Speaker who spent 26 years in prison encourages students to reach out when feeling hopeless

By Kayne Pyatt, Herald Reporter
Posted 1/30/25

Last month, students at Horizon High School were given the opportunity to hear inspiring words of rehabilitation from a man who spent 26 years in prison and is now a motivational speaker for Strong …

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Speaker who spent 26 years in prison encourages students to reach out when feeling hopeless

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Last month, students at Horizon High School were given the opportunity to hear inspiring words of rehabilitation from a man who spent 26 years in prison and is now a motivational speaker for Strong Families Strong Wyoming.

Convicted of first-degree murder at the age of 17 for taking the life of a classmate in 1996, Thomas (Tommy) Rivera III spent 26 years in prison on a life sentence without parole at the Wyoming State Penitentiary.

“In order to understand where I am now, I had to understand where I’ve been,” Rivera said. “I never envisioned my life turning out like this.”

Rivera shared photos of himself as a baby and young child, progressing to his pre-teen and teen years. He said he was a happy child until about the age of 13, when all the other boys grew taller and stronger and he remained short and not very strong. When other boys got involved in sports and joined cliques, Rivera felt he didn’t fit in and he begin to withdraw and isolate himself.

As a teen, Rivera attended an alternative high school with 160 other students in Cheyenne.

“I started hating and resenting the jocks,” Rivera said. “I felt hopeless, ugly and unlovable. What did I do? I did what a lot of you might do — I turned to the 1990s grunge look. We put on costumes to try to fit in.”

Rivera said he turned to theft and vandalism and, in one vehicle he was robbing, he found a 9mm pistol. When he was 16, feeling ashamed, ugly, like a burden and unlovable, he drank beer all alone and put the pistol to his head. He said he didn’t want to live anymore and hated himself.

“As I sat there holding the gun to my head, I suddenly felt heat radiate through my chest and into my body and I called out the name Jesus, and I put the gun down,” Rivera said.

In his senior year in high school, Rivera said he had flirted with another boy’s girlfriend and, instead of apologizing, he laughed when confronted by the boy. He said the other boy was tall and big yet he was a “teddy bear,” a nice guy. Rivera said he thought if he apologized, he would look like a coward to the others around him.

“But instead, in 1996, at the age of 17, I stole the life from another boy and his family,” Rivera said. “I went to prison and spent my days in a two-man cell. In prison, you have no choices; you have to get permission for everything.”

Rivera shared his feelings of hopelessness and depression while in prison until two people he met there positively changed his life. After he had been in prison for seven years, caseworker Dave Dingman had a positive impact on Rivera. Dingman got Rivera involved in the Restorative Justice project and in a school project where the inmates created a film for students about Latino history in Wyoming. He said it was the first time in his life he felt good about himself.

The other man who made a difference in Rivera’s life was another prisoner, also serving a life sentence for murder. That man was Martin Gabriel, who encouraged Rivera to get involved in a program helping other prisoners. Gabriel told Rivera how his father had come to visit him in prison and challenged him to start helping the community he lived in instead of destroying it with his anger.

It was then that Gabriel started reaching out to help other prisoners and began talking to kids in schools. He mentored Rivera and helped him become comfortable with public speaking. Together they created the Community Minded Workshop — an inmate-led cognitive thinking program.

“Everyone in the prison knows Gabriel and respects him,” Rivera said. “He is dedicated to helping other prisoners and he definitely made a difference in my life.”

Rivera told the students that, while he was in prison, he constantly asked himself, “Why did I take another boy’s life?” His answers were: low self-esteem, a feeling of worthlessness and his own self-perception of being ugly and unlovable.

Everyone deals with issues, he said, but it is important to remember there is always help available and all one has to do is ask for it.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court (Miller v. Alabama) ruled it is unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to mandatory life without parole, paving the way for Rivera to be released from prison in 2022.

Rivera had always loved art and, while in prison, he studied with another prisoner who was a skilled artist. Rivera developed a portfolio of his own art. When he was released from prison his girlfriend, Danielle Payton, encouraged him to take his portfolio to the annual Forever West Tattoo Festival organized by Cheyenne tattoo artist and business owner, Trinidad Serrano.

When Serrano saw Rivera’s art work, he was impressed and asked Rivera to come work and study tattoo artistry with him. Rivera said he was very honest with Serrano and told him about his crime of murder and just being released from prison.

Rivera said Serrano told him, “I don’t care about the past, I care about what you are doing now and what you can do in the future.”

He went to work for Serrano and now, after two years apprenticeship, he is a certified tattoo artist at Serrano’s 20-year-old business, The Tribe Zoo Tattoo in Cheyenne.

Rivera’s time working with the Restorative Justice project has led to his being a motivational speaker. His experience includes partnering with Strong Families Strong Wyoming; peer specialist training for Recover Wyoming; Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Program; Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp; Wyoming State Penitentiary: In-reach Out-reach program mentor and speaker; and with The Community Minded Workshop.

He has expanded his speaking tours to include universities and schools. Rivera has also recently enrolled as a student of criminal justice at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne.

His personal story shows how, through educational opportunities and restorative justice community service projects, there is the potential to foster positive self-esteem in participants. He encouraged the students to make positive connections with people around them to build a true sense of community and through hard work and dedication they can achieve their dreams.

Rivera ended his presentation with a quote from Martin Gabriel, “Our mission is to save the life of at least one child.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, help is available by calling or texting 988.