To the outside world, fifteen-year-old Jacob
Ind seemed to have it together. He got good grades, was a member of the
debate club, and even played on the high school football team. But behind
closed doors, his life was out of control. He never felt loved. Not by anyone.
Not by his mother who was cold, critical and distant, and certainly not by his
alcoholic stepfather who was a mean drunk. Jacob dreaded coming home. His
mother never shied away from telling him that he was an unwanted mistake and it
was difficult to escape his stepfather’s violent rages and inappropriate sexual
predilections. For years Jacob and his older brother Charles suffered horrific
sexual abuse at the hands of their stepfather, Kermode Jordan. Jordan would
wait for the boys to come home, sneak up behind them and then drag them into
the bathroom where he would tie them to the toilet, undress them and proceed to
abuse them. Sometimes Jacob’s mother would taunt him and sometimes she would
even join in. He couldn’t take it
anymore. In the early morning hours of December 17, 1992, Jacob shot and killed
his mother and stepfather. On June 17, 1994, he was convicted of two counts of first-degree
murder. As required under Colorado law at the time, he was given a mandatory
sentence of life without parole. Now thirty-seven years old, Jacob has spent
the majority of his life behind bars. The entire trajectory of his life was
determined before he was even old enough to drive a car. Jacob, like the
hundreds of individuals sentenced to life in prison without parole for crimes
that they committed as children, will likely die behind bars.
