He paid his debt to society. Now, the family of the Petaluma man he killed doesn’t want him living near them

Where to send newly minted parolees is a decision made by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The law guiding those decisions, said Eva Delair, an attorney for Root & Rebound, an Oakland-based group that advocates for formerly incarcerated people re-entering society, “is that it should generally be their location of last residence.”

“What we see a lot of times is that people are in a much better situation to go back where they’re from because they may have support structures there.”

Nationwide, said Dr. Michael Pittaro, associate professor of criminal justice with American Military University, “over 90% of those released from prison will return to the same communities, basically where they resided” before their incarceration. “This is very, very common.”

One obvious flaw with that system, Terrell pointed out, is that people who have taken lives often end up back “right in the same neighborhood with their victims’ family.”

True, he could live elsewhere in the county. But his wife, Lacy — they’d known one another before he was imprisoned and married during his incarceration — had lived in Petaluma for seven years. Their three children attend school there.

“I was coming back to my family,” he said.

Terrell, now 35, worried about returning to Petaluma, “specifically for this reason,” he said, referring to the likelihood that Roth’s family would be re-traumatized. “I didn’t want to create no more harm.”

“I don’t need to be in Petaluma to live my mission,” he said, “but the conditions of parole — that’s where they placed me.”

One prong of that “mission” — Terrell emphasized it a half-dozen times in a nearly hour-long interview — is “to advocate for survivors and victims’ families,” and “better restorative approaches, better understanding of the whole system.”

Owning his past

He comes out of the gate with contrition and determination. While his crime does not define him, said Terrell, it does drive him to serve.

“I am accountable, and I understand the actions and devastation I caused,” he said.

“I’m not going to excuse it for alcohol, I’m not going to excuse it for drugs.”

That declaration undercuts, somewhat, the expert witness retained by his attorney 11 years ago to assure the court that the drugs and alcohol Terrell had ingested the night of the killing, combined with a pre-existing psychiatric disorder, led to a psychotic state in which he could not tell right from wrong.

The likelihood of an insanity plea, and the possibility that Terrell might serve as few as 18 months, forced Nevada County prosecutors to accept his plea of voluntary manslaughter, a result that hurts and infuriates the victim’s family to this day.

“They f----d that case up so bad,” says Heidi Roth.

Anna Tyner, the Nevada County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case against Terrell, declined to comment.

Guidance and structure

Terrell did not wish to be photographed, and he preferred to speak with a reporter over Zoom, to preserve a recording of the interview.

While in San Quentin, where he served the final seven years of his sentence, he helped create a media program “specifically” to gain more control over the narratives told by reporters and documentarians who visited them.

Often, the inmates noticed, their voices would be filtered or muted to achieve “whatever outcome” those outside journalists wanted, Terrell said.

These days, he is doing some “re-entry coaching,” providing guidance and structure for people just out of prison.

He is also a “development director” for Friends of San Quentin News.

“We have a newspaper, a podcast and film program, inside the prison,” he said. Part of his work now, said Terrell, is “trying to deliver incarcerated-run media programs” to other prisons around the country.

“When you give people who are in dark places opportunities, it adds value,” he said. “And when you add value to someone’s life, it’s like, magic happens, right? And so, that’s what we do.”

Bringing these programs to other prisons “hopefully allows us to talk about accountability, remorse, rights, insights into our crimes and our lifestyles.”

The project has teamed with law enforcement, district attorneys and youth advocacy groups “to really, like, use the stories and use the life lessons learned from the inside — to give them to the outside.”

After spending time in three other state prisons, Terrell was transferred in 2015 to San Quentin.

Upon arriving, he recalled, “I had over 100 self-help and educational opportunities in front of me.”

As his capacity for empathy grew, he recognized an imbalance. It struck him as backward and unfair, Terrell said, that “in the social justice world, there’s more opportunities and resources for offenders than victims and survivors.”

Among the most impactful programs for him was CGA, or Criminals and Gang Members Anonymous, composed of “mainly but not only, ex-gang members, recovering from a destructive lifestyle,” according to its website.

In that program, and others, Terrell sat with survivors — “Moms who’d lost their children to gang violence,” he recalled.

“And just hearing these people, and empathizing, imagining what Ryan’s family …” he paused, then continued. “Just hard, hard stuff. But it’s one of those things, if you don’t look in the mirror and own it, you’re not going to be able to overcome it.”

Baseball star in prison

However heartfelt his words about empathy and advocacy for victims’ families, they ring hollow to some members of Roth’s family, and probably always will.

