As just a young teen, not only had Ronald Olivier witnessed crime, but he had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was a product of a broken home, a crack epidemic, and a society that had turned its back on him.
This harsh lifestyle ultimately resulted in Ronald killing another young man on Christmas day.
In the absence of a father figure, he found guidance in unlikely places, proving that a helping hand can come from the most unexpected corners.
From a haunted past to a transformative future, Ronald Olivier's story is one of remarkable redemption. He was serving a life sentence in Angola Prison, but he found his freedom in forgiveness and faith. Ronald narrates an emotional encounter with the mother of his victim, a moment that broke walls and built bridges.
He stresses the importance of faith, urging listeners to remember God's endless grace. Get a glimpse of Ronald's inspiring journey in his new book, which is available on Amazon. Embrace the power of change, forgiveness, and second chances in this powerful episode.
As just a young teen, not only had Ronald Olivier witnessed crime, but he had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was a product of a broken home, a crack epidemic, and a society that had turned its back on him.
This harsh lifestyle ultimately resulted in Ronald killing another young man on Christmas day.
In the absence of a father figure, he found guidance in unlikely places, proving that a helping hand can come from the most unexpected corners.
From a haunted past to a transformative future, Ronald Olivier's story is one of remarkable redemption. He was serving a life sentence in Angola Prison, but he found his freedom in forgiveness and faith. Ronald narrates an emotional encounter with the mother of his victim, a moment that broke walls and built bridges.
He stresses the importance of faith, urging listeners to remember God's endless grace. Get a glimpse of Ronald's inspiring journey in his new book, which is available on Amazon. Embrace the power of change, forgiveness, and second chances in this powerful episode.
We are at war and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
Speaker 2:
So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1:
Are you ready to?
Speaker 2:
join the force. Alright, welcome back everyone to A Force to be Reckoned With. I am here today with someone that I have been looking forward to having a conversation with, and his name is Ronnie Olivier. Did I say it right?
Speaker 1:
Yes, ronald Olivier, everybody called me Ronnie.
Speaker 2:
Okay, ronald. Now it's Ronald which we're gonna talk about that a little bit later.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
So welcome. I'm so excited to have you.
Speaker 1:
We're excited to be here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so interesting fact about Ronald is he served 27 summers in the Louisiana State Penitentiary known as Angola right.
Speaker 1:
That's correct.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, he was released in 2018 and he became a client of the Louisiana Pearl Project. He recently wrote a book and it comes out in November. So welcome, ronald. And before we dive into your story, which I'm halfway through your book, so what I know you as right now is Ronnie Slim. So before we dive into that part of your story, I'd love for you to start with sharing a little bit about who you are today.
Speaker 1:
Today I am a client advocate for the Pearl Project, the Louisiana Pearl Project. Our organization helped guys to make a transition from prison to society and we helped them with wrap around services housing different classes, social norms and technology, because most of our clients have been incarcerated over 20 years and so something that's simple as a cell phone they have no idea of. We have classes for that and we also give them jobs just to help them get a great start.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I am a husband, been married four years, april next year make five and I have a little son that's three years old and very busy.
Speaker 2:
That's amazing.
Speaker 1:
Along with him. I have two bonus kids and no great kids, so have a real great family.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. Okay, so let's back up a little bit. Like I said, I'm halfway through your book and the first half is all about Ronnie Slim Not the Ronnie I'm talking to today, but this has been. That version of you has been super interesting to me and it's also hit really close to home. We talked a little bit about this off air, but, corey, my husband and I were foster parents and so much of your past parallels to a life that I'm living right now, but in a different role. So you, I want to hear about your upbringing, the community that you were brought up in, because it's something that I am being exposed to right now. It's not the way I was raised at all, but it's very real and it's just so foreign to me. But your book has just, it's, opened up a whole new perspective. So just tell me a little bit about your upbringing in the community and, yeah, we'll start there.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I'm from New Orleans, louisiana, was raised in the but very poverty-stricken area in the cities, and come from a broken home where I did school years and weekdays with my mother and my dad come get me on the weekends. I spent some summers with him and and also some holidays and one school year I asked we actually did a vice versa. I spent the school year with him and went on weekends, but my dad was always in my life. He was very structured and disciplined person and full of love. You know, he was like my hero growing up, and so during the time and probably late 80s, early 90s when, when the crack epidemic hit my neighborhood, it totally destroyed it, and at this moment my dad is making a move from Louisiana to Florida, you know, because of financial reasons and another job and, and so that part of my life is leaving at a moment when I really needed him most.
