a model inmate. At Chillicothe, he’s a prison baker, working seven days a week. He has plans to get a college degree, which likely won’t be approved until he’s closer to his release date in 2035.
And unlike the 14-year-old who was involved in a horrific crime, he is no longer “lost.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Redemption: Why The Enquirer followed Javon Coulter for a decade
Read the full article here