“He shows no remorse,” said Heidi Roth, unmoved by Terrell’s frequent expressions of, well, remorse. “And I think he faked that craziness.”

Before killing a man, Terrell had served time on three different occasions, for offenses including domestic violence and driving under the influence. Sober now, he was an addict and dope dealer at the age of 24, Terrell allows. “I was living a lifestyle that really — prison or death were the only outcomes.”

Roth’s family was incredulous that Terrell didn’t get additional years in prison for those priors.

They were also bugged by Terrell’s star turn on the San Quentin baseball team. That squad has drawn considerable media coverage, and been the subject of several documentaries. Terrell was often quoted and featured in those articles and programs.

Heather Bishop was watching TV with her sons one night when a Bay Area station aired a feature on the San Quentin team. The segment included an interview with Terrell.

She left a voicemail at the station, complaining that she and her sons had just watched their father’s killer on TV, playing baseball.

A few years after being depicted as a monster, she marveled, “now he’s this baseball star in prison.”

Ryan Roth was also a strong athlete and “a really good baseball player,” Heidi recalls. Some of his happiest hours were spent watching his sons play the game. She and others in the family find it galling that the man who took Roth’s life could play baseball in prison, and make news for that, rather than for the homicide that landed him there.

Terrell understands why they’d be upset. He declined to have his picture taken for this story because, he said, “I don’t want to create any more harm. I feel like it’s not honorary to Ryan’s family.”

Fractured family

Eleven years after losing him, the subject of her brother can still bring Heidi Roth to tears.

“He didn’t have to kill Ryan,” said Heidi, still mystified by the senselessness of the act. “I mean, Ryan was such a good guy.”

“He was a (expletive) hellion,” recalled Ryan’s brother, Scott Gibbs, with a laugh. Gibbs was 13 years older than Ryan, who moved in with him when the younger sibling was 15.

Ryan was, to put it politely, an indifferent student at Petaluma High School. Gibbs, a plumber, took him under his wing as an apprentice.

“He was a hard worker, and he picked right up on it,” recalled Gibbs. “Ended up having a bigger company than I did.”

No two family members have grieved Ryan the same way, he said. “Everybody comes out the other side in a different way.”

For his part, Gibbs is in acceptance, unwilling to expend emotional energy on Terrell’s return to Petaluma. Hanging on to hatred, he said, “is like drinking poison and hoping for the other person to die.”

“I wouldn’t say forgive (Terrell,) but I can deal with it. I really don’t care where he lives.

“I feel for my Mom, though. She’s never been the same.”

This is the cruel, unfair reality: Terrell’s transformation from 24-year-old addict and dope dealer to “re-entry coach” and media consultant, his journey to rehabilitation, and a better life — all of this has come about because he took the life of another man.

The untimely death of its youngest, most charismatic member left Ryan Roth’s family fractured. It has yet to recover.

“Our whole family’s broken up,” said Heidi, between muffled sobs. “We haven’t really been in the same room since.”

Daily prayers

In addition to managing the San Quentin baseball team, Steve Reichardt conducts tours of the prison for outsiders. Reichardt, a Sonoma Valley High School graduate with a day job as an engineer for a San Francisco commercial real estate firm, likes to bring an inmate along on those tours.

Reichardt, who repeatedly goes out of his way to express compassion and sorrow for the families of his players’ victims, gives the prisoners the option of mentioning their crime to the tourists. “I know people are interested in what they’re incarcerated for.”

Terrell has accompanied him on countless tours, “and he has always, and I mean always, mentioned his crime,” says the skipper, “not for any other reason than to take responsibility for it, and let them know it was the greatest mistake of his life, and the sorrow he felt for taking the life of his friend.

“He would always start off, ‘I took Ryan Roth’s life,’ and (give) the circumstances of that. He never said anything indicating it was anything other than his fault. This was to me, and other people who had zero effect on him getting out a single day earlier.”

For almost 11 years, says Terrell, he has prayed for healing for Roth’s family, “and all of ‘em, by name.”

He wishes they could find forgiveness in their hearts for him — who wouldn’t, in his shoes? — even as he understands that’s probably not going to happen.

Forgiveness, he believes, heals the person who grants it, as much as it heals the person forgiven. He would like that healing for Roth’s family.

And for himself.

“I just want them to be healthy and not have that hatred, but I understand. I’ve done something so outrageous that I understand.”

He shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for absolution from Geri.

“I cannot believe he’s anywhere in Sonoma County. Ryan’s boys live here. I live here,” she said.

“It’s like he’s wanting to throw dirt in our face, almost, to be back here.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.