Speaker 1:
And so here, when the crack epidemic hit, along with it came a lot of violence. I can remember at one point where I used to feed the birds from my porch. It had got so bad the birds actually stopped really coming out. You know that's how bad it was, and so I was very angry. I was very hurt that he left. I didn't understand the reason and why, why? And felt abandoned and so I didn't know how to deal with that anger.
Speaker 2:
You were about, weren't you 11 or 12 around this time?
Speaker 1:
I was about 15, about 15 years old, and so very angry, and consequently I turned to the streets, and the streets began to fall to beat, and so I began to learn how to operate in the street, and in my neighborhood you had to survive, you had to fight for everything, and until it got to the point where you had the carry gun.
Speaker 1:
So here come the drug epidemic, and you're refining out how to make some trash money, my friends and I. And so while we're learning that crap, there's others that engage in robbing the drug dealers. That's their trade, and so it got so it got so bad to the point where they will rob so many people that they will forget and they will end up getting killed. They end up pumping gas next to the person, not realize that they robbed the person, remember. And so, instead of avoiding that way of living, they figured that once we robbed somebody, whether they give it to us or not, we got to kill them, and so that made the drug dealers on themselves to protect themselves and their products, and so it just was literally a war zone. I can remember when I was about the age of about 12, 13, I first saw someone killed very traumatizing, and so this way of life became normal to me.
Speaker 2:
Your community you referenced, was you called it the Eighth Ward? Is that right?
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:
So this was normal, for, like, this was the way that everyone in that community this was the way it's thrived.
Speaker 1:
Right, exactly, and so, consequently, I got into a altercation with a guy. Me and a couple of friends beat him up and the next day we see him, christmas day. I'm 91 on Cannell Street, downtown, new Orleans, right down the street from Bourbon Street, and we see him and he, I'm with two other guys but he's with several other people, about five or six of them, and so on. I guess he saw we as outnumbered, didn't realize, and I knew him and he knew me and I always carried a gun. I guess he wouldn't think and I had a gun Christmas day or what have you. So they tried to really jump us and then I had a starter jacket on. Starter jackets was very dangerous. Then you had. If you wore that, you had to have a gun because a lot of people were robbing you for your jacket.
Speaker 2:
Is that like the brand starter or?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's a starter and it's different teams. The Obama Jack is like the football players where when there's real cold, okay and so.
Speaker 2:
Is that because of a status?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, that was a status at that time and so that was dangerous, and so I always carried a gun on me and one thing led to another shot rang and two people in the pool of blood that I actually had killed one, and another one was injured badly. So that landed me until two days later after Christmas, to the juvenile facility. And I'm thinking, you know cause? I've been in trouble before with the law, with little petty things. You know they're fighting some type of assault, but this and normally my mother would come and just sign me out from the juvenile bureau, and so I thought that I thought that was going to happen this time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I'm waiting on my mom to sign me out. Mom never signs me out, and so I really realized this is bigger than you know what I thought it was, because they end up, as I went to juvenile court, they transferred me to the adult courts and to adult facility. So, mind you, when the time this old friends happened, I was 16 years old, you know, and they ended up sending me to adult facility and I started going back and forth to court and finally, in 1993, I'm on trial. They charged me with first degree murder, which carried the death penalty. So I'm 17 years old right now, at that moment, on trial for first degree murder. And you know, I'm sitting through trial, all these legal terms drawn over my head, really don't know what's going on, what's being said, and totally ignorant of the law.
