Early Years
Hammer himself described his childhood as being full of ‘poverty, abuse, and many other of society's ills’. He is the oldest of three children. He attended 21 different schools as a child, dropping out of high school. As a child, he suffered verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. At 13 he ran away from home for several weeks before being returned. Two years later, Hammer lived on the street, with drug abuse problems. At age 16 he married, though was subsequently divorced.
Hammer was first imprisoned at the age of 19. With the exception of two brief escapes during the 1980s, he served 21 of the first 41 years of his life incarcerated for a multitude of offenses, including larceny, shooting with intent to kill, kidnapping and telephoning in a bomb threat. In all, he is serving 1232 years for his 11 convictions.
Hammer was first placed into the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in December 1993. He was transferred from the custody of the State of Oklahoma, where he was serving a state prison sentence in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for over 1,200 years for crimes committed in that state. Hammer received the BOP ID# 24507-077.
Read more about this topic: David Paul Hammer
Famous quotes related to early years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)