Life After Prison: From Court Dates to Kitchen Plates

Life After Prison: From Court Dates to Kitchen Plates

By: April Nicole

About the Life After Series
If you’re new here, Life After is a blog series featuring 15 women, 15 battles, and one powerful truth: there is life after. Through heartbreak, healing, and hard-won hope, Coach Jaleesa’s Happy Wife Happy Life is honored to help share their stories with the world.

Foreword by Coach Jaleesa

I met April after her prison sentence while we were working at McDonald’s, and I would’ve never guessed the journey she had been on. She was and still is focused, kind, funny, and full of potential. When she shared her testimony with me, I was in awe—not just because of what she had been through, but because of how powerfully God had transformed her life.

April is living proof that redemption is real. She’s not just surviving—she’s thriving, leading, and inspiring. Watching her grow from fast food manager to ministry-minded visionary and chef has been nothing short of amazing.

Her story will challenge your assumptions. But more than anything, it will remind you that no one is too far gone from grace—and no purpose is too lost for God to restore.

Searching for the Real Me

If I could describe my life thus far, I would conclude that it has been a series of events and quest to find the real April! Even as a child, I could never be myself! I was always lying and trying to fit in. I remember my early childhood being fun and secure. Daddy was always home. All of a sudden, Daddy was in and out, and my Mommy was always short and stressed out. However, Church was always there. No matter what went on during the week, there would still be church on Sunday.

During the week Daddy sat in his favorite chair and drank his 40 ounce malt liquor. Wanting some attention, I would say, “Give me some!”, and he would! Even as a child, I thought it tasted so good. As his alcoholism progressed, I accidentally stepped in his vomit too many times while trying to make my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Even in the early stages of it all, I had to stay strong and make sure everyone believed I was okay.

I experienced a lot of addiction through my adolescent and teenage years from various family members. They used mostly crack, and drank alcohol. Weed, pills, and alcohol were my drugs of choice. My life was out of control. I really just wanted to die. I didn’t care about anything anymore, and no one knew how I really felt. But simultaneously I always felt like I was meant to do something great. But I was still a church girl by day, and the party girl and sex machine by night. So I surrendered to the Church in me, not the Lord, but the Church.

The Church Girl and the Party Life

For some strange reason, teaching God’s Word always came easy to me. I would wake up in the middle of the night in prayer, and I didn’t even realize I was praying until it awakened me. I could hear the voice of the Lord calling me. I didn’t understand how or why He would even attempt to communicate with me because I was living carnally.

The day finally came. All of my family, friends, and my man at the time came to support me at my initial sermon. I thought it was no way out. I had too much pride to tell everyone that I couldn’t do it. God allowed me to preach. I was so scared. So scared that I had to smoke a blunt on my way back to Richmond where I lived at the time. If God decided to strike me down with lightening, maybe I wouldn’t feel it since I was high.

Now I’m a licensed minister working at Wachovia Bank. Since I was financially supporting my man and partying so much, Wachovia wasn’t doing it for me any longer. At the time I didn’t believe it was a good idea to pay my bills…..just live it up……party, party, party let’s all get wasted. So I had another job opportunity with a company called Suncom. But since I failed the drug screening, that fell through. My normal cleansing concoction didn’t work that time! Rent is overdue! What happened to my man? No one can know I’ve failed…..again!!!

Modified bank robbery sounded good and easy. I knew what to do, and how to do it since I had worked at a bank and all. Why would I go inside and rob the bank, when I could position my car in a certain way in drive-through. After all, if I sent a threatening note to the teller saying I had a gun, she would have to honor my request, or she could lose her job! After five robberies, it finally caught up with me.

Facing Time

On January 22, 2004, I was arrested for 21 indictments including robbery, illegal possession of a gun, and grand larceny, with no bond. The hand of the Lord was all over my case. But I still lied terribly. "Don’t worry Mom and Dad, I was set up! Come on! Me? Rob a bank? I’m a minister for God’s sake!" Evidence continued to pile up, and I continued to lie. I was in deep denial, I started to believe my own lies.

I stayed in jail for 33 days, and a circuit court judge granted me a bond. I was found guilty on May 25, 2004 for five counts of grand larceny and three counts of robbery and I was back in jail. Some of the same women were there. All of the evidence proved I committed the crimes, and I still lied. My sentencing was set for October 2004.

I was sitting in jail with bunkmates kicking herion, attending all these bible studies, and singing in church…the conviction was tearing me apart. Everyone was asking me to please pray for them and their cases because they just knew I knew the Lord. And the Lord was answering prayers left and right, so the prayer requests kept coming. Next I found myself surrounded by women who wanted to learn more about the Bible. They just knew I could teach them since I seemed so knowledgeable in the Bible studies.

I could never understand why or how God could allow me to be well versed in the Word, and still lying to everyone. The Bible studies were growing and the prayer requests for court cases kept coming. Somehow my prayers still seem to get answered. "God, how could you still be so good to me after all I’ve done? How could You?" Too ashamed to pick up the phone to confess, I wrote a letter to my Mom and Dad telling them the entire truth, which they already knew anyway! Five days later I called home, and they didn’t throw me away.