Speaker 1:
I can remember just pivotal moment in my life, when the jury was deliberate. They sent me in a holding tank. It was about 12 AM, one o'clock in the morning, and I'm in there alone and I'm waiting for the jury to deliberate. And as I sit in that holding cell alone, man, everything got real to me, you know, and I started to think, man, that there's 12 people that don't know anything about me. It's making a decision on whether I live or die. And so at that moment I began to think about this, came to my mind something my mother said, because my mother was always a praying woman and always went to church, and I can remember, I can hear her voice so clearly in that cell saying son, if you ever get in trouble that I can't get you out, you call on Jesus. And so at that moment I just got on the ground, I deal down, and I was actually crying tears, afraid to die, and I made a deal with God. A lot of people said don't make deal with God. I made a deal with him. My prayer was very simple. I said Lord, I said, if you don't allow them to kill me, I promise you I'll serve you the rest of my life. And at that moment I didn't go through a sentence for where I believe. At that moment I was born again For the first time. I experienced the peace of God. Didn't know what it was then, but I was calm. I felt safe, in spite of what was going on. I felt like I was gonna be all right. There was something that assures that and I went back.
Speaker 1:
And so the jury came back with the lesser verdict, which is a response to verdict. It was second degree verdict, guilty of second degree murder, and which I didn't know. It carried a mandatory life sentence without benefits or parole or probation Was meant that I die in prison, and so a lot of people don't understand laws of different and different states. In Louisiana, life means life. It means you take your last breath, you live out the last years of your life, the days of your life, in prison, and so I'm like man. I felt dumbfound. I can hear I can hear in the background, cause I never turned around and cold. I felt like I was dreaming. I can hear in the background my mother screaming. She is like a whale and I never turned around. I didn't want to see her face.
Speaker 1:
So fast forward. I'm in prison. Now I end up being transferred to in Gola, louisiana State Penitentiary, one of the most bloodiest prisons in the nation, and so you go there with all these thoughts on your mind. I had made up my mind before I got there, cause I have heard how they prey on the younger guys, you know they're raped, and I had made up my mind that man, I wasn't going to be anyone's girlfriend and I was going to die for my manhood, you know, if need be, or kill someone else trying to protect it, and so it was just a blessing. I can look back then right now. I thought I was just so bad and just so that nobody was going to mess with me, and I had this chipper on my shoulder that I let people know. Man, look, there's going to be some consequences, whatever I'm trying to mess with me. But when I look back, man, it was God's protecting me. He just sent me around people that was willing to help me and not hurt me.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
You know. And so here it is, I'm changed, I'm born again, but there was no one ever to disciple me. I knew something was different, because I still talk the same, still acted the same, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I was being convicted of it. I just didn't know how to walk out this Christian life. And God sent me around guys who began to disciple me and showed me how important it is to renew your mind, read your Bible, fellowship and go to church. And man, god started transforming me, literally from the inside out.
Speaker 2:
That is like right where I am in your book. So I'm going to pause here, because when I have questions about what I have read so far and that is almost like the line in the sand, don't you think? There was a point in prison where I was reading through and you said the first couple years, I think maybe, were survival. You were just figuring out, hey, how do I survive, how do I not get killed, get raped? After there was like a point where you could take courses and seminary and all of that, and that's kind of where I'm stopped. I want to talk a little bit more about a couple of things that you said in your book, talking about this survival in this community. So you were talking about fathers and the lack of fathers in your community and you said dads were like an exotic species that were just about to become extinct.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
And then you another part you were saying in the absence of any other male role models because most kids didn't have them, your older brothers demonstrated what it meant to be a man, so it was almost like the blind leading the blind, and it was everybody's fate was becoming crack dealers or surviving the streets, and the one other thing that you referenced was that, where you came from, the only way to build a future that didn't involve incarceration or early death was to be one of the most gifted athletes in your generation. So for you, like you, just didn't see a way out of that.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, that was all I saw, and the kids, kids, greatest teachers, with their seat, rather than what you say. And so here it is, and that was like abnormal to see a family with a father in it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And if there was a father which was very rare he wasn't teaching the right things. He was called up into that world when also, and so here it is. That's so important to have someone, especially a male, and I say this all the time it's very difficult for a woman to treat a young boy how to be a man. She's never been a man, and so you have a lot of single parent mothers that's trying to raise men and it's very difficult. And so that is very pivotal in having a father or father figure, cause I can remember in the cell when I was in the cell years ago, I'm thanking because there was this guy who was in the same environment with me, went through some of the same things, but he ended up in the NFL, he ended up winning the Super Bowl and he also he's a Hall of Fame or not, and I'm like man.
