Sunday Mornings with Big Mitch: Ep. 12
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, every Sunday, Our American Stories host Lee Habeeb speaks with Mitchel “Big Mitch” Rutledge, who has spent more than forty years serving a life sentence in Alabama for killing a man. Mitch has never denied his crime or offered excuses for it. Instead, their conversations focus on what responsibility, faith, and accountability look like when lived out behind prison walls.
In this episode, the discussion continues with Lee’s longtime friend Bo, who is grappling with the fallout of infidelity. This time, Bo’s wife Donna joins the conversation, sharing her own struggle to remain grounded in faith while navigating betrayal and uncertainty.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. |
| 0:19.2 | This next story is about a friend of mine. We're close in age, but have |
| 0:24.0 | little else in common. Mitchell Rutledge, aka Big Mitch, was born black and poor in Georgia. |
| 0:31.1 | I was born kind of brown and middle class in New Jersey. He never met his father. I still talk to my 94-year-old father every week. |
| 0:41.0 | He dropped out of high school in his early teens and was illiterate into his early 20s. |
| 0:46.3 | I was surrounded by books growing up and finished graduate school in my early 30s. |
| 0:52.6 | Big Mitch spent the last 44 years of his life in Alabama prisons for killing a man. |
| 0:59.2 | But this is not a story about an innocent man sentenced to prison for a crime he didn't commit. |
| 1:06.2 | Big Mitch never denied the crime or made excuses for it. |
| 1:16.6 | This is the story of my friend's spiritual transformation while serving his life sentence. It's also about a friendship only God could have engineered, |
| 1:20.6 | a friendship that began with a single Sunday morning call. |
| 1:24.6 | Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come to know and love him as much as I do. |
| 1:31.2 | Here's episode number 12, our conversation on April 7, 2024. |
| 1:36.7 | A few episodes ago, we heard from one of my close friends, Bo, as he sought counsel from |
| 1:42.5 | Big Mitch regarding his struggle with infidelity. |
| 1:45.9 | Today we hear his wife Donna's perspective as she discusses her side of this story with Mitch. |
| 1:52.1 | Here's Donna. |
| 1:54.0 | This is a free call from... |
| 1:56.1 | Mitchell Rutnitch. |
| 1:58.5 | An incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections to accept this free call press one to |
... |
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