WILLIAMSPORT, Tenn. — Caleb Dysinger was about 1 when he visited death row for the first time.
It never seemed strange or scary to him that the man he called Uncle Don lived there.
He grew up on Uncle Don's lap, and came to look forward to the sugar-free candies that were always waiting for him.
One day, a few years in to the family visits, Caleb returned the favor, sneaking a little flower in to Inmate No. 109031, his honorary uncle.
It wasn’t much. Maybe a dandelion or a sprig of clover. But the Dysinger family still remembers Donnie Edward Johnson’s reaction of awe.
"You just don't realize how disconnected those guys are from real life. They can’t touch the grass," said Pam Dysinger, Caleb’s mother. "It's so void of human closeness."
For 15 years now, the Dysinger family has set out to fill that void for Johnson. Now, less than two weeks from Johnson’s scheduled execution, the family is urging Gov. Bill Lee to spare Johnson’s life.
Johnson, 68, is set to die May 16. He was sentenced to death for killing his wife Connie Johnson in Memphis in 1984.
The Dysingers don’t dispute the fact that Johnson committed a terrible crime. Johnson himself no longer contests his guilt.
But the family says his transformation behind bars makes him an ideal candidate for the governor’s mercy.
Johnson was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in prison and became a church elder behind bars. He made his religious journey, and themes of redemption and forgiveness, the cornerstone of his clemency request.
"He is such an influence for good in this world, in the prison and beyond," said Kirsten Knecht, the oldest of the five Dysinger children, who was 12 when the family started making regular treks to Unit 2 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
"I think some people find it strange that somebody on death row would affect somebody on the outside’s life in a positive way but that is certainly the case,” said Knecht, now 27. "I feel like I'm a better person because of his life."
Responding to written questions from the USA TODAY Network – Tennessee, Johnson said the Dysingers' example has changed his life, too.
"The Dysingers have shown me things I had always hoped to see, but never thought I would see in my lifetime," he said in a written response transcribed by his legal team. "They have shown me what family life is supposed to be like. They have shown me a different way of living. I see nothing but love, peace and contentment. I see the nurturing in their family."
Family's bond with death row inmate started in 2004
The Dysinger family first met Johnson in 2004, when an earlier execution date was set. A member of the family's church asked patriarch John Dysinger if he would serve as Johnson's spiritual adviser as the execution approached.
The request was surprising.
"I don't think I'd ever been to prison before, except for Alcatraz," John Dysinger said.
But as John Dysinger reflected on scripture, when Jesus called people to love and visit prisoners, his answer became clear.
He said yes, and he started visiting Johnson in prison.
At first, he came alone. But he couldn't come as much as he wanted.
Trips from the family's farm in Williamsport, more than 50 miles south of Nashville, to Riverbend took more than an hour each way.
John Dysinger told Johnson he didn't like being away from his family for that long. Johnson offered an unexpected solution: "Bring 'em!"
John discussed it with his wife Pam, and their family of seven started spending hours with Johnson. They sang scripture songs, read the Bible and talked about life on the farm.
"Most people would have thought us crazy for taking young children into such a place, but it brought so much joy to those men on death row," Pam Dysinger said in an application for mercy filed with the governor's office in March. "It was a unique opportunity for our family to bless those who most people would see as not being worth their time."
John Dysinger agreed.
"We were very, very careful with our kids. We tried to guard them from the evils of the world," he said in an interview on his porch. "Yet we felt totally comfortable taking our little kids to see Don Johnson. That to me speaks volumes about who Don Johnson has become."
When Johnson's 2004 execution date was called off, the Dysingers kept visiting, calling and writing.
Every year, Johnson sent the kids birthday cards with $5. And when the two oldest children married, their spouses came to prison to meet "Uncle Don."
"There's concrete walls and fences separating us, but he's been so involved in our lives for the past 15 years," Knecht said. "He took that interest and really adopted us. And we adopted him."
Faith was a common cause for the family and the inmate
Discussing their time with Johnson during a group interview at the family farm, the Dysingers repeatedly returned to the spiritual lessons the death row inmate had taught them.
The Dysingers say his devotion is sincere, and they believe it contributes to a peaceful atmosphere on death row, for the inmates and the correctional officers.
"We look on and feel like it would be a pretty hopeless place to live on death row," Knecht said. "But he is more happy and content than probably most people in this world."
It's hard for them to think about their bond ending this month in an execution chamber.
The Dysingers have met with the governor's staff to ask him to intervene. Cynthia Vaughn, the victim's daughter and Johnson's stepdaughter, also joined the fight, saying she forgives him and doesn't want the execution to move forward.
The Dysingers' hope Lee's Christianity, which played a prominent role in his campaign for governor, will lead him to spare Johnson.
But even if he doesn't, Pam Dysinger said, the family's prison visits are not over.
"I can say personally if Don were executed we'd still be going to the prison," she said. "We'd find somebody else who needed a visit. I think it's important."
Source: tennessean.com, Adam Tamburin, May 6, 2019. Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and atamburin@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tamburintweets.
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
