By Ariana Erickson–
Don Allison was staring down the barrel of a gun. The man pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through Don’s leg, missing a major artery by inches. He barely survived.
“If it nicks that artery, you’d bleed out in about four to five minutes,” Don says.
The man holding the gun was Marcus Cheffen, who admits that before that incident, he had never shot nor robbed anybody before.
“I could’ve taken that man’s life; it still haunts me,” Marcus says.
Caught and convicted within a day, Marcus received a 95-year prison sentence.
“I thought I’d never see the outside of prison again,” he remembers.
Inside Angola State Penitentiary, Marcus was forced to confront himself. Surrounded by hopelessness, he began to change, learning trade, becoming a barber and serving others, even changing the diapers of old men. He wrote letters to Don again and again, expressing remorse.
“I was trying to tell him how sorry I was,” Marcus says. “Accountability and sorry are two different things; you can say you’re sorry but not take accountability of what you did.”
But Don wasn’t ready to forgive.
“I wanted him to stay in prison for the rest of his life, despite those letters,” Don admits.
Years passed.
Then one day, after a parole hearing, Don’s wife asked him a simple, piercing question: Do you think you did the right thing?
Those words sent Don on a journey toward forgiveness.
The victim returned to seek healing.
Don entered the Louisiana victim-offender dialogue program, where he and Marcus sat face-to-face. They talked for eight hours.
Marcus confessed everything.
He wept.
He apologized to Don’s wife and daughters.
Marcus never expected Don to forgive him.
However, that meeting softened Don’s heart.
At the same time, Don was experiencing his own transformation. He felt called by God to become a deacon in the Catholic Church, a calling that opened the door to mercy.
At Marcus’s next parole hearing, Don stood up and said the words that changed both of their lives: “I have forgiven Marcus. He deserves a second chance.”
Marcus walked out of prison after 24 years.
“I felt like a new creation,” Marcus says. “Like God gave me my life back.”
Until this day, Don and Marcus serve together through the Louisiana Parole Project, helping others escape the same darkness that once trapped them. Don was ordained a deacon in 2023 and chose prison ministry as his mission.
Serving God and serving others is what fills them both with joy. They encourage the men behind bars, lift them up, and share hope with those who believe they have none.
Related content: A sword not a knife at Angola, an app specifically for prisons saves 1M, he competed against Tiger Woods until he wound up in jail Source: CBS Mornings.
