Bob Rebadow

Grew up… in a different time, back when young people enlisted to fight wars abroad rather than battle on the streets at home. Bob is appalled by the lack of character in most of the other, younger inmates.

Living… only by a stroke of extreme luck. Bob likes to call himself “the last person in the state executed.” He was sentenced to death back in the 1960s, and was undergoing his electrocution when a power surge saved his life by frying the equipment before it finished frying him. The death penalty was abolished while he was recovering from his wounds, and his sentence was commuted to life in prison.

Profession… none. Bob is a lonesome prison inmate at Oswald State Penitentiary, or “Oz.” Bob has no friends and no alliances in Oz. He is not part of any gang due to his age.

Interests… talking to God. Bob claims that he has a supernatural connection with the Supreme Being: “God comes to visit me every once in a while. Actually, he comes more often than I’d like, but it’s God. What can I say? That I’m busy, that I’m in the shower? He knows.”

Relationship Status… none. The only relationship that Bob has is with the voice of God. Many brush him off as crazy, even though he seems to possess a mysterious awareness of everything that happens in Oz, including prisoners’ true feelings. Some think Bob acquired this apparent mystical ability during his near-electrocution, but nobody knows for sure.

Challenge… surviving prison life. As he says to his fellow prisoner, Tobias Beecher, the secret is to “try to keep breathing.” Life in Oz is especially difficult for the elderly, and the prison officials have to find new ways to take care of the aging Bob.

Personality… mysterious and kind. Bob does not have any enemies in the prison. Most of the inmates tend to view him as harmless at best and a minor annoyance at worst, if indeed they notice him at all. He is totally resigned to his dismal, lonesome life. In his words, “In all my years in Oz, I’ve learned one rule: accept the hand you’re dealt.”