I found Jesus through my prison cell AIR VENT | God Behind Bars Podcast

I ended up killing my cellmate who was trying to sexually assault me. I spent the first four and a half years in ad-sag in a single cell by myself. I was uneducated, you know, how to read, you know, how to write. Everything I learned as far as my education, I came from the Bible and doing Bible studies. I was talking to a guy through the vent. He just seemed so much more educated than I was and it just amazed me. I want to be like that. I don't want to be uneducated. I don't want to allow my circumstances to continue to hold me back and hold me captive to the emotions and the pain that I felt when I was a kid. As God continued to work in me, I come to the point where I could forgive them. Hey, welcome back to the God Behind Bars podcast. I'm Jake Bodine and we have an amazing guest with us today. His name is Tony King and we are at Jefferson City Correctional Center right here in Missouri. And I'm excited to dive into your story. I appreciate you being with us and why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe even kind of where you've came from. Obviously, all of our listeners know that the majority of the people that we bring on this podcast have either been affected by incarceration or incarcerated themselves. But what was life like before incarceration? I've been a logger my whole life has pretty much been my occupation. How far do you want me to go back childhood? Yeah, let's go to the childhood. I had fairly decent childhood as far as parents growing up. They were together until I was about 22 years old when they split up. As far as family aspect, it was good. I had some rough moments as far as growing up, dealing with being molested and things like that. And so I had a lot of baggage that I cared with me growing up. And then, so are those pivotal moments in your life where you felt like, man, my world

just got rocked and I ended up walking down this path towards incarceration or what was that moment? Absolutely. That was the moment that term made of drugs and alcohol that helped me cope with what I thought reality was, versus just the circumstance. Yeah. And how long did you live in that life of just spiraling through drugs and alcohol? Up until 2012. Wow. And then what was the moment that kind of all that just wrecked and you ended up here? January of 2012, and I ended up in a county jail and I was waiting to be sentenced on a murder and I ended up killing my cellmate who was trying to sexually assault me. Wow. What's going on in your heart and your mind? How old are you at this time? At that time? Yeah. I've been 28 years old. Wow. And just a bunch of anger and rage that existed in your heart at that point. I relived every moment that I went through as a child that night. You said eight years old is the first time that you were molested, like what's going on in your mind at that point at eight years old and what does that begin to instill in your heart from a moment like that? So I was about seven and a half going on eight and I was out in the front yard as a Saturday afternoon and mom and dad were out of town for the weekend and my sister was supposed to be babysitting and any time mom got away I would take the chance to go outside and shoot Robins with my BB gun and I was out there just hanging out kicking it and two of my older cousins came over and they wanted to go get my dad's semi, a logging truck. And usually this is the place where we would go to drink and smoke and everything, stuff

we stole from my mom and dad and I was like, hey, let's go get in the truck. And I'm like, so I'm thinking we're getting ready to party and we go get in the truck and everything and we get back in the sleeper and I said, what do you got? Do you have cigarettes or beer? I remember to this day I was so excited because it was the first time I didn't have to be the one to stole something, I'm like, yeah, this is cool, you know, I'm one of them. And I said, we ain't gotten either. He said, we got a game that we want to play and after a struggle and a pill alone. Man, that's a lot of pain for a little eight-year-old to carry a lot, big burden. I mean, I'm sorry. It was probably the most pivotal point in my life, I would say. What do you think that it began to do in your heart? I can't even begin to describe the hatred and the turmoil that sparked within the, that I would never think that we'd possible at that age. I turned to drugs and alcohol to cope. I mean, obviously it wasn't at that immediate point where I became an alcoholic or an addict, but it sparked it and the emotion and the pain of that moment helped me captive to that day up until I was probably about thirty years old. Yeah, and that journey obviously from carrying that type of emotion, that type of burden, medicating it with worldly things like alcohol, drugs, still carrying and never dealing with the root of the issue of the pain that was caused to you, which ultimately turns into anger and bitterness and resentment, and then it turns into lashing out around everyone around you, those that you know, those that you don't know, and I can see from your story of then just getting to the county jail and then having a trigger moment like that to ultimately you respond in the way that you do. Where does Jesus fit in all of the equation of that for you up until that point and then obviously now post Jesus and him healing these things in your heart and your life and in your mind, like as you look back on all of that, why Jesus? So I remember when I was a kid, you know, I would bounce in and out of church here and

