- April 25, 2024
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Updated Dec. 22
Hope Greening didn’t do hard-core drugs in high school — just a lot of weed. She felt she had a bright future. She signed up to be an athletic trainer after school in her junior year and learned how to wrap sprained ankles on the fields of Flagler Palm Coast High School. But she never had a ride home, so she quit. Fun while it lasted.
Short and saucy, always ready to tell you exactly what she felt, usually with some four-letter words sprinkled in. Dirty-blond hair. Girly, but low-maintenance, not a makeup person, really.
After high school, she was on a crazy drug trip for months. Functioning addict, paying bills, working at Steak ’n’ Shake, not really homeless, but no real home, either. She was around bad dudes all the time and saw how evil the world could be. But she didn’t regret it. You learn from everything you do, so whatever.
Still, she didn’t want to be around her family while she was using. So she and her boyfriend stole a tent from a store and stayed in the woods in the E-section of Palm Coast, near a golf course. After about a month, one day they returned to the tent to find some homeless people in it, messing with their stuff. Then another day, the poles were scattered and the tent was ruined.
One afternoon in December 2016, near where her family lived, she stood lookout while her boyfriend hopped a backyard fence in the R-section. He was going to steal pills. An alarm sounded, so he quickly jumped back over the fence. Deputies came, and they told the deputies they were trying to borrow a mop from the homeowner. Story didn’t check out, and there was also surveillance footage. Her boyfriend was sentenced to prison; she went to jail for being an accessory to burglary.
When she got out, she was on probation (adjudication was withheld). At age 19, she had a record. This was her new life.
***
In 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics published the results of a study that tracked felons in 30 states since 2005. More than one-third were arrested again within six months. Two-thirds committed another crime in three years. About half of all crimes in the United States were committed by about one-sixth of released prisoners.
What are the chances of a felon staying out of jail for good?
When Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly was elected in 2016, he felt that more resources should be offered to inmates to help them start over once they got out of jail. So he met with Becky Quintieri, the jail’s inmate services director, and asked her to explore some ideas. Staly’s late mother had been a social worker, and Quintieri’s background was also in social work, so they both had personally witnessed success stories of people climbing out of their dark pasts.
Quintieri took her orders from the sheriff and got to work.
But the timing wasn’t quite right for Hope Greening. She was already out of jail and back on the streets.
***
It was August 2017, and Hope had strict requirements from her probation officer. She had to apply to three jobs per day and report back weekly. No excuses. If you missed an appointment or did drugs, you were getting nailed for violation of probation. And she owed $1,200 for the privilege of going to her meetings and getting her mandated drug tests. Where was she supposed to get that kind of money?
She applied to 47 jobs over a few weeks. Not much luck. But one place gave her an in-person interview: a little restaurant in Bunnell on U.S. 1, where she had once eaten a hot dog with cream cheese spread on the bun and nacho cheese sauce on the dog. Plus jalapenos. Delicious.
She wore jeans and a nice shirt to the interview. Of course, she didn’t really want the job. She was doing it just so she could tell the probation people she had done it and so she could pay off the $1,200. Plus, it would be nice to get a regular income so she could afford more dope.
At the interview, though, she had to say that she had a record. And not just a little record — it was a felony. The conversation didn’t go too far. They’d have to get back to her later.
Never did.
Didn’t get the job.
Was it really possible to get a job once you’ve done time?
***
She got to know a guy, Devin McKenna. He was 6 feet tall with short brown hair, been living in Flagler County since 1993. He was something else. He would put on some shin guards with spikes, tie a chainsaw to his belt (not running, of course), strap himself to a pine tree and shimmy up to cut some limbs down. Once he tried to climb up an extension ladder to work on a palm tree, and it wouldn’t reach, so he put the extension ladder on top of a trashcan and climbed up. Amazing. In the wind and everything.
Hope and Devin started hanging out, and they were always busy. Running around town, fixing lawn mowers and weed eaters, doing drugs, eating at McDonald’s. It was just fun to be around him, and it wasn’t like she made a decision to stay — she just kind of never left. He was more than 10 years older, at 31, and he had a record, but hey, so did she, so whatever.
His dad’s house was a hive, always a dozen of Devin’s druggie friends coming and going, even though his dad didn’t really like it, didn’t like walking out of his bedroom in the morning and finding strangers sleeping on his couch and on his floor. Devin was something of a follower. He would do dumb stuff and get in trouble because he wanted people to like him.