Speaker 1:
What was different? And I can remember when his father had died, but later found out about reading stories about him and sports illustrators and all that that the coach where he played high school football stepped in and became that father figure and kept him focused. And so, even if it's not a person's actual father, just a father figure, just someone to take that responsibility, to mentor that kid. Very, very, very important. What was mine blowing on at Angola? I ran across a lot of father and sons in prison.
Speaker 2:
Father and sons.
Speaker 1:
The father and son. There was one particular family, it was the. It was three generations. There's a friend, the guy who I befriended, his dad was there and his grandfather his dad's dad, and that was like mind blowing, you know.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And so so the father figure became you know people in the streets when my dad left my big brother, who really didn't know anything of where he was going and sort of, like you said in the beginning, the blind leading the blind. And so when I end up in Engelda, here it is. I find these father figures, you know guys, who God has changed their life. They're on the right path. They didn't know what it is to be a man now a man of God, and one particular guy was pretty young and he was assistant pastor of a church and my mindset of, you know, living a righteous life was for older people Because, you know, when I was home, it was always the older person telling me about, you know, going down that path, you know, giving your life to God. There was never no one that looked like me, was in my age range, and so I see this guy, man living out his fate man, and he was young and was assistant pastor, and I was like, wow, you know that became attracted to me. In fact, me and him became real good friends. He had a life sentence. He's home now. In fact, he's on this trip with me today, we spending this trip together but was my mentor. You know, there was a guy who took a hold of me and was pushing me to get in different classes, stanislas Roberts.
Speaker 1:
Very early on I got my GED, and later I ended up in the Bible college, you know, and graduated from there with a bachelor's degree in Christian ministry. And as my mind expanded, man, the more I wanted to learn, and so I began to be home when Thursday after just now, it's just north, and so really became a habit to me. I read so many books, you know, and definitely stayed in the Bible, was a student of the Bible still is but it changed my life. It changed my way of thinking. I began to think differently, and so later, you know, after I graduated with my Bible college, you have an opportunity to be a missionary Crazy, is that sound?
Speaker 1:
You could be a missionary, yeah, you could be a missionary in prison. And so the Bible college was getting so big and it was putting out ministers all throughout the prison and in every unit, and so everywhere the gospel was preached, that after you graduate, you become what is called an inmate minister. That's your job to go and share the gospel to. You know some cell blocks, dormitories, people are set up in different areas and so it went to getting so big, to that minister's stacking the phone each other, and so you know God gave the warden vision to start sending them out to other prisons in Louisiana, the satellite prison you know as missionaries. So I thought about it and I end up.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so many questions. Does everybody have this opportunity?
Speaker 1:
Yes, if you are on graduate, you have to be a graduate of the Bible college.
Speaker 2:
But everybody has the opportunity to take these classes.
Speaker 1:
Everybody to go into the Bible college Anybody can go, ok. And so I ended up a missionary. I go to another prison and I end up being a chaplain's assistant there and also pasting a church there, and I was. That was like that's like one of the hardest things to do, I think. I believe this If you can pass up a church in prison, you can pass it anywhere, because you live with your members, you know, go home so they see everything. They see your strengths and your weaknesses, you know. And so you live in a glass jar and so you really have to live really upright, you know, and maintain, you know, your relationship with God to get people that want to follow you, you know. And so I went there for like three and a half years, went back to Angola, just left my life in God's.
