A man who was sentenced to life in prison as a 13-year-old over 25 years ago is free thanks in part to the woman he shot.
In 1991, Ian Manuel was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences in Florida. Although he was only 13 when he committed his crime, he was charged as an adult for shooting then 28-year-old Debbie Baigrie in the face.
Manuel robbed Baigrie and her friend Danny Delrosal for change for a $20 bill as an initiation into a gang on the evening of July 27, 1990. He ended up shooting Baigrie through her jaw and out of her left cheek.
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After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that juveniles who committed crimes where no one was killed may not be handed a life sentence without possibility of parole, Manuel’s sentence was reduced to 65 years in prison. Baigrie was present for that 2011 hearing and urged the judge to show him favour.
“He made a huge mistake but he’s not a bad person,” she said in an interview with People magazine in 2014. “I want him to have a life outside of prison.”
On Monday, Manuel, now 39, was released from prison after a judge in Hillsborough County ruled he was eligible for early release. His first meal as a free man was pizza with Baigrie.
“It was like this reunion with a long lost son,” Baigrie told NBC affiliate WFLA. “I got out of the car and we just hugged for two minutes. It was very like 26 years in the making.”
Baigrie became an unlikely ally to Manuel one year into his sentence.
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She received a collect call from him at around Christmas in 1992 and he apologized to her. According to The New York Times, she asked why he shot her. He responded by saying it was “a mistake.”
There began a friendly correspondence between the boy and his victim.
At first, Baigrie said she swung between anger and understanding.
“I couldn’t eat. I was angry. But I’d go back and forth. He was just a kid,” she said.
She eventually settled on forgiveness despite some people telling her this was just Stockholm syndrome, where a victim develops feelings of trust or affection with their captor.
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“I think anybody has the capacity to forgive and I will tell you that forgiving is very healing,” she said, noting that she believes her friend, Delrosal, remains bitter because he never forgave Manuel.
Manuel spent the better part of the first half of his 25 years in prison in solitary confinement and reportedly attempted suicide repeatedly. He eventually worked towards earning his high school diploma.
“He survived against all the odds and solitary confinement for over 20 years. He educated himself; he came through this and he came through it as a nice guy, not hardened,” she said.
Manuel is now in a re-entry program in Alabama and grateful for Baigrie’s support; both his parents and brother died while he was in prison and he only has Baigrie to call family.
“I view Debbie like a guardian angel or a second mom, sort of. To know that I almost killed her, it hurts,” he said. “Debbie’s support means so much to me, because if she would’ve – God forbid, have died – someone else would be telling her story. Someone else would be saying, ‘Let him stay in prison.’”