Word: knighton
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...What am I supposed to do?" asked Elizabeth L. Knighton '95, who had planned to travel home to Miami for the holiday. "I feel annoyed and disappointed, too, because I really want to go home...
...Knighton never had much chance of being rescued, even if someone had bothered to try. By the time he entered sixth grade, he had attended seven schools. Frank Scalise, director of guidance counseling at Deerfield Beach Middle School, said Knighton came to class only 12 days that year. Truant officers were dispatched to find him, but the family had no address. "He wasn't in school long enough for anybody to get next to him, help him or counsel him," says Scalise. "Then he dropped out, and we never saw him again...
...Knighton was 14 and living with his father when he began selling crack cocaine. A year later, he was stealing cars and running a $1,000-a-day drug operation. His life savings -- what he called his "bank account" -- was $30,000 worth of crack and a gold Cadillac. As the boy began making big money, he became a target himself. That inspired him to get his first gun. Weapons were so plentiful that he never had to buy one but simply borrowed from friends. Openly proud of the firearms he has used, Knighton smiles fondly as he recalls each...
...Knighton does know a lot about the criminal-justice system. At 16, he had been in juvenile custody 19 times, charged with aggravated assault, auto theft, robbery, drug possession, escape and contempt of court. Knighton was sent to the Better Outlook Center, a halfway house for juvenile offenders in a Miami suburb. Staff members recall Knighton as hostile and angry at first; later he began to flourish under the supervision of caring adults. "Anthony thought it was heaven," says superintendent Jounice Morris. "It was his first glimpse of stability." Morris, who gave him the nickname "Peanut," recalls that Knighton...
After the murder, when Knighton landed in the Indian River prison, he worked on a cleanup crew six hours a day. Until state budget cuts forced the prison to eliminate its teachers' salaries, he took high school classes. Because he was considered cooperative and well behaved, Knighton had nearly two years shaved off his sentence. He does not know where his father and siblings now live, but he still keeps in touch with the staff at Better Outlook. In a letter to Morris, Knighton wrote, "I think about that baby I killed, and it hurts real...