AmyNation
Road Warrior
Yeah I've been digging too. Your Robert M. Grooms is, as nearly as I can tell, a Jr. who is 33 years old with a rap sheet as long as my arm.
The Robert Grooms who wrote the piece in the OP however, wrote it in 1997 - that was 16 years ago. If he was your Robert M. Grooms, he would have been 16 or 17 years old when he wrote it. Has to be a different Robert M. Grooms.
Black Slave Owners Civil War Article by Robert M Grooms
I have no idea where you are getting any ages.
Here's the same article in OP
http://www.solargeneral.com/library/dixies-censored-subject-black-slave-owners-robert-m-grooms.pdf
That describes grooms as
"A freelance writer living in Indiana"
I haven't found an age for the writer of the article, but I am enough of a writer/historian to know that piece was not written by a 16-year-old kid with a long history of being in trouble with the law. Where is your link showing the author of the piece is serving a life sentence or has ever been in jail period?
On the other hand, I found all these:
MugShot of Robert M Grooms | Fairborn, OH
Robert M Grooms Arrest Details | Kettering, OH
ROBERT M GROOMS JR | Arrested on March 21, 2013 | JailBase
Who said anything about a 16 year old?