TAMPA, Fla. _ As a fifth-grader, Aleesha Mance wrote an essay about her sister's killer, explaining how peer pressure and drugs led the 17-year-old to make a deadly choice.
In high school, she searched for his name online. She read news articles about a teen with Nazi tattoos serving a life sentence for firing into a black man's house on April 3, 1999. She saw photos of her 6-year-old twin, Ashley, who died on their living room couch.
In 2012, her mother told her about the letter.
Jessy Joe Roten had a message for Aleesha and her younger sister:
"I realize that no amount of change in me is enough to take back the terrible tragedy I caused in their childhoods," he wrote from prison. "I wonder if they have questions they wish they could ask me, or if they ever think about confronting me.
"I want them to know how very sorry I am for what I did."
Aleesha wrote back.
"I told him I did forgive him," she said recently. "I told him that if I could let him get out earlier or change anything about (his sentence), that I would."
This month, she did.
