Natural Life

Christian McNeil is sentenced to natural life without the possibility of parole, plus two years for the firearm. The sentence is not the start of the answer but the start of the question: What should we do with Christian McNeil? A quarter of a century after the shooting, Christian reaches out to Lynda Harris, Nathan’s mother, for the first time. He wants a clean slate before his and Bridgette’s wedding day, which has finally arrived. But will the wedding itself?

What is it like to be the parent of a murderer? What’s it like to be their sibling? Three days before the shooting, Nathan had beaten Christian’s brother Adam. Now, Nathan is dead, Christian’s in prison, and Adam is exiled to Florida. None of them are ever coming home. The wedding between Christian and Bridgette is so close it seems inevitable. But the families of both the bride and groom are hoping it proves otherwise.

Bridgette Burnett was married to a prisoner for seven years. He got out, and now she’s engaged to another—one who is never leaving. During the decades that Christian has been locked-up with all his basic needs given to him, Bridgette has been having to scrap and struggle. The world now is much crueler than the one Christian left. And is it a world that he even wants to return to?

Conjugal visits—whether you’re married or not—have never been allowed in Michigan prisons. But there's more than just sex that Christian is missing out on now that Bridgette has been banned from visiting. It’s a long list of regrets, and it all begins with Christian arriving home, twenty minutes after the shooting, to tell his mother that he killed Nathan Harris.

Michigan, 1996. Nathan Harris and Christian McNeil meet in the parking lot between the Red Devil Restaurant and the Battle Alley Barbershop. It will prove the final moments of Nathan’s life, and it will prove the final moments of Christian’s life as he knew it. Twenty-three years later, Christian meets Jamie, another inmate, and hears about Jamie’s wife.

Natural Life is a limited podcast series chronicling the life of Christian McNeil, who is serving a lifetime sentence without parole in a Michigan prison. February 14, 2022