Jon Yount and Diane Brodbeck

[justins5256]

Watched this story again recently, yesterday in fact. I still can't understand why this seemingly happy church-going wife and mother basically threw everything away to help a convicted murderer escape from prison.

Just doing some searching on Google I found some interesting sites about Jon Yount. Apparently he's looking for another penpal:

http://www.prisoners.com/mfyount.html

http://www.prisoners.com/yountad1.html

Some articles about his capture:

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive...88dnews-10.asp

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive...88dnews-05.asp

[SageSlowdive]

I know...it was so obvious from the beginning she helped him escape.

[justins5256]

Originally Posted by SageSlowdive

I know...it was so obvious from the beginning she helped him escape.

I was surprised to learn that Diane's husband, Chester, died several years ago. I can't help but wonder if she ever contacted Jon Yount again.

[MegtheEgg86]

It's difficult for me to wrap my mind around why Diane Brodbeck would want to help Jon Yount escape prison, too.

About the only thing I can imagine is that Diane was somehow convinced that Jon was a "changed man", that he didn't need to be in prison anymore, regardless of what his sentence proscribed. Whether she came to this conclusion completely on her own, or he coaxed and cajoled her into believing it--that it was HIS initial suggestion--could be anyone's guess, I suppose.

Another thing I could envision is Diane being "bored" with her marriage, or maybe she didn't feel appreciated by her husband. Maybe the idea of having a romantic relationship with a prisoner brought her some sense of excitement, a huge thrill. As was shown on UM, he did write her dramatic, extensive love letters. She may have gotten caught up in the desperately romantic notion of being in love with someone who would be perpetually separated from her--that is, unless she could free him from his "chains." I think lots of women who assist male prisoners in escape fall victim to this particular syndrome.

Things I'm nearly certain of, however:

1. Jon Yount did not threaten Diane into helping him escape.

2. Diane Brodbeck is not a psychopath, eager to help a convicted rapist and murderer out of prison so he can continue his crimes.

[SageSlowdive]

I think she simply was in love with him...

Her husband came off as being a bit hard to live with (RIP) but that still didn't mean she needed to help him escape.

[wiseguy182]

I can't remember if it was this one, or one of the similar type segments, but they basically explained why a person like Diane would fall in love with someone like John as this: A person who is imprisoned, more or less, has all the time in the world. That is to say, John can write these letters and pour all of this attention on Diane because he has the time to. Whereas most people in society would not have near that amount of time. Diane was basically John's entire world and I think this flattered her. I'm not saying I agree that that's the way it should be, but that is probably what happened.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I can't remember if it was this one, or one of the similar type segments, but they basically explained why a person like Diane would fall in love with someone like John as this: A person who is imprisoned, more or less, has all the time in the world. That is to say, John can write these letters and pour all of this attention on Diane because he has the time to. Whereas most people in society would not have near that amount of time. Diane was basically John's entire world and I think this flattered her. I'm not saying I agree that that's the way it should be, but that is probably what happened.

I have a simpler explanation: bored, unsatisfied housewife feeling the thrill of being seduced by a bad boy with all the time in the world to wedge himself in her desires. She wanted to live a more adventurous life, like some sort of Bonnie and Clyde fantasy, and framed it in her mind as being "in love" with Jon Yount.

People in love are capable to do anything, even criminal nonsensical things, for their mates, and those with abhorrent personalities or unfulfilled needs are capable to hurt, kill, and commit all kinds of felonies to join, protect, or satisfy their loved ones. What we call Love is a brain chemical and hormonal reaction, it's worse than crack and cocaine combined for someone "in love". Our brains are literally hijacked during the time we are under passion, and it can lead some of us to do totally immoral things.

If it hadn't been Jon Yount, it would have a been the mailman or the neighbor. However, Yount had the special something that he was a dangerous, carefree, confident, and assertive male to her, yet safe and capable of protecting her and excite her - as long as she was submissive to him.

[MissFit29]

They mentioned that Diane and Chester had been married for 25 years, and she was 43 years old. That means she got married at age 18. Basically, she went from her parents straight to her husband. I don't know about anyone else, but those early 20s are really formative years, and I'm of the opinion that you need to do some living on your own during that time. Maybe she felt she got married too young, was bored, regretted her decision later in life, etc. Her daughters could have been old enough to be out of the house, and the empty nest was too much. Maybe she just didn't like Chester anymore. Who knows? But yeah, if it hadn't been John Yount, it would have been someone else.

[DarkDante]

Watched this again last night and for me I believe that Jon Yount and Diane Brodbeck actually loved each other. I don't think he brainwashed her in any way and he obviously didn't threaten her as Chester alleged in the segment. I just think the two of them connected.

