A 72-year-old woman imprisoned for over half a century was released after her life sentence was commuted

PHILADELPHIA — For the first time in more than half a century, Marie Scott is free.

Scott, 72, who served more than 52 years in prison for felony murder, was released from custody on Wednesday after Gov. Josh Shapiro commuted her life sentence in June. Despite opposition from the victim’s family, community advocates had pushed for her freedom for years, saying she had served enough time, was a model inmate, and no longer posed a threat to society.

Scott, known as “Mechie,” has been incarcerated since 1973, after she and her then-16-year-old boyfriend, Leroy Saxton, robbed a Germantown gas station. She was 19 and addicted to heroin when she helped Saxton restrain the cashier, Michael Kerrigan, and then rummage through the store’s cash register and safe. Her attorneys say she was acting as a lookout when — to her surprise, she says — Saxton shot Kerrigan, 35, in the back of the head.

Saxton was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Scott was convicted of felony murder and handed the same fate.

But Saxton was released on time served in 2020 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned mandatory life sentences for juveniles.

Scott had remained behind bars ever since.

Until Wednesday, when hours before dawn, she walked out of her cell in State Correctional Institutional Muncy for the final time, stepped into the back of a van, and was driven three hours toward her new life in Philadelphia.

There, for the first time in her life, she hugged her daughter, Hope Segers, outside the prison walls.

“I just covered my face and lost it,” Scott said of seeing her Wednesday. “That was the first time I have seen my daughter and grandson in the real world. … To feel them, to smell them in the free air.”

Segers was born in SCI Muncy 45 years ago. During one of the three times Scott escaped from prison between 1975 and 1980, she reunited with a man who worked in the prison kitchen and with whom she had fallen in love, and she got pregnant.

Segers has known her mother only through prison visits often years apart, and short calls via phone and Zoom. Now, she said, she is eager to begin building a true relationship with her.

“It’s still not real,” she said of sitting next to her mother. “I’m still in shock.”

Scott, who will be on parole for the rest of her life, will move into her daughter’s home in Northeast Philadelphia after living in a halfway house for a year, as is required by the prisons.

Scott’s health has deteriorated in recent years. She uses a wheelchair, suffered from Stage 2 breast cancer, and had a double mastectomy last year. She was not ill enough to qualify for compassionate release, her attorneys said.

But she has since learned she is cancer free, she said.

Scott had been serving a mandatory life sentence under Pennsylvania’s felony murder law, which allows people to be convicted of second-degree murder if a death occurs during the commission of a felony such as robbery — even if they did not kill the victim or intend for anyone to die. Pennsylvania is one of only two states where a felony murder conviction automatically carries a life sentence, a punishment Shapiro has called unjust and unconstitutional. (Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court is currently weighing the issue.)

Other than the decades-old escapes, her attorneys said, she has been a model inmate. She is deeply remorseful for her actions, and has written books about healing, directed plays, and led drug and alcohol treatment courses for inmates, they said. She became a mentor and mother figure to dozens of women at Muncy.

For years, Scott and her attorneys at the Abolitionist Law Center applied for a commutation from the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, asking that her life sentence be reduced. Her applications were repeatedly denied without explanation, lawyer Bret Grote said.

She applied last year with renewed hope after the leadership at SCI Muncy said they would support her petition.

Still, Grote said, Laurel Harry, secretary of the state Department of Corrections, told officials she would not support Scott’s petition because of the prison escapes decades ago. Harry’s support was typically a requirement of the board’s approval for release, he said.

Grote, his colleagues, and a collection of volunteers drafted a social media, phone, and letter writing campaign to persuade Shapiro and prison officials to support her commutation. Members of Philadelphia City Council, alongside state senators and representatives, called for her release, as did Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill.

It worked. In May, the Board of Pardons voted to recommend a commutation of her sentence, and the following month, Shapiro formally approved her release. The board then required that Scott spend six additional months in prison for the prison escapes.

Her release comes amid opposition from the victim’s family.

Initially, two of Kerrigan’s daughters said they supported Scott’s release and could forgive her, but later changed their minds and asked the board of pardons and parole not to release her. They said they do not believe she has taken enough responsibility for the crime.

Angela Kerrigan Hightower, a grandchild of Kerrigan’s who was later adopted by his wife and would have been his seventh child, said Wednesday that “the system failed the victims in this case.” She said she does not believe Scott has shown sufficient remorse, and that she and Saxton should have had to serve a life sentence for the suffering they brought her family.

“I want to know,” she said, “where is the justice for the victims in this case.”

Scott has said she deeply regrets what happened. She said Wednesday that she hopes to use her time outside of prison to tell the story of the cycle of drug and sexual abuse and codependency that she has said contributed to her actions.

She also wants to push for the release of other women who she said have been reformed in prison and don’t deserve to die there.

Scott’s grandson, Dashawn Green, 28, said he wants to get his grandmother’s health and diet back on track, introduce her to his girlfriend and miniature schnauzer, and maybe even plan a road trip.

Scott said her first order of business is to find a church.

Seated on the couches in the Abolitionist Law Center in North Philadelphia Wednesday night, she recalled gathering for her final Sunday service inside the prison last week and saying goodbye to the women in the facility who raised her.

“You’re my family,” she said she told them. “I don’t make promises because they’re made to be broken, but if you don’t have your word, then you don’t have anything. And I give you my word, I am going to die trying to get all of my women out.”