At 17, She Gave up Her Son. Sixty Years Later, She Found Him on Death Row.

Sandra never knew what happened to the child she had at 17.

Growing up in a respected, church-going, middle-class family in the South, her parents were dismayed when she told them she was pregnant. This was the early 1960s. “To get pregnant out of wedlock and while you were still that young was a stigma,” Sandra said. A baby also threatened her future ambitions: She was an outstanding student, a top basketball player, and lead clarinetist in her school band. Her parents were firm; the child should be given up for adoption. “I wasn’t going to fight it,” she said.

The family kept the baby a secret, sending Sandra to New York City to give birth. She stayed at a home for unwed mothers and on January 3, 1963, delivered a boy at the municipal hospital in Queens. He weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces