Thirty-four men and one woman in Mississippi await a death sentence handed down years ago, sometimes decades ago. Some people know their names, their victims and details of their crimes. Few probably know who they are or how they spend their days.
Abdur Rahim Ambrose Sr. enjoys fixing broken things for a challenge. Kelvin Lashaun Jordan works on puzzles, draws and writes poetry. Tim Ronk, nicknamed Jersey because he is from the Garden State, likes to read fantasy.
These self-written introductions are possible through a nonprofit organization called Humans Remain, an online platform for Mississippi’s death row prisoners to talk directly to the public by sharing their stories, academic achievements and writing.
“The guys have a platform to talk … and for people to try and understand that, perhaps, they’re not their worst 15 minutes,” said Liz McCann, a co-founder of the group based outside of London, England. “There’s a whole lot more of a story to these people.”
Mississippi is among the few Southern states where she has connected with death row prisoners. McCann began talking with some of the death row men about four years ago, and last year she partnered with some of them to create the organization, which celebrates its first anniversary this weekend.
“It’s an honor to be able to be a voice and to give a voice to so many men and women. We are no longer voiceless and faceless with this inhumane system which seeks to execute us,” Joesph Patri Brown, a co-founder of the group, said in a message shared by McCann.
Joesph Patri Brown, who has been on incarcerated in Mississippi for over 30 years, is the author of “The Image They Had Painted.” The cover is a person emerging from a whirlpool, which he uses to describe the criminal justice system. The book gives a glimpse into his life and the lives of the men around him and critiques the death penalty. Credit: Publication Studio GuelphBrown has been on death row for over 30 years for his conviction in the shooting death of a convenience store clerk in Adams County during an armed robbery but has maintained his innocence. He is a published author who has used his writing as a form of advocacy for himself and on behalf of others on death row in Mississippi.
He said he is proud Humans Remain has become a national and world-recognized group opposing the death penalty.
McCann has built relationships with the people on death row through consistent phone contact, video calls and exchanging messages on tablets.
She said the organization’s name came from conversations with the men about gruesome headlines used to write about crime.
“We read a lot about human remains, and I thought, ‘Well, yes, but what about the people behind that?’” she said. “ ‘Humans Remain’ became our working title, and we all agreed it was visceral and hit the note that we were looking for.”
McCann, who has previously campaigned for human rights issues, said she has been interested in death penalty abolition since reading a book about it when she was 19.
After finishing her education, having a career and raising children, she focused on meeting people on death row, starting with pen pal correspondence with one man in Florida and another in North Carolina.
Her interest in Mississippi came from reading about the American South and watching the 1987 BBC documentary “Fourteen Days in May,” which was about the days leading up to the execution of Edward Earl Johnson. It featured attorney Clive Stafford Smith, who unsuccessfully tried to stop the execution.
McCann said some of the men who remain on Mississippi’s death row remember Smith, who went on to challenge death sentences across the South and advocate against the death penalty and human rights abuses internationally. In recent years, he has represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
“Personally, I am proudest of the things I have done that help to humanize those who society tells us to demonize, so it’s great to see Liz doing just that,” Smith said in a testimonial about Humans Remain that is featured on its website.
The men on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman meet weekly with McCann over a video call to give updates about Humans Remain, work on projects for the organization and plan for future ones. She said a core group of about nine men play an active role in the nonprofit.
McCann helps maintain the organization’s website featuring journal entries by the men and Lisa Jo Chamberlin, who is the only woman on death row in Mississippi, and occasional blog posts from McCann’s perspective as an advocate. There are also educational sections about developments in the death row prisoners’ cases, writings about ending the death penalty and information about death row exonerees.
She also helps them create videos to share on social media.
Caleb Corrothers, who received two death sentences in 2011, is an artist and one of the over 30 men Humans Remain co-founder Liz McCann has gotten to know through phone and video calls over the past four years. Humans Remain, founded in August 2025, is a platform where death row inmates like Corrothers have been able to share their first hand experience on death row through writing, art, journals and advocacy. Credit: Courtesy of Liz McCann, Humans RemainMcCann said people are curious about death row and the prisoners’ lives there. People can submit questions on the Humans Remain website for the men to answer.
A common question is about what they eat because people have seen horror stories about prison food, McCann said.
Since moving to Parchman’s Unit 17 late last year, they have a dedicated kitchen team and they are getting good meals using fresh produce from their garden, which is under the watch of Blayde Grayson, she said.
The dedicated kitchen team, garden and self-contained unit where the men live are a stark contrast to the living conditions for Chamberlin, who is in segregated housing and has experienced restrictions, including access to phone calls and enrollment in classes.
On Friday, Chamberlin’s location was listed at the Delta Correctional Facility, the second women’s prison located in Greenwood. It’s over 100 miles away from the women’s section at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, where she had been housed since her 2006 conviction for the murder of two people in Hattiesburg.
McCann said people are also inquisitive about the executions and some have asked for commentary about states adding execution methods. Mississippi uses lethal injection. In 2022, it added toxic gas, firing squad and electrocution as execution methods, although those options have not been used
McCann said the death row men have also found it bizarre to be living in the “death house” where the execution chamber resides, and they find it baffling when people have come to visit the chamber.
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