You have to remember with Jon Yount that he was an educated man who as far as I'm aware up until the time that he murdered Pamela Sue Rimer didn't have a history of violence. I think I read somewhere where Yount said the reason he killed Rimer was that he tried to make sexual advances towards her and she started acting hysterical and things deteriorated from there. That obviously doesn't excuse what Yount did but the point I'm trying to make is that prior to murdering Rimer, Yount's line was probably more in life with that of an average citizen than a stone hard killer.

This is borne out by the fact that once Yount had escaped from prison both he and Brodbeck easily assimilated back into society and I believe Diane may have had several character witnesses at her sentencing hearing talking about positive things that she and Jon had done for others during their time on the run.

This being said I could easily see why Diane Brodbeck fell in love with Jon Yount. He was probably a very attentive, well spoken, likeable person who if you didn't know about his grizzly past probably wouldn't grab you as someone capable of taking a human life.

[WishfulDreamer]

I believe she was in love with him, and probably very drawn to him. He probably had very good rhetoric and before murdering had been well-liked.

I think the scum should have fried. "You have no idea what it's like being in a car with a hysterical 18-year-old" Nice excuse, Yount. So your manparts just happened to get inside her while in such a situation? Same excuse for the killing?

Of course, I doubt Diane knew it from the real point-of-view. He probably told her it was an accident or that he was sorry, etc. and she was drawn in enough to believe him/accept him.

What really saddens me is that this woman was married for 25 years to a man (who apparently loved her enough to stay with her after this) and had a mother and children left behind as well, worried sick, hurt, confused.

[rarjake]

I feel kind of stupid, posting in this thread which is feel old.
But I just have to say, after researching John E Yount, he sounds like a changed man, who had one moment of rage.
He really effected lifes of everyday americans, through his lawsuits, and made people pay attention to how states gerrymander districts with prisions.

I research him after watching the case on my personal collection. Sad to say that he committed suicide at age 73. What I found interesting in reading about him about him, the author says. At the time he was sentenced to life, it really didn't mean life. And that many people had their sentences communted starting at 7 years, and almost all had their cases communted after 20. John got denied again after 20 years. Which may have stirred him up.

Also, the unsolved mystereis piece did not go into this at all. His trail sounds like a sham. His first trail was thrown out because they didn't read him his rights fast enough and they couldn't used what he said. Then in his second trail they used members of the jury who said openly in court they have a bias, and made up their mind. This is what made john appeal the case, a lower court sided with john, for a new trail. However the SCOTUS decided no, the verdict stands.

I feel, like John, should have been paroled a very long time ago. It is sad to see someone make one mistake and pay for it the rest of their life. We have some sense of retribution in this country, that since he killed someone he should suffer. Which I don't agree with one bit.

anyways i could go on and on about this case, but here is the actual article
http://seemydeath.com/suicides/3304-...#axzz2YLcbYHyc

At amazes me that he was involved in so many court cases.

Even when he escaped to Idaho, it sounds like he used his talents to help the poor and the sick. To me, it makes no sense why this guys sentence was not commuted. Esp. after all the positive things he did while in prison.

Sorry for rambling,.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by rarjake

I feel kind of stupid, posting in this thread which is feel old.
But I just have to say, after researching John E Yount, he sounds like a changed man, who had one moment of rage.
He really effected lifes of everyday americans, through his lawsuits, and made people pay attention to how states gerrymander districts with prisions.

I research him after watching the case on my personal collection. Sad to say that he committed suicide at age 73. What I found interesting in reading about him about him, the author says. At the time he was sentenced to life, it really didn't mean life. And that many people had their sentences communted starting at 7 years, and almost all had their cases communted after 20. John got denied again after 20 years. Which may have stirred him up.

Also, the unsolved mystereis piece did not go into this at all. His trail sounds like a sham. His first trail was thrown out because they didn't read him his rights fast enough and they couldn't used what he said. Then in his second trail they used members of the jury who said openly in court they have a bias, and made up their mind. This is what made john appeal the case, a lower court sided with john, for a new trail. However the SCOTUS decided no, the verdict stands.

I feel, like John, should have been paroled a very long time ago. It is sad to see someone make one mistake and pay for it the rest of their life. We have some sense of retribution in this country, that since he killed someone he should suffer. Which I don't agree with one bit.

anyways i could go on and on about this case, but here is the actual article
http://seemydeath.com/suicides/3304-...#axzz2YLcbYHyc

At amazes me that he was involved in so many court cases.

Even when he escaped to Idaho, it sounds like he used his talents to help the poor and the sick. To me, it makes no sense why this guys sentence was not commuted. Esp. after all the positive things he did while in prison.

Sorry for rambling,.

That is the single most revolting thing I've ever read. Jon Yount raped and killed a little girl and you're making him out to be some kind of saint and chalk it up to "one mistake". Boo freaking hoo he spent the rest of his life in prison, he deserved to. Get in touch with reality.

