Marc Schreuder turns his piercing blue eyes toward the window, then says going to prison for killing his grandfather saved his life.
He was 17 when he shot and killed Salt Lake businessman Frank Bradshaw. At 20 he went to prison for that murder. Now 33, the self-described "mongrel philosopher" says he's not bitter about spending most of his adult life in prison."My grandfather had to die by my hand in order for me to be human," he said. "He was a good man, and he didn't deserve what happened to him."
He believes prison saved him by separating him from his mother, Frances Schreu-der, who is also serving a prison sentence for ordering her son to kill her father.
"This place was my blessing," he said, adding that without it he probably would still be shackled to his mother.
"I probably would have been a dandified appendage to Frances all my life," he said, smiling.
A week before he is to be paroled, Schreuder talked with the Deseret News about his life since the murder and his plans as a free man. He is upbeat, confident and happy - a stark contrast to the nervous, introverted teenager who told a jury his mother ordered him to kill his grandfather.
At his mother's trial, he testified that he hid behind a loading dock outside his grandfather's auto parts warehouse the morning of July 23, 1978. He talked with his grandfather for about 15 minutes and when Bradshaw turned his back, Marc shot and killed him.
He said his mother persuaded him to do it after Bradshaw attempted to write Frances Schreuder out of his will. During the trial, he said his mother controlled him through fear after years of abuse.
Clad in prison blues, he describes the two of them at the time of the murder as "Siamese twins - joined at the head."
He bears her first name as his middle name. Today they don't share much more than that. They are, he says, "comfortable, non-communicative."
Without his mother controlling his life, Schreuder was forced to look inside himself, a look he said was very painful.
"I was a savage - overeducated and undercivilized," he said. "There are a lot of components to a human being . . . I only had the educational component."
Then a shy, nervous teenager who had almost no social skills, he found himself thrust into a situation that forced him to take risks. He made friends and embarked on projects that made him feel useful.
"It's a very dynamic environment. You learn to interact, because you're forced to. I needed to be forced into it."
Schreuder said the solitude of confinement also helped him recognize the spiritual void in his life.
"I never had it out there. It's a gap. You need it. You have to fill it. Human beings are just rivers of needs."
He said he's always known it's wrong to kill, but self-analysis helped him understand why he did it and how to change.
"I knew when I did it back then it was evil and it's still evil. You have to tear into yourself. What I got in here that I would have never gotten out there was being confined and forced to reflect."
As he prepares for life as a free man, he worries he'll become immersed in his own little world again. One thing that will help him stay on the right path is the memory the man buried in the Lehi cemetery.
"I've got my grandfather looking over my shoulder. I owe him a debt of life."
A debt he says he plans to repay by making good choices. While in prison, he earned his building construction degree from Salt Lake Community College. He says he plans to stay in Salt Lake City and find a job.
"Will frame for food," he laughs.
The first things he wants to do as a free man?
"I want to visit the Cathedral of the Madeleine . . . see those restorations," he said, leaning back in his chair. "And visit my dad and my grandmother. I'm just going to take it one day at a time and do the best I can."
He says while he's changed in many ways, he's still the same person in some ways that he was 13 years ago. "I came in a confused young man and I'm still a confused young man."
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Additional Information
Mother serving 5 to life
Frances Bradshaw Schreuder was convicted of murder in 1983 for ordering her son to kill her father. She received a five-years-to-life sentence. Now 56, she's housed in the Olympus women's facility in Draper. She's scheduled to be paroled in October 1996 and plans to open her own business.