Speaker 1:
I can remember there I had a prayer meeting. You know that I called you know because a lot of people were bored from court. Like me. I had exhausted all my state remedies. I went all the way to the United States Supreme Court and got denied, and so that kind of like solidified my life sentence and screamed that you really going to spend your life here. There's no other way out.
Speaker 1:
So I called a prayer meeting and I said, man, we're going to put flies up that we're going to take out cases. There's another court we can go to, you know, and we're going to take it before the throne of my God, you know, as a judge greater than the other judges, and told them to bring their legal work and paperwork, or their rap sheets, their commitment papers that solidify their sentences, and put it on the altar. And we had paperwork full on the altar and we just prayed and we had scriptures all around the wall that we quoted and prayed back to God concerning his promises and man, amazingly, god's presence came in that man so heavy. And later we found people just walking, just literally days later, going home, just leaving, which wasn't common.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And I was very happy. I knew my time would come. I was charged with them, but years later mine came when I went back to Engola and the law changed. I believe it affected thousands of juveniles who were charged as a dog throughout the United States. We had like 300 something in Louisiana, and so I really believe God changed that law just for me.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, is that the law? So there's a TV show about juveniles in prison and it the whole basis is that there's a law that talks about the development of the brain.
Speaker 1:
Right, exactly Right. It's Miller versus Alabama. The United States came down with a ruling in 2012 in Miller versus Alabama that said it was unconstitutional to give a juvenile a mandatory life sentence. Said that a juvenile should have some type of meaning for opportunity to freedom. Because of that study of the brain, that the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed and that's the part of the brain that helps you appreciate risks and consequences, and so that's why juveniles do some crazy things. Because of that part of the brain is not developed and it was saying that it should not be charged and dealt with and looked at as adults. And it showed that most juveniles are able to be rehabilitated than adults. They're the ones that really changed because they're not really finished growing in that area.
Speaker 1:
So under that law, because of that, with good behavior, that ultimately how you were able to be rehabilitated Right and so if you can show that you have been rehabilitated, you know your chances of going home was great.
Speaker 1:
That's incredible and so I had to be re-centered. So when that law comes out that bad, my sentence illegal now. And so I'm going through the process to be re-centered and I get the court and man. Another amazing thing happened because everybody in prison wants to go home. Nobody wants to be there and well, most do. And my main priority wasn't getting out, you know, going home.
Speaker 1:
Above that was the victim's mother who had came to trial. You know, I can still remember, I can still see in my mind her face, she crying on the stand because her son was killed. And when I develop a prayer life and go out and want to really deal with me, man, I pray for her a whole lot and my main priority was that man, that one day I can just beat her and just tell her how sorry I am and really take responsibility for what I've done. And here it is. That opportunity comes when I go back to get re-centered and I have this conversation with her man, one of the hardest, most difficult conversations I've ever had in my life. Here I am, I'm shackled in handcuffs.
Speaker 1:
They allowed me to talk to her and I had to turn around. She was behind me on the bench and I'm talking to her. She came over I now forget, our arms were folded and she just was looking at me and the first words I said, ma'am, I say I take full responsibility for the death of your son. And our arms dropped and she leaned toward me and I began to just ask her for forgiveness. She told me. She said I don't hate you. She said I forgive you. She said I believe you deserve a second chance. And she laid it right. And she laid a guard on the stand and echoed that record. You know, on the stand and man, amazingly big day.
Speaker 2:
She spoke on your behalf in court. Yes, that only God can do that?
Speaker 1:
Oh, nobody, but God. She didn't even have to say she was a Christian. I know she was Just this, her langle. She told me this because I'm in private. She said what I didn't know when my son died was that he had a son, she said, and I raised him. She said he forgives you too. She said I wanted to bring him with me today, but I really couldn't. And I told her. I said man, I said I would love to meet him one day. I said if I get out, you know I love to meet him. And she told him. She said no, not if you get out. She said when you get out, oh my gosh, you can meet him.
