Dewan Dennis, who was known as 'Gully Boy' while serving as a five-star general of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, is serving two consecutive life sentences
TRENTON -- When Dewan Dennis lorded over the streets of Trenton in the early 2000s, a time when gang rivalries led to frequent gunfights and left many dead, he was called “Gully Boy” and known as the five-star general of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, a notoriously violent and ruthless gang.
Now Dennis is serving two consecutive life sentences in New Jersey State Prison, and says he is a different man.
About six years after he went to prison, he found religion and underwent “a radical change,” he said during a recent interview at the maximum security facility. He has seen the error of his ways and is now working to steer fellow inmates and inner-city teens away from gangs, he said.
“I’m a new person,” Dennis said. “This is my purpose. My purpose is to reach back from which I came from and try to change and save someone else’s life.”
He became deeply involved in a prison ministry called Kenosis, attending services and Bible study, and began to use his formidable reputation from his gang days to encourage other prisoners to listen to what he has to say about religion, he said.
“He had become the foremost leader in the jail as we speak in terms of bringing other men in,” said Tony Torrini, a Hamilton resident and Kenosis volunteer at New Jersey State Prison.
From inside prison, Dennis is working to set up a new program to reach at-risk youth in Trenton, Camden and his native New Brunswick, to try to deter teens from following in his footsteps, he said.
“I can affect somebody’s life from going down the same path I did,” he said.
Residents who followed Dennis’ criminal career could be forgiven for being skeptical of his conversion.
The 39-year-old former gang kingpin was given his life sentences for ordering a May 2005 firebombing that killed 24-year-old Rasheen Glover and his daughters, 7-year-old Jyasia Watson and 6-year-old Janaya Glover.
After Rasheen Glover reportedly “disrespected” a Bounty Hunter Bloods member, Dewan gave the order to burn the Glovers’ Ingram Avenue home, according to testimony by other gang members. Rasheen Glover and his wife initially escaped onto the roof, but he went back in for the girls and died along with his children.
Janaya, who was found hiding under her bunk bed, suffered third-degree burns and died from smoke inhalation, the county medical examiner said. Jyasia, was found by firefighters on the top bunk, her arms bent like a boxer’s.
Dennis steadfastly denied a role in the firebombing. When he was sentenced in 2007, he tearfully told the judge, “I’m not guilty. I’m not that wild animal.”
He later was given a 20-year sentence for ordering the killing of 22-year-old Denneshia Ledbetter of Somerset, who was gunned down in an alley near Trenton Central High School in 2005. During that sentencing, he expressed sorrow for the crime.
“I wanted to apologize for my actions, for my decisions in April 2005,” he told the judge. “I experienced the same pain a few years before that because my brother was murdered. I understand the pain of the Ledbetter family.”
Efforts to reach the relatives of Dennis’ victims were unsuccessful.
Dewan did not address his crimes during the recent jailhouse interview. His mother, Shirley Middleton, said that while she believes her son is innocent and never told other gang members to kill, he has taken some responsibility for his crimes.
“He acknowledged what he did was wrong, he was in a gang,” she said during a recent interview. “He said ‘I got caught up with some guys and I can’t get out.’”
Torrini acknowledged that it is difficult for many people, especially victims, to believe that violent criminals like Dennis can change through religion. But he believes the conversion is genuine, he said.
“The Lord allows some people to be locked up to get their attention,” Torrini said. “These men have found the Lord and the peace that goes with it.”
Jack Callahan, a former state employee from Cherry Hill who founded the Kenosis program, said he is always astounded when he sees the program change prisoners who have committed atrocious crimes.
“It takes these people who are very evil, and their hearts change,” Callahan said. “I haven’t seen anything that has had such an impact on changing lives.”
The gang life, Dennis said, is compulsive and short-sighted.
“I always compare it to, like, an addict that is addicted to drugs,” Dennis said. “You are just thinking about your next hit. You are not thinking about your future. You are just thinking about satisfying the moment, the here and now.”
Dennis said he joined the Bounty Hunter Bloods because he was looking for a replacement for the family that he had lost. His brother was killed in 1988 and his step-father died from cancer the same year, he said.
Some guys get involved in gangs because they grow up in the culture, or they just like hanging out with their friends who are involved, he said. For others it’s the dress code or the handshakes that draw them in. For him it was the camaraderie of being part of a group of “brothers,” he said.
“My heart was tainted by the streets,” he said.
After his conviction at the age of 31, Dennis began to feel an emptiness inside, he said.
“When I came into the facility, I had no intentions on changing,” Dennis said. “My mind state was that pretty much, it’s over for me. This is where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”
He said a number of other inmates had asked if he wanted to join them in prayer sessions or retreats, offers he quickly rebuffed. He did not start to change, he said, until he learned through a friend on the outside that his 19-year-old son had joined a gang.
“He tried to follow the same footsteps that I did,” Dennis said. “He was trying to live up to the image of his dad, that ‘Gully Boy’ perspective in the streets.”
Dennis was upset because he knew firsthand the consequences of the “culture of gangbanging.”
“That hit home,” he said. “You never know how much something affects you until it comes upon your doorstep.”
Dennis said he had never been a religious or spiritual person. But without thinking about it, he began to pray for his son.
“I started looking to change, to set a better example for him,” he said.
He initially resisted, but began attending meetings, and after a year his “heart began to soften” and he began attending services and Bible study regularly, he said.
“When God got a calling for your life, you can’t resist,” Dennis said.
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5717.
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