ATLANTA — One of the youngest juveniles in Georgia to be sentenced to prison has been released.
Michael Lewis, known as “Little B,” was 13 when he was convicted of the murder of a young father of two.
Lewis has maintained his innocence and is now living in California, thousands of miles from home.
Channel 2′s Karyn Greer was there as he was released from a transitional facility in Macon when he was granted parole after serving 26 years in 13 different prisons.
Lewis is now 40. He was 13 in February 1997 when he was charged with killing 23-year-old Darnell Woods
Woods was fatally shot in his car while he was waiting for his wife outside a Vine City convenience store. His two young sons were in the backseat.
“They asked you in court, ‘Did you do it?’ And you said?” Greer asked Lewis.
“No,” Lewis said.
“Has anyone ever point-blank asked you, ‘Did you kill this man?” Greer asked Lewis.
“No. Everybody told me I did, you know? Everybody told me ‘Oh, you did, you did,” Lewis said. “That night in particular, nothing was different about that night, you know? Everything that goes on in the Bluff. I heard the shots. But that’s normal in my neighborhood,” Lewis said.
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Prosecutors called Lewis a cold-blooded thug, a super predator and said Lewis was on the scene and committed the murder.
He became the first and youngest teen to be tried under Senate Bill 440, a law in Georgia requiring children as young as 13 be treated as adults and prosecuted in Superior Court if they committed what was considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins: murder, rape, armed robbery, child molestation, sodomy, sexual battery or manslaughter.
Lewis told Greer that his young life at 13 was not easy.
“For you living in the bluff, making a little money meant doing what?” Greer asked Lewis.
“Selling drugs, you know, whatever I could do to survive, the best way I could. If it meant stealing in front of the store, I’d do that,” Lewis said.
Lewis spent days in the juvenile detention center before being bound over to the Fulton County Jail with adults to await trial.
“Initially I was at 445 Capitol Avenue, where the juvenile (center) was. And then, like, a week after that they binded me over to adult court,” Lewis said.
After his 9-day trial, Lewis was convicted of malice murder and was sentenced to life.
“When I got back to the jail, I saw my mother. (She) was arrested too. They consoled her. She was crying and whatever, and then I appealed, and she came over and hold me. She was in the same outfit that I got on,” Lewis said.
Former Black Panther Elaine Brown wrote a book about Lewis – “The Condemnation of Little B.”
It brought the teen national attention. She also became his unofficial guardian, visiting him in prison and working for his release. He now calls her mom.
“Without her, I’d still be sitting in prison,” Lewis said. “Nobody saw the political crucifixion I was enduring. Nobody saw none of that. She made her life all about freeing me.”
Lewis has relocated to California. He told Greer that for the first time, he is living his life.
“It means a chance at a new life. It means … I can’t necessarily see a new life or chance at life, because I never really had a life. You know, when I was condemned, even when I was born, basically, you know? So this is the opportunity for me to live and I’m thankful for it,” Lewis said.
Greer contacted Woods’ family to get their thoughts on Lewis’ parole. She never received a response.
Woods would be 49 years old.
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