Sherry Cummings' Story by Jacob Niebergall

A woman with a small round face, framed behind dark spectacles, softly told me the story of how she had come to live behind the walls of the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center.

“I thought I had to be married to get out from under my mom,” Sherry Cummings told me.

The oldest of eight children, Sherry married at 14 and traveled the country with her husband. The couple journeyed to New Mexico, Colorado, California, Florida, and a few places in between.

The independence she found traveling with her first husband was a welcome change from living at home with her mother, helping raise the seven other children.

At age 16, Sherry left her first husband for a man she called “Dr. Jekyll versus Mr. Hyde,” a man she described as abusive, controlling, and paranoid.

“He slept with a .38 under his pillow every single night. If I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I’d have to wake him up and ask him.”

Sherry depicted her relationship with Dr. Jekyll as abusive in every possible way: physically, verbally, emotionally, mentally, and sexually.

“You’re so scared, but then you just get numb. I learned to accept it, and gave up on life.”

Sherry never stood up for herself, but over time she learned to take the beatings, and pick herself up after every blow.

“I would take it until he was tired,” she said.

Jessie told her what to do, what to say, what to think, and when to think it. Jessie controlled Sherry’s life.

On September 5, 1991, Sherry’s husband, Jessie James Cummings, and his other wife, Juanita Cummings, were directly involved in the murder of Jessie’s sister Judy, and his niece Melissa.

Sherry Cummings was convicted of two counts of Accessory to Murder After the Fact, and one count of Permitting Child Abuse.

She was incarcerated in 1994 at Oklahoma City’s Old Mable Bassatt, then moved to a private prison in Odessa, Texas, then McCloud prison, then in June of 2005, she was transferred to Eddie Warrior.


Even after years of abuse, and years of incarceration, Sherry still has ambition and a surprising sort of spirit in her demeanor. She said time has given her the opportunity to look inside herself and re-evaluate who she is.

In all of her resilience, Sherry has not become a casualty of the abuse she endured. Sherry now accepts herself, and is happy with who she is.

“I have no marks that anyone can see," she said. "All my marks are on the inside.”

Jacob Niebergall, pictured above, is a TU communication student.