[rarjake]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

That is the single most revolting thing I've ever read. Jon Yount raped and killed a little girl and you're making him out to be some kind of saint and chalk it up to "one mistake". Boo freaking hoo he spent the rest of his life in prison, he deserved to. Get in touch with reality.

After being in prison for 20 years, he wasn't a threat to anyone. And as i stated above his work, and the fact that other mens sentences were commuted after twenty years, should of been enough. Just read the article about his accomplishments and tell me what you think, before you want to bash my head in.

Originally Posted by dissentmagazine

Yount’s Campaigns

Over the years Yount’s energetic personality and deep-seated commitment to change helped him build a broad network of friends, lawyers, and prison-reform advocates who respected his depth of analysis and strategic vision. Peter Wagner, now Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), credits Yount’s research with framing the mission of his project back in the late 1990s. At the time, Wagner was a young researcher investigating the ways in which those devising census rules and regulations manipulated prison populations by a process that has come to be known as “prison-based gerrymandering.” According to census-taking policy, incarcerated people are counted as residents of the city where their prison is located, not where they lived before they were locked up.

While criminal justice reformers struggled to figure out what the census bureau’s prison count meant, an extensive study by Yount in 1998 zeroed in on the crucial aspect of the practice: the demarcation of state legislative districts. In some state districts, up to 10 percent of the population was made up of people behind bars who could not vote, diluting the votes of every resident in the state who did not live next to a large prison. Legislators with large prisons in their districts could then use their extra political clout to push for longer sentences and more prison construction. In addition to playing a major role in the formation of the PPI, Yount’s refocusing of the census issue influenced successful legislative campaigns in states like New York, Maryland, Delaware, and California. For more than a decade, Yount served on the PPI’s advisory board and communicated regularly with Wagner on this issue.

Yount’s second major legal focus was combating the excessive phone charges that Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections (DOC) levied against people inside. Without access to cellphones or email, those incarcerated remain crucially dependent on their prison’s suite of landlines to communicate with families, friends, and legal representatives. Yount’s research in the early 2000s revealed that the charges for this monopoly service were massively inflated, garnering super-profits for the provider, T-Netix. Yount’s investigation also revealed the hypocrisy behind this practice: at the same time that the DOC touted the importance of phone communication for keeping people in touch with their families, it was taking kickbacks from T-Netix. According to Yount’s submission to the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, the DOC received more than $3 million in a single year for this collusion with the company. This practice outraged the Utilities Commission, and it ruled in favor of Yount’s appeal, forcing a refund of inappropriate charges.

But even more far-reaching than the phone charges case was Yount’s participation in Mixon v. Commonwealth, which expanded the voting rights of those with felony convictions. Before this case, a person who served time for a felony in Pennsylvania could not cast a ballot for five years after their release if they had not registered to vote before entering prison. In collaboration with attorney Sam Stretton, who filed the actual suit in 2000, Yount turned the law upside down, giving all people on parole in Pennsylvania voting rights.

Yount managed to produce a vast number of legal documents from the confines of his cell, where at best he was armed only with an electric typewriter. Jim Scofield, an English teacher at a local college who visited Yount over the course of several years, recalled Yount’s battles to obtain a simple correction tape for the typewriter. Despite many attempts by Scofield and others to supply the tape or connect with vendors, the prison authorities refused to cooperate. Yount was confined to correcting the errors on his submissions with whatever material the underground prison economy could provide. But technical obstacles didn’t stop Jon Yount.

What Motivated Jon Yount?

Yount’s legal success was rooted in his personal transformation. Though not inclined toward self-promotion or written reflection, there are a few clues to this process in his writings, and more can be gleaned from those who knew him. To begin with, he rejected simple notions of remorse, arguing that after a long time in prison, “if you just sit around all the time and try to find out what’s wrong with yourself, instead of looking for positive things that you bring to this world, you end up being a much lesser individual than you are capable of and [less] than society wants you to be.”

Stretton saw an additional factor at work: Yount, he said, “loved freedom.” Unlike most people with a life sentence, he did taste freedom briefly. When he first entered prison, the average term for a person doing life for first-degree murder was twelve years. In 1986, after he had spent nearly two decades behind bars as a model citizen, he became frustrated by repeated denials of his requests for sentence commutation. One afternoon he escaped from a minimum-security facility with his lover, Diane Brodbeck, a local housewife and mother of two who had been one of Yount’s regular visitors. For two-and-a-half years, using the name Jim Forsgren, Yount lived in Idaho where he and Diane established themselves as caring and responsible citizens of the community. However, when his case appeared on the network TV series Unsolved Mysteries, a neighbor turned them in. Though his Idaho landlord and other neighbors assured the courts they would provide Yount with housing and welcome him back to their community, the authorities refused to commute his life sentence. Yount was to be stuck inside forever. In prison parlance, he was “through with money.” Whatever freedom he would taste would be vicarious, the freedom he could help procure for others via his legal work.

