What a man freed from a 241-year prison sentence finds strangest of all

Bostic outside a shopping mall in St Louis last month

When Bobby Bostic was released from prison in November, 27 years into a 241-year sentence, lots of things seemed strange.

From wireless earphones ("Why are dudes talking to themselves?"), to people talking to their speaker ("I'm like, what is Alexis?"), to self-service drink machines ("You wave your hand and the water comes out?"), the world is much changed, compared to December 1995.

But strangest of all were the people.

"It's how friendly they are, compared to prison," the 44-year-old says. "You go into a grocery store, and it's 'Sir, can I help you?' In prison, you got nothing but mean mugs [faces] and harassment…"

He is still adjusting to hearing "Hey, how you doing?" instead of "Don't walk too close to me."

"Out here, it's just good things. People smiling. Little kids waving at you. It's like, this is what life is. This is normal. This is how things are supposed to be."

Presumably, then, it's hard to adapt after 27 years of ingrained, institutional aggression…

"No, because deep down inside, you always wanted that humanity. You wanted that human connection…that's life. That's beauty. That's the joy of being a human."

After almost 10,000 nights in a cell, November 8, 2022, was Bostic's last. But he was too busy dreaming of freedom to sleep.

Instead, he spent the long, dark night packing his cell. He left his possessions for other prisoners, but kept one thing. His typewriter held too many memories - too many stories - to leave behind.

At sunlight, with his cell packed, he looked at the board setting out which prisoners were moving cells. Next to his name was one word: released.

"It wasn't real until I seen the words," he says. "When I did, it was like music to my soul."

His departure now a reality, Bostic put on his going-home outfit. After 27 years in grey prison-wear, he had chosen a three-piece blue suit.

"It represents the new chapter of my life," he says. "The new business of life."

Twenty-five years earlier, Judge Evelyn Baker told Bostic he would "die in the department of corrections". But now, at 7.30am on a November morning, Bobby walked out of prison a free man, his suit and smile as bright as the Missouri sunshine.

As he did, a woman in a black hat stepped forward to hug him. Her name was Judge Evelyn Baker.

The journey that ended with a hug outside prison began in December 1995, on a long, drug-fuelled day in St Louis.

After drinking gin, and smoking weed and PCP, the 16-year-old Bostic and his friend Donald Hutson went on an armed robbery spree. They stole from a group giving Christmas presents to the needy. They fired a gun (not causing injury, thankfully). They took a car from a woman at gunpoint.

Bostic was offered deals if he pleaded guilty, including a 30-year sentence with the chance of parole. He turned them down. He was, of course, found guilty. Judge Baker gave him consecutive sentences for his 17 crimes, adding up to 241 years.

Hutson took a deal, pleaded guilty, and got 30 years.

When the BBC first interviewed Bostic in 2018, he had glimmers of hope. In 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled that juveniles should not get life sentences without parole for non-homicidal offences. In 2016, it was confirmed the ruling should apply to past cases, such as Bostic's.

• The teenager sentenced to 241 years in prison

But the state of Missouri was unwilling to release Bostic. It argued, in effect, that he didn't have a life sentence - he had multiple sentences, for multiple crimes, that happened at once.

It even claimed he had the chance of parole in "extreme old age".

In April 2018, a month after the BBC interview, the US Supreme Court dismissed Bostic's appeal. It did not say why.

"Most people at that time will give up," Bostic says. "Once they deny you, there's nothing left."

But Bostic did not give up. He went back to his self-help books - Napoleon Hill is a favourite - and back to his typewriter. The hope stayed alive, one letter at a time.

It was an amendment to a new Missouri law, offering parole to prisoners given long sentences as children, that gave Bostic another chance.

Yet by 14 May 2021 - the last day of Missouri's legislative session - it had still not passed.

"I didn't have a lot of faith," Bostic says. "Usually, if it doesn't pass by January or February, there's no chance of it getting there."

And then Bostic got a message from a pen-pal.

"The prison started letting us get emails," Bostic says. "Someone emailed me an article in the Missouri Independent, telling me the law had actually passed…it was a miracle. I was like, man is it going to really happen? Is the governor going to sign?"

The governor, Mike Parson, did sign. Thanks to "Bobby's Law", Bostic - and hundreds of others - became eligible for parole. Bostic's hearing was set for November 2021.

"But I didn't know what to expect," he says. "The parole board is not a get out of jail free card."

At hearings, inmates are allowed one delegate to help them. Bostic knew who to ask - the judge who told him he would die in prison.

Judge Baker - who, in 1983, became the first black woman appointed judge in Missouri - began to question Bostic's sentence around 2010, two years after retiring, when reading about the difference between teenage and adult brains. In her 25-year career, it is the only sentence she regrets.

In February 2018, she wrote an article for the Washington Post, calling Bostic's sentence "benighted and unjust". A month later, she spoke to the BBC, repeating the message.

So what did she say in the parole hearing?

"Bobby was a 16-year-old child who I treated as a full-fledged adult, which was wrong," she tells the BBC now. "I've gotten close to Bobby and his sister. I've seen him turn from basically a juvenile delinquent into a very thoughtful, caring adult. He grew up."

As well as Judge Baker, one of Bostic's victims from 1995 wrote to support his case (the BBC has previously contacted some of Bostic and Hutson's victims, but none wished to speak publicly). With their help, the parole hearing was successful.

"If I could have turned cartwheels, I would have," Judge Baker says.

It meant, exactly one year after the parole hearing, the person she hugged on that sunny November morning was a free man.

"That was like Christmas, New Year, every holiday rolled into one," she says. "I started crying. Bobby was free."

Judge Evelyn Baker meeting Bobby Bostic inside prison in 2020

After meeting Judge Baker, plus friends, relatives, and supporters, Bostic went to eat his first non-prison meal since 1995. A vegan for 24 years, he chose an Impossible Taco. But there was a problem.

"I got in the car and threw up my whole meal," he says. "When you leave prison, you haven't rolled on the highway for 27 years. There's this thing called motion sickness."

After recovering, he went to his sister's house on the south-side of St Louis, the city where he grew up. Over the day, he says, more than 400 people came to greet him.

"They were lined up round the block," he says. "When I turned this way, I shook this person's hand, this cousin, this aunty, this uncle, this friend… I was up until two in the morning."

Yet the outside world was not a never-ending party. There was, you could say, some motion sickness.

Bobby and his sister run a charity, Dear Mama, which gives food, toys, and other support to low-income families in St Louis (it is named after his late mother Diane who, Bobby says, "gave to lots of people, even though we didn't have much"). He runs a writing workshop every Thursday at the city's juvenile detention centre, and hopes to do more. But like the charity, it is voluntary work.

His gets money from book sales - he has seven on Amazon, all written on his prison typewriter - and occasionally from giving talks. From that, he rents a one-bedroom apartment and pays bills.

"What I'm doing now, I'm barely surviving," he admits.

He hopes to get a full-time job in community work, or youth outreach, and is interviewing for roles. Yet - even if money is tight - it does not diminish his wonder, or gratitude, for the outside world.

"I'm still wrestling with a few things," he says. "But other than that, life out here is beautiful, every day. I go through the fridge and look at the variety of things to pick from. A soak in the bath tub - I haven't taken a bath in 27 years! I don't take nothing for granted, nothing."

So Bostic has a second chance of life, and is grateful for it. But his partner on that day in December 1995 does not.

Donald Hutson - who took the deal and got 30 years - died in prison in September 2018. A toxicology report blamed a drug overdose. He was eligible for parole nine months later.