1989 SPECIAL REPORT: "PATRICIA GODLEY"

It was shortly after 1:30 a.m. yesterday, and the ABC “Nightline” program on the District’s drug and violence crisis was in its third hour when Patricia Godley got up to speak. What she had to say electrified the audience. “At first, I was hesitant about getting up and saying that I’m an addict on nationwide TV, that I’m an ex-con because what I have done and what I am doing isn’t everybody’s business,” Godley said in an interview yesterday afternoon. “But then, I can’t be selfish and not allow someone to know you can achieve.” So for the next six minutes or more, Godley held the live television audience gathered at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Anacostia spellbound as she told her story of drug addiction, imprisonment and despair over the recent shooting death of her 16-year-old son. Speaking angrily at times, Godley, a secretary for The Council for Court Excellence, a nonprofit organization in the District, called on government officials and “Nightline” host Ted Koppel “to come off your high horses and deal with the real people. You’ve got to get to the core of the person.” When she recalled the death of her son, Warren Jackson, who was shot in an alley in Northeast Washington on April 14, she was almost in tears. “I am the drug addict. It wasn’t his fault,” she said. In the interview yesterday in the downtown office where she works, Godley, 36, said, “I just wanted to say something about my son who had died. I wanted somebody to understand that there are more children out here who need help. There are parents just like me that don’t know what to do and {don’t} know how to help.” Godley, a small-featured woman who says she has not used drugs for more than two years, says she partially blames herself for her son’s death because she was not around to be a parent for him or his younger brother or older sister. She said her son was handicapped. “He could read very little. It was frustrating . . . . After you get a certain age, you pick up a certain mentality and that’s what he had acquired. He was ashamed of the fact that he couldn’t read or write like he wanted to.” Last year, Godley said her son was sent to Oak Hill, a city youth detention facility, by a judge because he violated probation in connection with a cocaine possession charge. She said she tried to talk to the judge about getting her son additional help, but her efforts were unsuccessful. “I was trying to explain to them that I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how,” she said. Two weeks ago, Godley’s son was shot as many as five times in an alley in the 200 block of 15th Street NE, police reported. Neighbors and Godley said the shooting stemmed from a neighborhood feud. Police said a 17-year-old youth has been arrested in connection with the shooting. When her son was born, Godley said, she was using methadone as a treatment for her heroin addiction. Her son experienced some withdrawal pains from the drugs, she said. “He came here suffering and went out suffering,” said Godley. “I wish I could have done something differently for him.” Godley said her life has been troubled since the age of 13. She said she spent three years at Cedar Knoll, another city youth detention facility, where she was sent after a series of fights and other disruptions. When she left Cedar Knoll at the age of 16, Godley said she had “learned how to steal better and learned how to lie better.” In the next few years, Godley said she became addicted to heroin and was in and out of jail on various charges, including grand theft and drug charges. She also gave birth to three children, all of whom were raised by her mother. She credits a local judge, D.C. Superior Court Judge A. Franklin Burgess Jr., for helping her to straighten out her life. “He is a compassionate person,” she said. “He’s just not a judge who sits on the bench and looks at everybody the same. He tries to look at your past record and see what’s the problem and tries to see if he can find a solution. Instead of just locking you up and thinking that that is the best way to do it.” Twice in 1984 and 1985, Godley said, Burgess sent her to a drug treatment program when she appeared in his court on drug charges. But each time, she said, she did not finish the program. “I wasn’t ready to stop using,” she said. “I just didn’t want to go to jail.” In 1986, after she was arrested again on drug charges, Godley said Burgess sentenced her to jail. She spent a year at D.C. Jail, where she was enrolled in a drug treatment program. She was released from jail in March 1987.

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