The Evolution of a Criminal Life

Thomas Koskovich takes a look back at the evolution of his criminal life to better understand how he ended up in prison with two life sentences.

Sitting in prison with two life sentences gives you plenty of time to reevaluate all of your life’s decisions. A lot of my time is spent reflecting on the many bad decisions I’ve made throughout my criminal life. As I write this, I have been behind this wall and these bars for 27 years. That’s nearly two-thirds of my life! At this point, I’ve spent more time in prison than out of it. And there is no end in sight to this grim existence.

When I’m able to pinpoint a bad decision I’ve made, I replay the scene over and over again in my mind to figure out what I could have done differently to avoid those situations and what I could do differently in the future to dodge the pitfalls that have plagued my past.

During this process, I think I’ve been able to discover that one particular moment that set my life on a path that caused heartache, grief, and misery to too many good people.

It was a terrible ethical dilemma I faced when I was far too young to face it. I wish I could tell you more poetically that it was a hot, hazy summer night or that it was a cold, blustery autumn evening or something like that, but sadly I can’t remember any of the setting details; not even whether it was summer or winter or whatever. I only remember what happened, how I felt, and that I was only eleven years old. But I was very mature for my age, or so my teachers and elders always told me. As I look back upon it now, I realize I was most definitely way too immature to make the decisions I was making. The incident I’m speaking of is the first time I hurled a curse word at one of my parents in anger. That it happened to be my mother is heart-rending. If it had been my father I wouldn’t be so twisted up about it. But it wasn’t just the cursing, I also openly defied her as she stormed out of the family home for what turned out to be the final time.

My father had moved out a few months earlier so the only people still in the home were my mother’s father and his wife (it was their house), my mother, my two brothers and me. My mother had been dating a guy from work for about six months and was spending more and more time away from the home, sometimes for up to a week at a time. It wasn’t upsetting that Mom was dating a guy and spending time away from us, in fact we were supportive of them because he was a really good guy and my parents’ marriage had been over for nearly three years. They weren’t yet divorced, but they were definitely not together. They had still been living at home because we were poor and moving someplace new could get expensive.

Now on this particular night, my mother had come home after being away for a few days. My grandfather was on his couch in the living room fast asleep, his wife was away at bingo (as she usually was), my older brother was in his room, and my little brother and I were playing video games. When my mother entered the house she told us to pack a bag with a week’s worth of clothes. But something didn’t feel right because she was being quiet and kind of sneaky. When my older brother came downstairs she told him to pack also, but he decided that he wouldn’t. They began to argue quietly, but it soon got heated and woke my grandfather. That’s when she informed him that she was moving out and taking us with her.

My grandfather, though he had been a sergeant in the army, was a bit of a pushover when it came to family. When big decisions had to be made he would often just shrug, let other people make them, then go to sleep on his couch. I believe this is why my mother chose to do this while my grandfather’s wife was away. That lady had a much stronger personality and would often impose her will on everyone; she even treated the adults like they were children.

My older brother was stubborn and adamantly refused to pack; the screaming match continued. I sat back in a corner and said and did nothing, just watched. Finally, my grandfather calmly said that maybe she should leave my older brother here because he was already in high school and my grandparents would watch over him until graduation. My mom relented, eventually. Then she turned her attention to me.

When she told me to pack my things, I really didn’t want to. This was the only home I had known and I was never comfortable venturing into the unknown. I didn’t want to leave my friends, my school, or my hangouts. So many thoughts bounced through my brain, but the loudest was, “I don’t want to go!” I didn’t move. She became more insistent and began yelling for me to pack. Only one word came to mind, so I said it.

“Bullshit!”

There it lingered. I had said it and there was no taking it back. Coming from me, the one who was always quietly obedient, the good kid, the straight “A” student, must have been a huge blow to my mother because her expression dropped. A look of anger, shock, and hurt twisted her features. I knew I had crossed a line that I had never intended, but I couldn’t back down now.

She was crying and yelling now and I guess my grandfather had finally had enough because he jumped up and yelled at her, telling her to just leave. He said (loudly!) that he had enough and that they would figure this out later when cooler heads would prevail. This had startled everyone because it wasn’t in my grandfather’s character to yell like he did then and to direct it towards my mother (who was definitely his favored child) was something none of us had ever seen before. I think that is what hurt her the most and I still see the sadness frozen on her face as she left the house with my little brother in tow – because nothing could have pried him from her side at that age. That was the last time I lived with either of them.

I should have remained loyal to my mom at that time. If I had time to think about it, I most likely would have. My mother, who up until then had always been under the oppressive will of my grandfather’s second wife, was just trying to finally go out and make a home for herself. She was thirty-two years old and she had never been allowed to be an adult. Now she was seeking to make it on her own terms, but my fears were preventing her from progressing. Also, my selfish decision had opened a rift between her and her father.