there and I made the confession as a kid, you know, and did the thing, you know, but it wasn't for legit reasons, it wasn't because I believed it and it wasn't because I felt it. It was because I think that's what others wanted me to do. And so that night when I was in my cell, when I actually accepted Jesus, I won't say I felt something instantaneously, but as I begin to read, as I begin to study the Word of God, I could feel the whole Jesus had on me and it grew and it grew and it grew. And ultimately I stepped away from the Bible for a while and I stepped away from going to church and I stepped away from all that and it's just been in the last about year and a half that I've really got back into it. And through my walk with Christ, it's helped me to realize that one forgiveness isn't for them, it's for me. It's allowed me to relinquish myself from the captivity of that pain. Obviously I still get emotional. I still feel those feelings, but I'm not captive to it no more. You said seven and a half, eight years old, that you guys were already in the fort like drinking and smoking. How old were you in the first time you were introduced to those things? Also I remember I was probably, I would say around six, the first time I remember smoking and probably the same age or whatever, what I remember drinking. I didn't get into drugs until about twelve was the first time and it was crazy to think that at twelve years old you could be shooting methamphetamines, but those same people that was inflicting the pain upon me was the same ones that was leading me to these things because I think that it made it easier for them to abuse me. As you look back on that now, like you're twelve-year-old self, was there ever a pathway out or was it just you felt completely trapped? Like what are your parents? There's always a pathway out and that's how often I wander. This is a conversation that I still have never had with my mom. My mom is of course the one parent that I have left.

My dad died about four years ago. and I often wonder, you know, does she know what happened? Does? - Yeah, and what's your feeling on that? Like that conversation, what do you want from that conversation? - At this point, I still think, I believe I'm protecting her from it, you know, the emotion of it, whether she knows or not. - Yeah, and Jesus obviously redeems your story. You've said that, and what I find interesting about your story too, is that you said, you know, you kind of stepped away from it and then came back. That season that you stepped away from it, 'cause I do find that that exists in people, right? Like we go through seasons where we're heavily into our faith, and some people bounce in and out of it, or what I would like to call like just a lukewarmness where it's like, man, I got one foot in this idea or the one foot in the world still. Like what made you come back? What were you missing? - Peace. - Being able to sleep at night and not having to worry if someone was gonna try to kick my door in on myself. - Yeah. - You know, ultimately what caused me to step away was I was living a lifestyle in prison that didn't line up with what God wanted me to do. I was hustling and doing the prison thing.

- Yeah, and then what happened from there? Obviously trial, you ended up in a Missouri correctional institution somewhere. What was that? Give us the journey there. - So I ended up in Bonterre, and I spent the first four and a half years in ad-sag in a single cell by myself. That's where my relationship with God developed. I was uneducated, you know, how to read and how to write. Everything I learned as far as my education, I came from the Bible and doing Bible studies. - Wow, what was that night like? What do you remember the night that God grabbed a hold of your life? I was talking to a guy through the vent, and he just seemed so much more educated than I was, and it just amazed me that how he could speak so fluently, and it was like, I want to be like that. I don't want to be uneducated. I don't want to allow my circumstances to continue to hold me back and hold me captive to the emotions and the pain that I felt when I was a kid. - Yeah, and did you feel free from that? The second that you said yes to Jesus, or did that take, was that a journey? - It was a journey, it didn't come overnight. I would write Bible verses down, and I would do push-ups and memorize that Bible verse, and as time went on,