Doing the Time

Many women who end up in prison have burned many bridges with their families and children, and were on their own. I thank the Lord for support and unconditional love, because it could have been different for me. October 2004 came around and I was sentenced to 55 years with 47 suspended for my eight felonies. I had to do 8 years of prison time. Later, I learned that the time would be reduced to 6 years and 10 months if I behaved while in prison.

In January 2005, I was transported to a maximum security prison called Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. Prison was totally different from jail. I started learning trades, and there was much more movement. It was finally nice to be able to touch my family and friends during visitation, and not have visits staring through the glass at the jail. After Fluvanna, I was transported to three different prisons. At each prison, God would miraculously show me favor. I ended up with the best jobs to have for being a prisoner. I worked in the community; I took college classes, learned more trades, directed the church choir, and facilitated groups. At times, I still felt guilty and still so ashamed. My family remained supportive. I made amends with a lot of people I had hurt. I still made mistakes, even while doing time, but God was so faithful to me regardless.

Release and Rebuilding

Doing time was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Battling depression, the lonely nights crying to yourself, asking God to please fix you so that you wouldn’t have to come back and experience it again. You’re constantly looking over your shoulder. You never know what’s going to happen from minute to minute. The constant thoughts of feeling like an outcast, and feeling like you’ve been thrown away, even with support. You feel forgotten and lost a lot of the times. I felt like I was on the bottom of the totem pole of society.

Some of the officers would try to take advantage and befriend you, offer to put money on your books, and do kind favors for you. Some days I felt like I was going crazy, and that it would just be easier to have a nervous breakdown, and finish my time in the mental unit doped up on antidepressants. But I knew that I had to feel every ounce of the weight. God kept me in spite of how I felt. On the up side, prison was very clean, because we had to keep it that way. We worked tirelessly just to be able to get out of our living units, and we got paid $0.23-$0.80, depending on your job and security level.

For those who could work, or had outside financial support, we looked forward to commissary so that we could have a chance to feel normal and cook food we actually liked. What a blessing to be able to order body wash, and hair products and accessories from outside vendors.

Moving Forward

I was so blessed because I had so much support. My family stuck by me. They did the time with me. They missed me, as much as I missed them. During my last 6 months of my sentence, I entered a pre-release program in Brunswick, Virginia. I was assigned a Clinical Social Worker who gave me a treatment plan to complete before my release date of March 9, 2011.

I thought that I had worked on a lot of things, but the treatment plan revealed more things that I needed to address. Those last 6 months were tough to handle. I had 3 problem statements to conquer:

• Miss Davis has a history of drug use and criminal behavior.
• Miss Davis needs to continue to work on herself and grow as a woman.
• Miss Davis will be releasing soon.

In order to resolve these problems, I had to:

• Examine personal choices and look at a new way of living.
• Examine my life and improve myself.
• Look at my plans for my future.

You see, thinking about the above problems and solutions were truly scary. But when you want to get to the root of a problem, going deep inside of yourself is necessary. The clinical program changed my life, and made me aware of bad choices, and realizing that I could never allow myself to get so disconnected again.

After I was released, I looked for a job, like it was my job. At times I felt so paranoid and ashamed. I felt like everyone was staring at me when I went out in public. I didn’t realize how much my story affected others, and how much I was actually missed. When I was turned down for jobs, it was hard to see the look on the interviewer’s faces when they would read the answer to the infamous question…. "Do you have a record?". On April 24, 2011, I was hired by McDonald's. By August of that year, I became a manager. Even after robbing 5 banks, I had full access to the safe. I’ve progressed in my career, and my future as a Chef is coming to fruition.

I got married on April 14, 2012. A lot of people rejected this idea at first because I had only been out for one year, but I knew I was in love, and I knew what God had told me concerning the marriage. This year, my husband and I will celebrate 5 years of marriage.

I’ve made some mistakes, and they were learning opportunities and experiences for me. I have learned that being institutionalized is not bringing prison habits to the outside world, but it’s believing that you can function in the outside world as a productive citizen. It’s believing that you can accomplish your goals and dreams. It’s believing that you can carry out the plans that the Lord has for you.

You see, it can be very easy to be successful in prison because there are less temptations and distractions. Many men and women continue to go back to prison because they cannot fathom how to be productive on the outside and stay focused. Or they believe that God couldn’t possibly work on their behalf because of their failures. Last year, I had the opportunity to go back inside and minister to the women. It was a very emotional experience…..traumatizing in some ways! But after the initial shock, I was okay!

This is something that I plan to do again, and I know it’s going to be a constant thing. Now I’m working on holding reunions for women who have done time. I think about the crimes I committed, and the time I did every day. But I quickly remind myself that the Lord has big plans for me within His Kingdom.

I wish I could have learned this lesson another way, but everything I experienced and did was for a reason far bigger than I could ever imagine. I refuse to be a repeat offender. I refuse to give up. I refuse to believe that God does not have a purpose for me.

And I know that if I continue to realize my life is not my own, and surrender to the will of God, he will continue to redeem the time in which I lost, and He will continue to restore everything in my life. I do not live by what I see, but I walk by faith, fully trusting God to continue to reveal his plans for me, despite my past! He’s done it already! I praise and thank the Lord for being a successful, eight time felon!