I know a big part of why my decisions were so immature that night was because my father had left home a few months earlier. It wasn’t that he left; in fact, it was because he came back a few nights after leaving and wanted to share his thoughts with his sons. He expressed that it wasn’t our fault that he and our mother were divorcing. But then he continued (unwisely) to tell us that my older brother was his favorite because he was his namesake, his “junior,” and my little brother was his second favorite because he was “the baby of the bunch.” He then said I was his least favorite because I reminded him of his brother—who was a drug addict, a career criminal, and caused the family much grief. That’s a tough blow to the fragile psyche of an 11-year-old boy. I don’t say this as an excuse for the decisions I made later in life, but it helps to understand why I was so insecure when I found out my mother was also leaving. I was, at a young age, learning to not trust adults so much.

My decision that night also started me down a path of self-destructive behaviors. Before then, I had been a good student, I listened to my elders, I stayed out of trouble. But once I committed that first act of rebellion, it became easier and easier to convince myself that I didn’t care what others thought. My acting out got me the approval I was desperately seeking, though that approval came from some older kids in the neighborhood who were part of a rougher crowd. Bad decision after bad decision finally led me to dropping out of school and winding up in prison with two life sentences’ worth of time to sit and reevaluate all my screwed up actions.

After examining my choices that night, I truly believe I made the wrong decision. Because of the philosophies I follow now, I see my actions then as unethical. A better decision would have been for me to quietly pack my things and move out with my mother, even if it meant leaving my older brother and my grandfather. My relationship with my mother would not have been strained like it was for several years after that. I would have ended up in a different school in a slightly better neighborhood and I wouldn’t have sought the approval of the rougher crowds.

My little brother had made the right decision that night to go with my mother, and I had made the wrong one. The proof is that he went on to become an EMT and firefighter and now owns his own home with some land; and I live in a 5′ by 8′ cell and don’t even own the clothes on my back!

I was smart enough at that age to have made better decisions. Had I just taken the time to analyze what was truly going on and better understand my mother’s motives, I would have seen that she was just trying to give us a better life. But I was selfish and saw only that these things were happening as personal attacks against me.

I used to think that leading “a good life” meant having the best things – the hottest clothes, the flashiest car, the newest gaming system, etc. And every day that I did not have these things was a day I would wallow in self-pity. I truly believed that acquiring these things would make me feel good about myself.

Since I grew up poor, I knew my family wouldn’t just buy these things for me, so I went out to get a job at a young age so I could buy them for myself. But the only jobs I could get at twelve years old did not pay well and usually meant exhausting manual labor. This led to me looking for shortcuts, like stealing and scamming and taking advantage of people. I knew these things were wrong and doing them left me feeling rotten on the inside. But I still did these distasteful things because I could justify them by telling myself how much better I would feel when I could obtain those finer things. And if that didn’t work, I would use drugs to numb those feelings. Yet, somehow even when I was able to obtain those things, it never seemed to be enough. I always had to have more, newer, flashier. And this meant more and more shortcuts and those left me feeling more and more hollow inside. All that chasing eventually led me to prison with two life sentences. Obviously, I was not “leading a good life.”

The divergent paths of my life and my brother’s took — after that night my mom left — are clear examples of what was right and what was wrong. The sad silver lining of this situation is that because I am older than my brother, the ramifications of my wrong actions started to show earlier and I hope this played some small part in him making better decisions. If I had to make the wrong decisions to become an example for him to avoid my mistakes and become a successful person, then it doesn’t hurt so terribly knowing that I thoroughly destroyed my own life.

Early in my incarceration, I was faced with an immeasurable amount of idle time, so I began to read novels just to while away the minutes, the hours, the days. My imagination became my strongest muscle. I was able to experience what the characters were experiencing, see what the characters were seeing, and feel what the characters were feeling. I even began to read things that didn’t normally interest me.

The learning elated me. Figuring out something I couldn’t figure out before – that moment when I could finally “get it” – was like a new kind of drug. Learning became my reason for being. It was the most constructive thing I could do with my idle time.

Now, oddly enough, I think the life I’m leading could be considered good. Well, if not “good,” at least it’s better than the life I had been leading.

I pass most of my time learning how to become a better person and trying to figure out how this rehabilitation stuff works because I don’t want to be, nor do I think of myself as, a bad person. I participate in the many rehabilitative programs offered at the prison so that I may better myself and learn what is expected of me as I become a more productive member of society. I’ve leaned heavily into education so that when I make better decisions, they can be the most well-informed decisions I can make. I find that I no longer need to steal or scam or take advantage of someone to have a bit of contentment. I don’t need drugs to numb the rotten feelings that, in the past, plagued my insides.

Simpler things, for me, have become a source of joy.

Thomas Koskovich #000256861C
New Jersey State Prison