Speaker 2:
That's incredible.
Speaker 1:
I'm talking about and doing this dialogue man. There's absolutely no dry eye. She's crying, I'm crying. Very emotional conversation that we'll have.
Speaker 2:
So did you get to meet him?
Speaker 1:
No, I didn't.
Speaker 2:
You haven't gotten to meet him I did.
Speaker 1:
I haven't gotten in contact with him since, which I could have been looking for.
Speaker 2:
It's only been five years.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, matter of fact, november 30th would make five years.
Speaker 2:
Well, we're going to be celebrating with you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely incredible and, like I said and like you said, this is something that only God can do. So I'm just thinking we're often talking about struggles in life and people that are facing hard things, and it could be something you know financial, a marriage issue, and then I'm thinking of somebody who's actively struggling in addiction, so any end of the spectrum, and I'm sitting here, talking to someone who is sentenced to life in prison, served 27 years in Angola and is now sitting with.
Speaker 2:
you know you're traveling right now and you're impacting lives, so I just would love for you to share a word of encouragement to people out there who feel like they've lost hope and that maybe God has given up on them.
Speaker 1:
I would say this First of all, god loves you. You know he's longing for a relationship with you, and out of that relationship, man, there are endless blessings. I was sentenced with life without benefits of parole, but that same day I was sentenced with a life of abundance. You know, with endless benefits, that even the Scripture says um, forget not my benefits. There are so many, so they encourage you not to forget them, you know. And so, man, um, with him you can go through anything. He can get you through anything. If he can get me through 27 summers in the most notorious prison in America, he can get you from where you are to where you need to be. You know, I came home, I ended up. My second job was man. I was actually hired to be the director of chaplaincy in Mississippi State Penitentiary Another miracle, what does that even happen? That right, you know, incredible. And so, um, there's, there's absolutely man, no limit to what God can do in your life if you give it to him.
Speaker 2:
That is so good. Okay, so I just want to say, like we hardly even scratch the surface of the encouragement that is in your book and also you, you really left no sturn. I mean, maybe you did, but in my opinion, like your book is so detailed it I feel like I have cried, I have laughed. You didn't shy away from like the hard things, um, from you know, being a drug dealer to the murder, to living in prison and you experienced there. There's just so much there, but it's all for good, like the story is all for good. So I just want to encourage people to check this book out. It's been an awesome read and I can't wait for you guys to get your hands on it. Also, you're on social media and you do different speaking things, so just end with where people can find you.
Speaker 1:
Yes, um, I'm on social media Facebook, ronald Olivier, and my last name is spell O-L-I-V-I-E-R, and it's the same thing for Instagram. I think I'm underriding slim, oh quite the contrary. On Instagram. You can find me there on social media. My book is available right now at um Amazon Prime. You can get it right now. You can get the hard back or the audio. Yep, did you say? The audio is available too.
Speaker 2:
Yes, okay, did you read it? No, I didn't. I had somebody else I had somebody else.
Speaker 1:
I was hoping that there was going to be audio because I I have seven kids, right now, and so like, while I haven't been able to put this book down, I'm also like man, I wish I could play this in my car.
Speaker 2:
So that's a no. Yes, so it's on audio.
Speaker 1:
Um, I wanted to read it, but I couldn't With a, with a, with a three year old. Yeah, I had absolutely. No, yeah, absolutely. And so that's my main focus, one of my main focus. You know, I don't want to get too carried away with things and and not take care of my family. Right, you don't want to lose sight of the world.
Speaker 2:
Right, you don't want to lose sight of the life that's given you, which is something we talk about so often on this show. So I just want to say I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for you sticking it out and for your you know your obedience to God through some of the absolute through absolutely rock bottom. It's been so encouraging to me and I know it's going to impact so many people out there.
Speaker 1:
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2:
So I'm just so grateful for you and I just feel like there's more to come because I there's so much more I wanted to talk on today. So we absolutely stay connected and I just can't wait to see the impact that you have in communities and everybody that you reach.