A Texas mother whose son is on death row will be able to visit him a final time before his execution thanks to generous donors on a YouCaring campaign.
“I can’t thank everyone enough for the donations. It has helped me to be there for my son when he needs his mother,” Marilyn Shankle-Grant wrote in a Facebook post about the campaign.
According to the New York Daily News, Shankle-Grant’s son, Paul Storey, and an accomplice were both convicted in the 2006 shooting death of Jonas Cherry, 28, during a robbery. Storey is set to be executed April 12.
“He regrets being involved in a crime where a man lost his life, and has come to terms with the fact that he may be executed. His mother, Marilyn Shankle-Grant, was devastated that her child was involved in someone’s death, yet she and her family have never lost the love for her son,” text written at the YouCaring account shares.
Shankle-Grant has only been able to visit her son once a month since the 2008 trial in which he was sentenced him to death. She would reportedly have to drive four hours from her home in Fort Worth to the state prison in Livingston.
“I couldn’t understand why Paul was sentenced to death. When you think of the death penalty, you think of serial killers. You don’t think of a robbery-murder, like my son committed,” she said.
The Daily News notes that the anguish over her son’s fate led to depression. The 57-year-old mom lost the job that she had held for 30 years, and then focused on creating a business selling baked goods in order to make ends meet.
However, the pain didn’t stop there. Shankle-Grant’s home has reportedly recently entered foreclosure and her car has broken down. The campaign, which set a target goal of $7,500, was meant to cover her car rental, gas, food and two nights in a hotel room each week for the next six weeks.
“We are also raising funds for funeral expenses,” the campaign read.
As of Wednesday at 10 a.m., the campaign had reached a whopping $10,639, with 278 donors contributing after reading about Shankle-Grant’s plight.
“I ask for your help with two things,” Shankle-Grant wrote on the page. “Financial support and also your prayers for my son, myself, our family, as well as for the family of his victim, Jonas Cherry, and the prison workers charged with taking his life.”