Charles Harrelson abruptly abandoned his wife and sons when Woody was 7, pushing the family into poverty; perhaps it was unsurprising, then, that Woody once described him as “[not] much of a father” to People. Learning that Charles left them to murder for money might have easily broken an already strained relationship beyond repair. Yet Charles’s arrest and conviction seemed to have the opposite effect. Woody visited his father often and helped arrange his behind-bars wedding. He fought (unsuccessfully) for a retrial and publicly described Charles as “articulate, well-read, [and] charming”—even as he wondered, after everything Charles had done, whether his father was truly worthy of his loyalty and support.