Best friends

 

I t used to be that when the world walked out on Samantha Etsitty, Galareka Harrison walked in.

In some ways, Harrison, though behind the cold bars of the Pima County Adult Detention Center awaiting her sentence for first-degree murder, continues to be that best friend Etsitty remembers.

"She never wanted to talk about the bad," Etsitty said in her home in Mesa, Ariz. "She always talked about the positive. She was always there for me - talking to me, giving me advice. She still does even though she's in there."

A glimpse of that friendship can been seen in handwritten letters from Harrison, given exclusively to the Navajo Times by Etsitty, 19, of Many Farms, Ariz.

Harrison, also 19 and from Many Farms, was described during her trial to have been studying with Etsitty on Sept. 5, 2007, a short while before the stabbing that left Harrison's roommate Mia Henderson dead in their Graham-Greenlee dorm room on the University of Arizona campus.

Harrison and Etsitty had been in Etsitty's room, but Etsitty was asleep when Henderson was attacked.

A jury found Galareka Harrison guilty of first-degree murder after only three hours in a Pima County Superior Court three months ago. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin Nov. 25 and she faces life in a federal prison.

Etsitty chose not to continue at UA following her friend's arrest, and now attends Mesa Community College while holding down a job. She agreed to share the letters she has received from Galareka, and to talk about the person she has known intimately since the seventh grade.

First greeting card

"You learn to never take anything 4 granted," Harrison states in one letter. "It's crazy stuff you take for granted when you get locked up. Like 'life'."

Each letter's return address read: Galareka Harrison, then a nine-digit booking number and the city and state.

Inside a lightly purpled envelope was the first Christmas greeting card to Etsitty: "Best wishes 2 you all," Harrison wrote in flowing cursive. "...Have a good one. May all your wishes & prayers be answered....Take care. Drive with care & your seatbelt."

While talking to the Navajo Times, Etsitty tried to restrain her emotions, squeezing her eyes shut as tears rushed down her cheeks, finally breathing to a calm demeanor.

First Christmas in jail

In another letter sent just after Christmas, Harrison wrote: "...Be careful sis...Don't have too much fun OR you'll be on my naughty list and ya don't want dat! Lol (laughing/laugh out loud)."

In another letter dated in January, Harrison writes that except for the bigger meals during holidays, life in the Pima County jail is "nothing special."

"But the girls, some of my friends, sent me gifts (off the commissary list)," she says of her first Christmas in jail.

On holidays and once a week, referred to as "grub out day" by Harrison, inmates can buy food, personal hygiene and other items from the jail commissary.

"We order on Tues & get it on Saturdays," she writes.

Female inmates can purchase, "bras $20, socks $4, shirt $4, undies $4, shampoo $4, conditioner 4.75, toothpast 3.75, soap 2.75, candy 1.50, chips 2.25, cookies 2, coffee 5, cappichino 2, ect."

New friends

As for new friends, from whom Harrison has picked up a little Spanish, five are listed but there are "so many more."

"...in my dorm theres 8 bunks, but now were overcrowded so ones on the floor," she writes. "There are 8 dorms in a pod. So theres 64 bunks/girls."

"Bunkie 1" is in for stealing a car, stealing from a warehouse and drug charges. "Bunkie 2" was on the run "with her hubby" for five years and was finally caught.

"Bunkie 4" was busted "w/50 pnds of Mary Jane, huge crack house."

"Bunkie 5" was a heroin addict. "Bunkie 7" was sentenced to 3 and a half years for 26 identity theft charges and possession of drugs.

"Everyone calls me there angel," she writes. "Sometimes I wish you were here just to laugh but yea, its some experience."

Daily routine

On a daily basis, if it's not chores or mealtime, it's lockdown.

At 4 a.m., it's breakfast time - about 15 to 30 minutes.

Then back to the room.

Sometimes, if inmates are lucky, the doors will open at 8 a.m., in which the women can shower and walk out into the "yard."

"...it is just as big as your room," she writes of the yard. "A cement brick all the way around. A cage, metal over the top. I could see the sky.

"And in that small area! A bball goal," she adds, "We play every now and then."

Harrison, who played for the Many Farms Lobos, loved basketball, Etsitty said.

"...but we hardly ever," she writes of being able to visit the yard. "Were usually always locked down."

Then it's dorm chores at 9:30 a.m.

"It changes every week," she writes, "trash, windows, sink, toilets, tables, sweep or mop. Lock down."

At 10 a.m., it's lunchtime - a sandwich, fruit or soup, milk.

At 1:30 p.m., it's pod chores. Pods are divided into eight dorm rooms, in which eight inmates reside.