I just slowly, things started to ease, you know, and it was life actually felt like it was worth living. - Yeah, you're able to read and write a Bible now, I assume, too, right? - Absolutely, yeah, I'm actually, I'm in CMU College right now. - Okay, and what kind of education did you go through, or what are the processes to get you to that point? - I got my GED, and once I transferred to here from Bontare, I've worked maintenance for about six and a half years now, or this, April will be six and a half, or six years, and slowly, I've just began to get more involved, and more involved, and it's been a real blessing. - Yeah, amazing, when it comes to this place, like, give some context to this building that we're sitting in, and how you get to be involved here, and what you guys do inside of this specific unit. - In the Honor House? - Yeah. - So, actually, I came over here in December of 2025, and it's quite a change. I never thought that prison would ever come to this, that you don't have to worry about leaving your door open. You can come and go as your police, pretty much, so as counselors, we can go outside, work out, do whatever we feel like we want to do. The freedoms are amazing, but it's also helped me with getting in touch with a lot of people that are into living God's Word, not just reading it,

and that's really helped me in the last eight months. - And what kind of purpose, what kind of value has it given you? - It's helped me to be able to travel across the camp and reach others, and talk to people in ad-sage, and deal with people in the housing units that aren't like this. - And do you have a special person that you pray for, a group of people that you pray for, that you've interacted with in this institution that are kind of your one-lifes, man. Like, I'm after them. I'm storming the gates of heaven, praying for them every single day. - Absolutely, there's a lot of guys that I deal with that are in ad-sage that a lot of them are in and out, and they just need the right person to touch them. - Yeah, how about outside of these walls? You have family, you have kids. - I've got eight kids. - Wow, and what would you want your family to know about the version of you today? - They see it. - Yeah, you get to see them often? - Yeah, good. - Food visits, mainly. They live about four and a half hours from here, but. - Okay. - You know, every time we get a food visit. - What's the one thing that you would want the world

to know about Tony King? - Jesus has sent me free, regardless of where I'm at. - Yeah, it's amazing. And what about the same Tony that maybe going through the exact same thing that you went through in your life and might be on the fence carrying a bunch of rage, carrying a bunch of trauma, a bunch of hurt, a broken heart. And they're like, you know what, man, like, I tried this Jesus thing and it didn't work for me. Like, what would you say to that person? - All the takes is dipping your toe in the water. Just have that first conversation with someone, someone you're comfortable with. It doesn't work every time. You can't trust everyone, but you never know success unless you know failure. So I remember that I was in my cell and I was in an ad seg. I've just previously killed my cellie about six months prior to that. And I've been talking to this guy through the vent, like I had said, and he was a lot more educated than I was and I decided at that point that I didn't want to be like that. And I wanted to be able to speak the way that he spoke and interact with people the way he was. And I was laying there one night and I was thinking about the situation that happened with my cellie and where I was at and what I was going through. And everything was just flooding me that night and it dawned on me that I condemned it.

I condemned the man's soul. He died unsaved, practicing a wickin' religion. And I didn't want to be like that. - Wow. - I didn't want to die unsaved. I wanted something more and after that night I woke up and I'd pick up the Bible and I'd read something here and there. And I didn't have no meaning or purpose behind reading. It was just verses here and there. And I was kind of lacking with this dude down the walk and he shot me a brochure for a rock of ages ministries. - Not to cut you off, but what does Cadillac mean? - Cadillacing is a string unlike a preparation H2 that you slide down the hall and you slide it into someone else's cell and you pull stuff back with it. - Gotcha, okay. So you've got kind of like your own FedEx. - Absolutely. - All right. - Gotcha. - You've gotcha. So I remember he had sent me some stuff from rock of ages and I ended up writing them and asking them to send me their correspondence course. And I ended up finishing it and ultimately getting their Bible that they provide for doing it. And, but as I start reading these Bible studies and reading more of the word and pray in and working out and getting my mind right, you know,