The house was a trailer on Sawgrass Road, behind the Flagler County softball fields. Geese and ducks, a shed, a pen with horses and donkeys. Tattered Confederate flag on a pole. A driveway so long you can smoke a whole cigarette while you walk to the mailbox.
It was all good, until one day Devin said some things about another girl, and Hope was jealous and punched him in the head, and they were through. Had they even been together, really? Either way, they started seeing other people.
But they ran in the same circles, and she would end up at the McKenna house on Sawgrass every now and then. One time Devin was building a go-cart, and no one was helping, so she offered. When it was done, it would go like 40 mph. They would be up all night, fixing small engines. He had a real knack for it. He had bad eyesight, but he had every mechanical part memorized, every step.
His dad, Robert McKenna, a heavyset man with a mustache, was disabled but had a scrapping business. People would call him all the time, and he would drive around and pick up things like refrigerators or old lawnmowers that didn’t work. The house on Sawgrass was fully furnished with the spoils of scrapping: couches, curtains, even a 5-foot-tall metal cage for Robert’s 27-year-old macaw, named Oscar. There was a flatscreen TV that had been discarded in a Palm Coast neighborhood but had just needed a minor tweak to work perfectly. That was now in Robert’s bedroom.
Then in December 2017, Devin was late to a probation appointment. These people were strict, so he thought he was a goner. Heading back to jail for sure. But he wasn’t going to wait around for that, so he skipped out and headed back to the house on Sawgrass, avoiding any officers.
Of course, that didn’t work. Cops showed up on Dec. 2, and Robert let them in. Devin stepped out of a closet in a bedroom and was cuffed. Busted.
He had now been written up 54 times by law enforcement since he was a teenager, including eight arrests. Here he was again, heading back to jail.
***
In Facebook videos and press releases, Sheriff Staly had a persona. He was the tough, law-and-order sheriff. He called the jail the “Green Roof Inn,” and reminded the public that the accommodations were not pleasant. You don’t want to be in jail.
The jail population continued to climb. It passed the 200 mark. The record was 256. Drug use was not just a problem in big cities: It was a problem right here in Flagler County.
And yet, Staly had hope. People could be rehabilitated, but there were three keys. First, they had to want to change. Second, they can’t get out of jail and go back to the same old friends and family members who are still doing drugs. If you do, the chances are slim.
And third, the community has to be willing to give you a hand up. You have to be able to find a job.
If any of those three keys don’t work out, hope vanishes, and you get repeat offenders on a cycle — sometimes for generations.
The harsh reality is that even if you do get back out and change, you might not be able to ever get back the life you once had. Staly’s own relative, the son of his step brother, was a drug addict who had gone in and out of rehab three times before it clicked. It was a success story. He wasn’t on drugs anymore.
But the damage had been done. Still in his 30s, health issues caused during his addiction caught up to him, and he died in April 2018.
***
While his son Devin was locked up, Robert visited him all the time — and he also kept in touch with Hope. One day Robert needed some help on a scrapping run. Sometimes the loads were huge: multiple trips, 13,000 pounds worth of scrap that had to be loaded and hauled for sale. So he asked Hope for help, and she was like, sure.
So they were driving, and it so happened that Devin called right then, from jail. He could call as many times as he wanted, in 15-minute increments, as long as he had money in his account. Robert answered and was like, Yeah, I’m with Hope.
Devin was amazed. He asked to talk to Hope, and he said he really appreciated it. It was a nice thing, surprisingly nice, for her to be helping his dad like that.
They stayed in touch. She still liked him. Maybe she loved him.
They got back together — while he was still in jail. He had four more months. Meanwhile, Hope moved into the house on Sawgrass. She helped Robert and waited for Devin’s return.
***
Devin knew when his life had all started to go wrong. It was when his mom died in 2009, when Devin was 23. Anna Marie. She died on her 25th wedding anniversary with Robert. Heart attack in her sleep, 49 years old. Shook everyone up, but especially Devin.
Devin had already been in trouble with the law by that point, but it was mostly because he drank a lot. Not drugs. The last time he ever saw his mom before she died was when Devin was stumbling in through a door. That was it. She died. Last impression, the way she would remember him in heaven: a drunk.
He was distraught. He started doing harder drugs in his 20s. He spent more time around other people who did drugs, too. He went to state prison in 2013 for 18 months after he was caught selling. When he got out, he went back to the same crowd, and it felt like there was no way out of the trap.
