“I’m Cody Neal,” he said, shaking hands with this writer like a used-car salesman, warm and ingratiating. “Cody’s a nickname. . . . My friends call me Cody.” He glanced to the left, then smiled and exchanged nods with another inmate through the glass partition separating the tiny room from the cubicle next door. “He’s a great guy . . . brings me my food every morning,” Neal said of the younger man, who had been laughing wildly at whatever his weepy mother was telling him through the thick Plexiglas that separated her from her son. There was no such barrier in this room. Neal demanded a contact visit to tell his story because, he said, he didn’t want “other people” to hear. The request was at first denied by jail authorities; he was, after all, a confessed mass murderer. When he complained to jail higher-ups, the request was quickly granted—“Whatever Cody wants”—so long as he behaved himself and there were no delays getting to his death penalty trial in September.
