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The FRONTLINE Dispatch

Update: Living With Murder

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

News

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2019

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Part Three of the Living With Murder Series.

In December 2017, after serving 30 years of his life sentence, Kempis Songster left Graterford Prison on lifetime parole.

A lot has happened since then. He now lives in Philadelphia. He’s working, married and became a father.  One year after Reporter/Producer Samantha Broun and Kempis Songster stopped recording their conversations for the Living with Murder series, they return with this series’ update on what Kempis’ life looks like today. This story was produced in collaboration with the public radio website Transom.org.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm Rainey Aronson, executive producer of the PBS series Front Line, and this is a special update episode of the Frontline

0:08.8

Dispatch. If you haven't already listened to our series, Living with Murder.

0:13.4

I'd recommend listening to that first.

0:16.7

The Front Line Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation Journalism Initiative,

0:21.3

committed to excellence.

0:23.2

The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation, committed to excellence

0:27.8

in journalism, and by the Frontline Journalism Fund with major support from John and Joanne Hagler.

0:34.0

Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center,

0:38.5

dedicated to providing the latest therapies and cancer specialists who are experienced in your cancer.

0:43.4

When you hear the word cancer, their team is ready.

0:46.1

Learn more at mass general.org

0:48.7

slash cancer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reporter Samantha Brown and Juvenile Lifeer Campus Songster stopped recording their conversations just over a year ago, but they remained in touch.

1:01.0

A lot has happened since. More than a thousand juvenile

1:05.1

lifers across the country have been resentence including campus. After serving 30

1:11.6

years of his life sentence he left Greaterford Prison on December 28th, 2017 on lifetime parole.

1:19.5

That means he will now be overseen by the criminal justice system for the rest of his life.

1:25.9

He now lives in Philadelphia.

1:27.9

He's working.

1:29.0

He is married and just a few weeks ago, he became a father.

1:34.2

I think they opened my cell at about four in the morning.

1:37.6

And I walked out of the prison doors at 7 a.m. in the morning and so I walked across the parking lot. I was set free and I remember

1:47.5

one of the questions that I was asked by a reporter was how do I feel and I said I don't know how to feel because I'm

...

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