On the way to the funeral of one his friends who died of an overdose, Devin was an emotional wreck. And to make things worse, he got stopped by a deputy, who arrested him for driving with a suspended license — and although Devin tried to hide it, the deputy found drugs on Devin that day, too. Back to jail.
He was in jail more than he was out, it seemed, and even when he was out, he was on probation. In the times he was back home on Sawgrass, he had anger problems. He dented the fridge one day. Kicked over a trashcan one day. Holes in walls.
One day while he was in jail, Hope wrote him a letter:
Your mom’s watching over you, man. What would she say if she was alive today and she saw the stuff you’re doing? Any mom would be disappointed. But if you get it together, she’ll be proud of you. You just have to turn it around.
***
Hope’s probation wasn’t going so well. She was still using. She pissed dirty on a couple of drug tests in the spring of 2018, but she found ways to get out of trouble. She also got together with another guy but lied to Devin to hide it.
Devin finally got out of jail again in April 2018. But the freedom wasn’t exactly free. Instead of going home to his dad and Hope, he had to go to a drug rehab place in Jacksonville. But within the first hour of being there, he saw people doing drugs, and he called his dad. Get me out of here.
Getting him out would be a violation of probation — again. It would mean he would be hiding out — again. He knew and Robert knew and Hope knew that eventually Devin would wind up back in jail.
But what was the point of being at rehab surrounded by drugs and druggies?
Robert and Hope drove to Jacksonville to pick him up.
The next couple of weeks were good. They did some drugs. It was a reunion. But it didn’t last.
On May 1, Hope and Devin and a friend went to McDonald’s in front of Target. And they got stopped by a deputy. Hope was in the driver’s seat of a red Astro van, and she knew Devin was getting arrested again. What she didn’t think about right away was that she was also busted. They ran her name, and she got cuffed, too, for violating her own probation. She had some nasty words for the deputy, and then she felt bad because he was nice enough to let her smoke a cigarette. She got tucked into a patrol car, and there was Devin sitting right beside her, also in cuffs.
Well. Ever been arrested with your girlfriend?
He said no. And she started laughing. She laughed a lot whenever she was nervous.
The thing is, she was starving. They had gone to McDonald’s, but they didn’t actually get to order anything. And yet, here was the deputy’s car with a sack of food in the front seat, and it smelled so good. So wrong.
The deputy drove them to jail, like being in a taxi, the two of them in the back seat, and Hope told the deputy she was sorry for being nasty back there. He said it was all good, and she insisted. Really, I know I was being nasty, and I’m sorry.
She looked at Devin and laughed again.
They got to the jail, and they had to wait in the car awhile, so the deputy got out and ate his food. Hope knew they had missed lunch at jail — she knew the schedule — so they’d be getting baloney sandwiches instead. Horrible. Whole car smelled like McDonald’s.
So much for getting out and staying out. So much for a new start on life. Apparently, this was life.
***
Devin had a much different reaction when he was in the backseat of that deputy’s car. Before Hope had gotten in, it was quiet. He thought about his dad, about calling him with more bad news: I’m going to jail again. He knew his dad would be disappointed. He broke down and started crying.
Then the other passenger door opened, and handcuffed Hope climbed in, still ticked off at the deputy. Devin hadn’t even known she had a warrant for her arrest.
Hope, this is it, he said. I can’t do this no more. I’m done using, I’m done selling.
She was laughing and talking about the smell of the McDonald’s.
This ain’t funny, he said.
He was crying. He wanted to call his dad. He was so tired. The cops all knew him on a first-name basis, from the time he was selling. It was time to be done with this.
***
Meanwhile, Becky Quintieri’s goal of gathering resources was humming along. A GED program began. She formed a partnership with Flagler Technical Institute to teach classes. Volunteers from Santa Mara del Mar Catholic Church helped. There were math tutors and reading tutors. Career Source agreed to offer a sort of insurance policy for potential employers who might be nervous about hiring a convicted felon. Pastor Charles Silano was bringing Open Door Ministries to the inmates.
She felt like she was putting together a recipe for success. It might not be that any inmate’s improved life could be directly tied to a particular class, but connections were being made. Inmates were meeting these people face to face, and when they encountered them again on the outside, they’d be more likely to speak up and get help.
And it felt good. Inmates sometimes called her on the phone when they got out and thanked her. One inmate still sends her pictures of the fish he catches. One inmate was suicidal and called her. She insisted he check himself in, or she was sending law enforcement to him. She had that kind of a relationship with these people.
