Woman Leaves Behind Crime To Become Pastor
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She can barely sit. Her right arm is her only support.
Scars cascade from her shoulder to a gaping hole in her forearm. A hardened vein has been poked into oblivion.
Scars descend the forearm, down to her brittle and bent fingers, appearing to clasp nothing but a gray canvass.
You can’t see the woman’s face. Her torso is nothing but an empty chest of drawers. Her long, ragged hair drapes over the drawers, which appear to have been opened so much they’re crooked.
This woman has only enough strength to stretch her left arm out and keep what remains of her world at bay.
Elizabeth Sanders looks at this painting of her and sees her past.
She was a $500-a-day junkie.
She prostituted her body.
Men took advantage of her. They raped her, abused her and came close to killing her.
She came close to killing herself in a cocaine overdose.
At 40, she faced 25 years in prison when police found drugs and weapons in her Davenport home.
A judge would have had to consider her record when handing down a sentence. So the court appointed a defense attorney to take a look at it.
The lawyer began to peel the layers of her life.
Tough growing up
Sanders could see the sun shining through the wood beams of her childhood home in Mississippi.
She would take baths in a foot tub, go to the bathroom in an outhouse and light a kerosene lamp to see at night.
Born in Winston County, she was one of 16 children, and her mom sewed all of her dresses from flour sacks. They were washed on a scrub board.
Winston County today prides itself as a small place “with a big heart, working together,” a local official says on the county’s Web site.
In the 1960s, Sanders remembered a band of young white kids called the Crocker boys who “had it bad about messing with little black girls.”
One day, Sanders and several of her sisters hid in a chicken coop to escape them. They waited until the sound of horses’ feet stomping got softer and fled to their father’s steel mill in the woods.
Eventually, the family was forced to move from their home. Sanders’ world unraveled.
She fought with her sisters and lost part of a finger when a sister slammed a car door onto it.
The family moved to Rock Island when she was 9, and the violence followed, including sexual abuse, she said.
“It caused me to withdraw, to do things not in the norm,” she said.
Life on drugs
She got hooked on cocaine and heroin to escape.
As a teenager, Sanders ran away from home half a dozen times.
She got married at 16 and lived in Davenport. It would be the first of 11 marriages and countless other abusive relationships.
Before she reached 20, she had given birth to two children. Then once in her 20s, she signed custody papers over to her mother.
“My life was totally messed up,” she said.
She tried cocaine when she was 24. That was in 1978. She got hooked and lived the next 2 1/2 years experimenting, sometimes two or three times a day, with cocaine, heroin and a handful of other narcotics.
“I had opened myself up to a whole new world that was taking me straight to hell,” she said.
She turned to prostitution to support her drug habit. She danced nude at a club in Rock Island to make money.
In 1979, she wanted to see her kids, and her mother turned her away. So she went to Des Moines.
In a motel room just outside Des Moines, she found someone to give her a needle and some cocaine. Inside the room, she saw a Bible on an end table. She picked it up, and a passage from Psalm jumped out at her. “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The Bible or the needle? She had to choose.
She put the Bible down and injected the drugs.
“I did not take the time to get the bubbles out of that needle,” she said. “I just shot the cocaine into my arm, and at that time, I heard a sound that said, ‘I’ve got you now.’”
It almost killed her.
Help from a lawyer
J.E. Tobey III, a Scott County attorney and former magistrate, met Elizabeth Sanders in 1995.
“By the time Elizabeth got to me, she already had a criminal history,” he said.
That year, Davenport police raided her house and found two handguns and some crack cocaine.
At the time, she went by Elizabeth McGee, taking her eighth husband’s last name.
She wasn’t home during the raid. She worked as a security guard.
“They arrested me, took my security guard suit off and put on an orange jump suit,” she said.
She spent three days in a Scott County Jail cell. She faced 25 years in an Iowa Department of Corrections prison.
Tobey was appointed to represent her. He asked her to tell him about the case. He found her to be genuine, so he asked her questions about her life.
He was impressed that she had begun distancing herself from her past.
“The charges came about because she hadn’t quite gotten away from the ragged edges, but she was close,” he said.
Tobey made a plea deal with an “open-minded prosecutor,” and Sanders got a deferred judgment.
“Her successful rehabilitation was a matter of life and death,” he said. “If she fell back into that lifestyle, she’d be dead because someone was trying to kill her or she’d pass out because of the drugs.”
Her record was expunged, but not without a few conditions. Instead of serving time, Sanders had to commit her life to serving others.
“I came clean. I told him the truth,” Sanders said. “I was able to walk out of that courtroom a free woman.”
Building a church
Elizabeth Sanders is pastor of True Faith Deliverance Ministries Apostolic Church on Ripley Street, Davenport. She wants to start a ministry for those who abuse drugs.
“I promised Mr. Tobey I would go help someone, and I will,” she said.
A pastor for 10 years, she opened her first church in Clinton, Iowa. She also has started a church back in Mississippi.
Getting one off the ground in Davenport was a challenge.
“We had church in the park, church in the street, church in my home. You name it, we had church,” she said.
She’s leasing the building at 930 Ripley St. with the hope of buying it one day.
So why does she stay in Davenport?
“I done went through it,” she said. “Drug abuse, husband abuse, family abuse — it all happened in this city. To go through all that abuse and still have the right mind, I want to give back.”
Tobey had asked Sanders to write her history. Sanders went on to publish an autobiography called “My Life Story: A Living Testimony.” She dedicated the book to Tobey.
Tobey feels humbled about the dedication.
“I was a defense lawyer who believed her,” he said. “One notch past that, I believed in her, which we’re not required to do.”