Jon Yount’s Anti-Racist Legacy

While Yount’s major documented successes were in the courts, he ultimately came to locate his research within a broader social justice framework. He was not merely what people inside call a “legal beagle.” Scofield noted that Yount read widely and was thrilled to receive a subscription to the Nation, which he shared with his colleagues. “Jon was aware of things beyond his own circumstances,” Scofield observed. He saw “the problems of poverty in the country and the pseudo-class system.”

Yount’s reflections on the racial dimensions of the U.S. criminal justice system are the best testament to the breadth of his political vision. Long before Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow brought notions of the racialized nature of mass incarceration into the public eye, Yount compiled a systematic analysis of the racial politics of incarceration in Pennsylvania in his 1998 essay, “Felon Disenfranchisement: Pennsylvania’s Sinister Face of Vote Dilution.” In this work he spoke out candidly about the role of politicians in racializing incarceration:

A commonly expressed indictment of politicians is that they collectively respond only to money and/or votes. Unfortunately, the growing number of incarcerated Black and Hispanic felons has little of the former and none of the latter!

The essay went on to condemn the increasing rates of incarceration at the time as a “systemic predation upon minorities,” which Yount categorized as “an invidious form of gerrymandering that substantially dilutes the access of minorities to the ballot as well as to preferred representation in government.” Yount then issued a call to action, urging the disenfranchised to “join with community-based, minority-interest groups in a judicial challenge to this invidious agenda…”

“I want to be free.”

Although Yount remained a model of prisoner discipline after his escape and return to prison, his uncompromising advocacy eventually caught up with him. Ironically, the Pennsylvania authorities transferred him from Huntingdon to a remote maximum-security facility in Greene County not after his escape and re-arrest, but after his resounding victory in the phone charges litigation in 2008. Yount called his new home “Siberia-South.” There, separated from the members of the Lifers’ Group who had provided him sustenance for so many years and far from those who visited him regularly, Yount sunk into depression, which finally led to his suicide. According to Stretton, the suicide was perhaps a moment “where Jon just said, ‘I want to be free.’”

Yount’s intellect, legal insight, and selfless dedication to the cause of those in prison had a deep impact on those who worked with him. In eulogizing Yount, Peter Wagner noted that “Jon…spent the rest of his life showing…that he was much better than his worst act.” Ultimately, this transformed former teacher stood for the rights of incarcerated people as full human beings: entitled to maintain family ties, to be seen as more than fodder for enumeration and voting games. As Scofield put it, “Jon cared about other people; he cared about the nation, the world.”

However, we would be wrong to commemorate Jon Yount as a solitary crusader. No one succeeds in prison alone. Yount’s strength and understanding emerged from his relationships with many other incarcerated men who shared their experiences and insights with him and helped him to apply his analytical talents to the law and other issues. They will remain invisible to the public, gagged behind prison walls; their roles in his legal victories will go unnoticed. But Yount’s lifer colleagues were central to his transformation from a conservative, small-town, white teacher into an anti-racist intellectual with a powerful critique of the system of mass incarceration and a nuanced understanding of national and world politics.

There are good ways to honor the memory of Jon Yount, a man who should be remembered. The first is to work to re-shape popular thinking about the invisible people in prisons, focusing on their potential to make positive contributions to society. Second, we should continue to expose the financial and political interests that sustain our prison system. This system hounded Yount to his death, rather than recognizing and rewarding him for his contributions to advancing the human rights of the colleagues and comrades from whom he drew his strength.

[MegtheEgg86]

I read the article and this is what I think:

John Yount brutally raped and murdered an eighteen year-old girl by stabbing her and then slitting her throat. He stayed exactly where he needed to be. It has far less to do with retribution than it does ensuring people--and yeah, that includes teenaged female people--don't get hurt again.

[rarjake]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

I read the article and this is what I think:

John Yount brutally raped and murdered an eighteen year-old girl by stabbing her and then slitting her throat. He stayed exactly where he needed to be. It has far less to do with retribution than it does ensuring people--and yeah, that includes teenaged female people--don't get hurt again.

But if that is the case, why was it that the average life sentence, in the state at the time was 12 years. After 12 years, inmates had their sentences commuted by the Governor. I think, without a doubt that with all the work he did throughout his life, he should of like everyone else had his sentenced commuted.
In the years he did escape, he spent it helping the poor and the sick. The people he lived with said without a doubt, they would of never thought he did the crimes he committed twenty years ago. I think he got a feel unfair justice, again. Just going by the facts.
At somepoint, locking people up anymore just doesn't make sense. If it is only for our sense of retribution.