G-Dep's Wife Pens Open Letter About Struggle With Husband's Sentencing
Last December, former Bad Boy artist G-Dep confessed to a 17-year-old murder, receiving a harsh sentence of 25-years-to-life in prison. The rapper—who's wrangled with drugs—shared with The NY Post that he didn’t know the victim died during that fateful night. In an attempt to deal with the loss of her husband, Crystal Sutton, shares with VIBE her thoughts, hopes, and fears.
I have attempted to write before but I was too filled with emotion, so my writing was more like an attack on the people my husband kept in his circle. I can’t say things are crystal clear for me now but I have been told writing can be therapeutic. I am not looking for anyone to identify with me but to understand.
Stay positive. How? I go to church, I pray, I have faith in God but the doubt still comes into my mind. How do I push it out of my mind with the possibility that my husband may spend a large amount of time behind bars... time away from his sons. My tears are not just for my husband but for my sons that may never get to know what it is like to have a father around. Sure, as a strong black African-American woman, I have to hold things down and I will, but boys need a male figure. As a woman I cannot truly teach my sons what it is to be a man, I can only teach them the idea of what I think it is to be one.
It’s hard to stay positive when the DA delivers a blow, the maximum sentence, no deal. No one can understand the pain I felt in my heart, the tears I shed when I heard. To some its just a story—words on paper, something to tweet about, mention on Facebook or joke about on a morning show. But now my sons (our sons) have become a statistic in a very public way, of things my husband rhymed about, for entertainment purpose (value), but it was his real life, Everyday.
At least once in our lives we have gotten drunk or high and made a poor decision. Trevell was on PCP, it was quoted that he was high when in walked into the precinct. Now knowing how powerful a hallucinator PCP (dust) is (only from taking my husband to different rehabs and reading about it) why is everyone so convinced of “his confession.”
By no means in writing this blog am I discounting that Mr. John Henkel’s life was unfairly and abruptly ended. I am not discounting that he has a family that grieved 20 years ago and now has to grieve again. I am aware that Mr. Henkel had or has, a mother, a brother, and friends that loved him. He had a life, a life that someone took. It's just a terrible situation for all.
"I guess darkness serves a purpose: to show us that there is redemption through chaos. I believe in that." —Brendan Fraser