and it's like everything just feels brand new. It's like, it's so, so peaceful. It's just, peace is the only thing to describe it. - And for those that don't know, like Ad's sake, you're basically locked up 24 hours a day, right? - You're locked in your cell. - Yeah. And so what are the chances, just help me with my mind for a second. How many guys are in the Ad's sake unit at any given time, would you guess? - Well, there would only been 44 in the wing that I was in because of a single cell. - Okay. So 44, but what are the chances that you end up in a cell right next to somebody who's a believer who is literally evangelizing through an air vent into your cell? Like when you think of that, like for me, when I look at that, it's like God is intentional. And He is pursuing you every moment of your life. And what are your thoughts on that? - Well, considering all the different religions that are in prison, that's probably quite rare. - Yeah. I mean, I just look at it, it's a miracle, right? It's a living miracle that God puts you right next to somebody who has already discovered who He is, right? And that who cares in what I would say society would probably think that this is a pretty selfish environment.

And it's kind of, I'm just here to survive, right? And so, but that is willing to give you air vent and sharing the hope and love of Jesus Christ with you. It's pretty awesome. That's amazing. Yeah. So over the last 20 or so minutes, like we've talked a lot about tragedy and obviously tragedy comes in all different shapes and sizes and yours is pretty traumatic for anybody. How through the power of Christ has he given you the ability to find that freedom, that forgiveness, to release that shame, to release the anger? What ultimately has he done in your heart when you say he transformed it? Like what are those things that he's transformed? Well, I think the best part or the best thing that you just brought up was the shame. That was what they would hold over me is people just going to think you're a fact. You know, so I lived with that every day and then I buried it. And once I begin to read and study the Word of God and to do the things that I was doing to prepare myself for Christ, that shame started to diminish. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen in a week. It didn't happen in a month and it didn't even happen in a year. But the more I read and the more I prayed and the more I got involved, the shame and that resentment and that anger and it all just slowly started to fall away. And as God continued to work in me, I come to the point where I could forgive them. It doesn't mean I'm ever going to forget it. Yeah. Does it mean that I'm not ever going to not live it every day? I have mental and physical scars that I'm going to live with every day. But I don't have to live attached to that trauma. I don't have to live captive to it. I don't have to live in a world of pain and anguish every day. I can be free to Christ, which I think is so important because that really is like what what Christ does, right?

He holds the keys to the gates and I often say this, but I think that prison, like the one that we're sitting in right now, is often a physical depiction of what many people are experiencing spiritually and mentally. And sometimes we put ourselves there. Other times it's the things that have been done to us that get us there. But ultimately, like what I have found is that the gatekeeper, the one that holds the keys, his name is Jesus, and he can free you from any and all of those things. And so I've seen that over your life and your testimony right now. Is there anything that you would want to say to our listeners right now of just even a word of encouragement for them or maybe it's something like, Hey, this is my goals. These are my hopes. These are my dreams. What would you say to those that are listening right now? Well, my goals are to never go back to living the life I was living. My hopes are that I continue to walk with Jesus Christ the way I am now. Trusting him, his peace is unreal. Yeah, they can move you in so many ways farther than anything in here else or anything else in here can. I love it. Well, Tony, you're an amazing guy. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength, just to even share what you've shared today. And I just want you to know from my heart and getting to know you on this, this episode of this podcast, like I'm proud of you, proud of the man that you are, proud of the man that you become. I'm so sorry for the things that have been done to you. But yeah, I believe that there's hope there's a future. God's got a huge purpose for your life. And if you don't, if you don't mind me adding one thing here, I don't want people to feel sorry. I don't, I don't feel sorry for myself either, because had it not been for those situations, I wouldn't be where I am today. Yeah, as free as I am today. So good. So good. Well, I appreciate you. And I know we all love you and we're going to continue to pray for those things for you that even the scars

would become less and less in your heart and in your mind and that you could be fully healed from those things. So appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.