Pods

"Im in 1P...or what they call '...princess pod,'" she says.

Others like "2Q" are for girls returning to jail, "3R" is for repeat offenders, "F" is for the "supa bad girls" and the mentally ill who are in isolation and "H" is just a "small ugly room where I was for 3 weeks when I first came in," Harrison writes.

Then there is one more pod for suicide watch where "there naked in an all glass room."

At 2 p.m., mail is passed out.

"I got tons of mail from people like parents, family's that had a hard time w/the law, prisoners, frens, all ova," she writes. "You'll have to read them w/ me one of these days. They just tell me to hang in there, they're praying for me, some are funny."

Then at 4 p.m., it's dinnertime.

"Boring all the time," she says.

At 9:30 p.m., more pod chores and then lights are out at 10 p.m.

"She said it was tiring," Etsitty said of a conversation she had with Harrison, "but it was just things that she had to do. She said she was just trying to think positive and make the best of it."

A new hobby

With not much to do in her small space, Harrison keeps busy with a new hobby.

"I started to draw," she writes. "So my first 'person' drawing is of us. I know it aint all dat but I am working on another for u."

In court throughout the trial, Harrison rarely looked up. Pen in hand, she tended to the notepad in front of her.

No word

After last Christmas, Etsitty and Harrison exchanged about six letters before all communication was shut off in June.

"She said it felt like a bad dream that she couldn't wake up from," Etsitty said of a telephone conversation they had last year. "I just wish I could wake her up."

"The last time she called me," Etsitty said, "we were cut off after about six seconds. I wrote in June but I haven't gotten anything back."

Etsitty said prosecutors and defense attorneys instructed her not to write or call Harrison since the incident.

Neither of Harrison's two court-appointed lawyers responds to repeated requests from the Navajo Times for an interview.

Still struggling

It is still a struggle to understand why her best friend, a "quiet and shy" girl who loved breakaway roping and playing basketball, ended up with a first-degree murder conviction.

"She was just so goofy," Etsitty said. "I never even saw her get angry. She really was the kindest person you could meet."

Harrison was not a complicated girl, according to Etsitty.

"As long as she could rope, play basketball and had her family next to her, she was happy," Etsitty said. "When we played basketball, she always said that I was quick on my feet but she had the skills."

Etsitty said Harrison never mentioned any family issues that could have contributed to problems away from home, but said "she always talked and wondered about her younger brother."

The two friends decided as seniors in high school to attend UA, major in criminal justice and someday fight crime as FBI investigators. Both ended up changing their majors.

"Someone told her that pharmacists made good money," Etsitty said of Harrison, who changed her major from nursing to pre-pharmacy the first day of school. "She wanted to make that good money."

In times of stress and grief, both would turn to laughter.

"We were both very homesick," Etsitty said. "But we'd just laugh. We told each other that it would all come together in the end."

Etsitty said Harrison never mentioned problems with her roommate aside from an Aug. 28, 2007, incident in which Mia Henderson filed a complaint accusing Harrison of identity theft.

Since the day they had unpacked for a hectic and daunting first year at college, both Etsitty and Harrison promised each other that no matter what the year threw at them, they would have each other's back - as they always had since the seventh grade.

"I promised I would be there for her," Etsitty said, smearing the tears from her face, "and I was asleep when it happened."

For Etsitty, leaving the reservation and their small community of just over 1,500 people was a hard fight. She struggled throughout high school with sad spells and suicidal thoughts, but survived with help from Galareka.

"She was my guardian angel," Etsitty said. "She kept me out of trouble...(pause)...and from hurting myself."

The pressure of being a first-year student on a predominantly white campus of over 30,000 students only made matters worst.

"I told her the bad and good about me," Etsitty continued. "It's hard to trust anyone. She is the only one who knows my deepest secrets and she got me through that phase where, if she wasn't there for me, I would have probably done something bad to myself."

Harrison still tries to fill that role, writing: "Just don't let anything bring u down. I'll always be here. No matter what. Even if it feels like Im not...Keep dat head up high & proove dat university you can do it. We both have challenges so lets knock 'em down."

Etsitty said sadness was so much apart of her life but advice from Harrison, even from a jail cell, continues to keep her on a positive path.

Harrison wrote in one of her last letters: "These will be the hardest days of our lives, but all of this makes us stronger, its making our friendship even stronger. I know how hard life and Im sorry that Im not there."

Each letter is signed: Love Ya Always, Reka

Editor's note: The Navajo Times made repeated efforts to interview Galareka Harrison during jail visiting hours, but in each instance one of her attorneys appeared and met with her until the visiting period ended.

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