SAN ANTONIO -- At 12 years old, he killed a man. Three decades later Edwin Debrow is finally free to start a new life.

• Arrested in 1991 for murder
• He was 12 years old at the time
• Sentenced to 27 years in prison in 1992

When he was arrested in 1991 for the slaying of San Antonio cab driver Curtis Edwards, Debrow was 12 years old and weighed less than 80 pounds. He was just a month shy of spending 28 years in prison when he was released in August. But the San Antonio native isn’t returning home, where all of his extended family lives.

Debrow moved to the Houston area after his release.

“I think this is a survival move for me,” he said.

In 1992, Bexar County sentenced Debrow to 27 years behind bars. He was too young to be tried in adult court, and as a juvenile, he was eligible for release at the age of 18. But that didn’t happen.

“I wasn’t ready to get out at 18 years old. At 18, I wouldn’t have been a changed person,” Debrow said.

He started carrying guns years before his arrest. The adults in his life struggled with drugs, and he grew up on the streets, running with an older crowd involved in crime. Edwards wasn’t even the first person Debrow had shot in his short life. Debrow was first sent to a series of juvenile detention centers.

Photo Credit: Debrow Family

“They encouraged us to fight. That’s just how it was. It was corrupt and we fought a lot,” Debrow said.

At the age of 18, a Bexar County judge sent Debrow to prison. Before long, he stabbed another inmate. Debrow said he was protecting himself from rival gang members on the cell block.

“There are a lot of things you have to do in prison to survive,” he said.

Debrow began cutting ties to the gang he joined as a pre-teen. He said he plans to cover his gang tattoos once he has the time and money. By his early 20s, he began making changes that would help him build a life on the outside. Debrow dropped out of school before he was arrested, but used his time in prison to obtain his GED, took college classes and learned how to work with computers.

“This stuff works, if you want it to work. There are some people who want to change, and some who don’t,” Debrow said.

Since his release, he’s been looking for work, ultimately hoping to find work that matches his passion for criminal justice reform. Earlier this week, Debrow got one job offer and is waiting to hear back from two other interviews. 

“He’s paid his debt. I think he has and it’s time for him to go on out and see whatever else God has for him to do,” said Seletha Thomas, Debrow’s sister.

Both Thomas and Debrow agree that, ironically, going to prison may have ultimately saved his life.

“I’m 40 years old now and if I had stayed on the East Side I don’t think I would have survived,” Debrow said.

While in prison, Debrow developed a wide-ranging support network, including a former elementary school teacher, as well as strangers touched by his story.

“It truly moved me. The fact that I’ve always felt children deserve a second chance,” said Charlotte Pendergraft, a Houston woman who read a Texas Monthly story about Debrow in 2016.

They began exchanging letters and eventually Pendergraft went to visit her new friend.

“I see good things in Edwin’s future. I see him accomplishing and succeeding,” Pendergraft said.

Debrow even found love while incarcerated. A friend introduced him to Megan Risdon, and they began corresponding. Eventually, the two became an item. Despite the initial shock from both of their friends and family, Debrow moved in with Risdon and her two young children.

“The best thing I can do is to get away from that environment all together and do something totally different and try to make it on my own,” Debrow said.

Just days after his release, the Debrow family mourned during the one-year anniversary of the slaying of his older brother, Herion Chase.

“I knew what that pain is like. I knew what it was like to take a life and I know what it was like for a family to hurt. I always say you can’t cap the number of years someone deserves to spend in prison for taking a life,” said Debrow.

Debrow refuses to blame his actions on his upbringing, and also doesn’t believe he should be free. But his sister disagrees. 

“He’s a grown man now, he deserves a chance to be able to go out and live his life without people ridiculing him or holding him under scrutiny for something he did when he was 12 years old,” Thomas said.

Once he’s completed his parole, Debrow plans to visit the grave of Curtis Edwards.

The Edwards family declined to participate in this story.