Staly was thrilled with the progress. The crime rate had dropped 17% in a year, and it seemed possible that these efforts were part of that improvement. Even if the classes did nothing but slow down the repeat offenders so they waited longer before they committed crimes, it was making the community safer. But there was only so much that could be done if the individual didn’t start with a desire to change. It had to be their choice first.
***
Hope got 64 days, so she’d be out in July. Devin got till Jan. 16, 2019.
She was in with a group of about 30 women, and she knew a bunch of them. Grew up with some. Used with some. Pretty bad when you’re so connected in jail.
And then some of the older women noticed something. She was emotional, crying over stupid stuff like the chips and candy in her commissary bag. They told her she was pregnant.
She laughed it off.
She was thinking about her life a lot. Weighing pros and cons of trying to stop using. Was it even worth trying?
She got out on July 3, 2018, and Robert picked her up. He had a load ready for the junkyard, so they didn’t even go home — went straight to drop off the scrap. Trying to keep her out of trouble.
Hope couldn’t shake what the ladies in jail had told her. So she got a pregnancy test at the store.
She peed on the stick.
She flipped it over.
And she laughed.
Days later, she went to visit Devin in jail. He was giving her a pep talk and a lecture. In previous visits, he could tell she had been high.
You better not be using, he said.
I’m not.
You better not be.
There’s a reason why, she said. I’m pregnant.
It still hadn’t hit her yet. Not that she never wanted kids. But she was 20 years old, in and out of jail, baby’s father currently in. This isn’t exactly how it was supposed to happen.
***
Devin had already been given a hint that she might be pregnant. One day while he was working in the kitchen, wearing a hairnet, serving up lunch chow for all the inmates, a female deputy told him that the women were saying Hope might be pregnant.
He was excited. He wrote letters and always asked how the unborn baby was doing. They talked about names. Devin was scheduled to be out of jail just before the due date of Jan. 20, so he should be able to be there in the hospital with Hope.
Robert was also excited. He collected more supplies through his scrapping: a rocking chair for Hope, a new bathtub and toilet. He started remodeling the house on Sawgrass to make a separate living area for Hope and Devin.
Hope was excited, too. She kept imagining what it would look like, once she could paint the ugly brown walls a more attractive color. She thought of the baby in a crib, right there in the corner.
Was it possible for Devin to get out of jail and be a good father? Or would he be an absentee — the type of father who would end up back in jail off and on for the rest of his life?
Hope told herself that Devin was being genuine when he committed to being there for the baby. And she always felt better when Robert reassured her that Devin seemed to be doing better this time than he had in previous stints in jail.
But in quiet moments, when she really thought about it, she knew she couldn’t even rely on herself. She had made commitments to others before, to stay clean, and then she would use again a few days later. You can’t predict the future. She didn’t make promises to anyone anymore.
At the minimum, she decided, she would have to make an arrangement with Devin: One of the two would have to be clean. If either fell back into old ways, the new baby would have to be able to rely on at least one.
***
Hope was looking and feeling very pregnant. And she was not exactly aching to work, but she had to figure something out. This was no longer about someone nagging her while she was on probation: She had to get a job to provide for her baby.
She arranged for an in-person interview at a retail store in Palm Coast that was hiring. She looked in her closet for something that would be appropriate, but she had grown out of most of her clothes. She put on a dress with flowers on it and went to the interview.
But what were the chances of getting a job looking like this? Who’s going to hire a pregnant woman, about to pop? And someone with a felony conviction?
The hiring agents asked the typical questions: Would she be able to lift things? Be on her feet for long hours?
They said goodbye and, We’ll let you know!
It was annoying. Hope exited the store. She couldn’t do anything about it, so she tried not to be upset. But she was running out of time.
***
Meanwhile, back in jail, Devin and a deputy looked at Devin’s old mug shots. There was the drunk phase. Then there was the opioid phase, then the meth phase. And he looked like a different person in each mug shot. When he got to jail this most recent time, he joined the kitchen crew, and his weight was 224, and the number of days in a row he’d been clean was climbing fast.
And by this time, Quintieri’s programs had been fully developed. They were known collectively as STRIDE, which stands for Skills, Transitional support, Respect, Integrity, Direction and Employment. Since it started, about half the inmates who have been eligible have enrolled in at least one of the classes or programs offered, which include Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and a new opportunity to work on a yard crew, which does mowing and brush work on public lands for Flagler County.