She can barely sit. Her right arm is her only support.
Scars cascade from her shoulder to a gaping hole in her forearm. A hardened vein has been poked into oblivion.
Scars descend the forearm, down to her brittle and bent fingers, appearing to clasp nothing but a gray canvass.
You can’t see the woman’s face. Her torso is nothing but an empty chest of drawers. Her long, ragged hair drapes over the drawers, which appear to have been opened so much they’re crooked.
This woman has only enough strength to stretch her left arm out and keep what remains of her world at bay.
Elizabeth Sanders looks at this painting of her and sees her past.
She was a $500-a-day junkie.
She prostituted her body.
Men took advantage of her. They raped her, abused her and came close to killing her.
She came close to killing herself in a cocaine overdose.
At 40, she faced 25 years in prison when police found drugs and weapons in her Davenport home.
A judge would have had to consider her record when handing down a sentence. So the court appointed a defense attorney to take a look at it.
The lawyer began to peel the layers of her life.
Tough growing up
Sanders could see the sun shining through the wood beams of her childhood home in Mississippi.
She would take baths in a foot tub, go to the bathroom in an outhouse and light a kerosene lamp to see at night.
Born in Winston County, she was one of 16 children, and her mom sewed all of her dresses from flour sacks. They were washed on a scrub board.
Winston County today prides itself as a small place “with a big heart, working together,” a local official says on the county’s Web site.
In the 1960s, Sanders remembered a band of young white kids called the Crocker boys who “had it bad about messing with little black girls.”
One day, Sanders and several of her sisters hid in a chicken coop to escape them. They waited until the sound of horses’ feet stomping got softer and fled to their father’s steel mill in the woods.
Eventually, the family was forced to move from their home. Sanders’ world unraveled.
She fought with her sisters and lost part of a finger when a sister slammed a car door onto it.
The family moved to Rock Island when she was 9, and the violence followed, including sexual abuse, she said.
“It caused me to withdraw, to do things not in the norm,” she said.
Life on drugs
She got hooked on cocaine and heroin to escape.
As a teenager, Sanders ran away from home half a dozen times.
She got married at 16 and lived in Davenport. It would be the first of 11 marriages and countless other abusive relationships.
Before she reached 20, she had given birth to two children. Then once in her 20s, she signed custody papers over to her mother.
“My life was totally messed up,” she said.
She tried cocaine when she was 24. That was in 1978. She got hooked and lived the next 2 1/2 years experimenting, sometimes two or three times a day, with cocaine, heroin and a handful of other narcotics.
“I had opened myself up to a whole new world that was taking me straight to hell,” she said.
She turned to prostitution to support her drug habit. She danced nude at a club in Rock Island to make money.
In 1979, she wanted to see her kids, and her mother turned her away. So she went to Des Moines.
In a motel room just outside Des Moines, she found someone to give her a needle and some cocaine. Inside the room, she saw a Bible on an end table. She picked it up, and a passage from Psalm jumped out at her. “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The Bible or the needle? She had to choose.
She put the Bible down and injected the drugs.
“I did not take the time to get the bubbles out of that needle,” she said. “I just shot the cocaine into my arm, and at that time, I heard a sound that said, ‘I’ve got you now.’”
It almost killed her.
Help from a lawyer
J.E. Tobey III, a Scott County attorney and former magistrate, met Elizabeth Sanders in 1995.
“By the time Elizabeth got to me, she already had a criminal history,” he said.
That year, Davenport police raided her house and found two handguns and some crack cocaine.
At the time, she went by Elizabeth McGee, taking her eighth husband’s last name.
She wasn’t home during the raid. She worked as a security guard.
“They arrested me, took my security guard suit off and put on an orange jump suit,” she said.
She spent three days in a Scott County Jail cell. She faced 25 years in an Iowa Department of Corrections prison.
Tobey was appointed to represent her. He asked her to tell him about the case. He found her to be genuine, so he asked her questions about her life.
He was impressed that she had begun distancing herself from her past.
“The charges came about because she hadn’t quite gotten away from the ragged edges, but she was close,” he said.
Tobey made a plea deal with an “open-minded prosecutor,” and Sanders got a deferred judgment.
“Her successful rehabilitation was a matter of life and death,” he said. “If she fell back into that lifestyle, she’d be dead because someone was trying to kill her or she’d pass out because of the drugs.”
Her record was expunged, but not without a few conditions. Instead of serving time, Sanders had to commit her life to serving others.
“I came clean. I told him the truth,” Sanders said. “I was able to walk out of that courtroom a free woman.”
Building a church
Elizabeth Sanders is pastor of True Faith Deliverance Ministries Apostolic Church on Ripley Street, Davenport. She wants to start a ministry for those who abuse drugs.
“I promised Mr. Tobey I would go help someone, and I will,” she said.
A pastor for 10 years, she opened her first church in Clinton, Iowa. She also has started a church back in Mississippi.
Getting one off the ground in Davenport was a challenge.
“We had church in the park, church in the street, church in my home. You name it, we had church,” she said.
She’s leasing the building at 930 Ripley St. with the hope of buying it one day.
So why does she stay in Davenport?
“I done went through it,” she said. “Drug abuse, husband abuse, family abuse — it all happened in this city. To go through all that abuse and still have the right mind, I want to give back.”
Tobey had asked Sanders to write her history. Sanders went on to publish an autobiography called “My Life Story: A Living Testimony.” She dedicated the book to Tobey.
Tobey feels humbled about the dedication.
“I was a defense lawyer who believed her,” he said. “One notch past that, I believed in her, which we’re not required to do.”
Comment
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Comment by BishopMyrthieHazel on April 10, 2010 at 11:54am
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