While Devin hadn’t paid much attention to STRIDE in his previous stint at the jail, this time, he explored just about every option. Since he returned to jail in May, Devin has been the quintessential STRIDE student. With his experience in tree work and lawn care, he has been the most effective worker for Deputy Shannon Cowen, who supervises the newly formed work crew. Cowen as a believer in the program. There was a waiting list to be on it, and some of the guys had never held a job before. It was giving them essential experience. Devin impressed Cowen so much that Cowen has offered to be a reference for Devin when he gets out of jail.
Devin’s days were full. He was busy gathering the documents for his re-entry: Social Security card, birth certificate. He attended AA and NA. He took few days off, working in the kitchen from 4:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on days when he wasn’t on a lawnmower.
STRIDE was making a difference. He called Quintieri “Miss Becky.”
Devin has even changed his diet. He doesn’t eat bread, sticking with vegetables and eggs. He’s been working out, and his weight is down to 204.
Devin, with his dad’s help, has already made contacts with people in the community to land a job. He had some good leads, including a virtual guarantee from Lisa Cook, a businesswoman from Bunnell.
Lisa’s own family has been torn apart by drug addiction, and she feels less safe in her home now than she did when she was a kid. But rather than make her feel less willing to hire Devin, seeing the destruction caused by drugs has given her empathy. She knows people need second chances. And she is willing to take a chance on Devin.
***
Then word came to Devin that the baby was coming early. Miss Becky passed messages between Hope in the hospital and Devin at jail, and she tried to get Devin a furlough to be there for the birth, but it didn’t work out. While Devin was in jail, Carter arrived.
Hoped held him in her arms. He was so handsome.
He looked just like Devin — Robert even said so.
This was it. She was ready.
She had known people who had been shooting up while they were pregnant. She knew people who got their kids to pee in a cup for them so they could pass a drug test.
She wasn’t one of those people. If she had been weighing the pros and cons of using before, she wasn’t weighing anything anymore. Who was she to ruin Carter’s life just because she had no self control? No. She had been clean since she found out she was pregnant, and she was going to stay clean. That life was over.
Whether Devin was in it with her for good — she couldn’t base her life on that. As soon as she was healthy enough, she was going to get a job, and she had a friend of a friend who could watch Carter.
She held him close. He didn’t ask to be brought into the world. And she was going to be responsible for him. She was a mom now. It was a feeling. You look at him, and you don’t want anything to happen to him.
***
On the night of Dec. 17, 2018, Devin knew he was down to 29 days left in jail. He and the other inmates were given little green razors so they could shave. Had to turn them back in afterward, and they were tossed in a bin. Routine, routine, routine.
He was thinking of Carter.
And he was also thinking of another child. Someone he had only met once. V was 4 years old and was living in Palm Coast now, with his mother’s parents. He hadn’t been there for V, his son. But he was determined to be there for him now. He had broken the trust of V’s grandparents in the past, but he imagined one day in the future when he might win back that trust. And maybe Devin and Robert could go and pick him up one evening and take him to dinner.
On the morning of Dec. 18, Hope was cradling Carter again. She knew about V, too, but not until recently. It was a shock to find out, and then it was another shock to find out that Devin had been aware of V but hadn’t told Hope.
So all these years, when Devin was strung out and doing drugs, he hadn’t been trying to help take care of V?
Well, that wasn’t going to work.
Sure, it was a weird situation with V’s mom, but that wasn’t V’s fault. Hope wasn’t into baby mama drama, where she would be jealous or want to keep Devin just for herself and for Carter. If Devin was going to be there for Carter, he was going to be there for V, too — as much as V’s grandparents would allow, anyway.
Devin had lied to Hope in the past. She had lied to him, too.
The last time he had come back from jail, they had agreed to stay clean. But they hadn’t. They had gone right back to using.
Would it be different this time? Only a month to go before it would get real, and he’d be home.
She wants to say yes, he’s going to do right. She hopes.
Email Brian McMillan at [email protected].
Editor's Note: This story was corrected Dec. 22. The original story stated Hope Greening was a convicted felon at age 19, but adjudication was withheld. Also, the original story stated Devin McKenna had been arrested or written up 54 times; to be more specific, he was arrested eight times out of 54 total case reports being created. The original story said Hope was 19 when she found out she was pregnant, but she was actually 20.
