The Murderers I Have Known
The prison where I worked in my twenties was classified as medium custody. The inmates incarcerated there were all felons, but they either had sentences under ten years or had spent enough time in maximum or close custody without disciplinary infractions to earn a promotion to a prison where they could enjoy more privileges. We had many lifers serving time for a variety of offenses, including murder. Some of our inmates were awaiting execution in 1972 when the Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. Every death row in the country was cleared, and all of the inmates on them had their sentences commuted to life in prison, including people like Charles Manson. We still had gun towers surrounding the unit, and any inmate who went outside the wire was accompanied by an officer authorized to shoot to kill to prevent an escape. It wasn't a country club.
One of our inmates, David Locklear, had been on death row, had his sentence commuted, became eligible for parole, and was released. After he got out, he got into a dispute with a neighbor who was breeding American bison with regular beef cattle as an experiment. David's peculiar blend of fundamentalist Christianity and Native American mysticism convinced him that this was a mortal sin, and he ended up killing the neighbor and returning to prison. He was nearing parole for the second murder when I caught him smuggling a large quantity of marijuana between different parts of the prison, and he ended up transferring back to close custody.
The inmate who served as the cashier in the prison canteen in the part of the prison where I worked was named Don Woods. Another Native American, he had killed his wife for unknown reasons one night while drunk. He swore he did not remember doing it. His son was locked up in the youth prison across the road from the adult institution where I worked. They had not seen each other for several years, since Don's trial. As a humanitarian gesture, some of us who liked Don and believed him to be genuinely remorseful worked with the staff at the youth prison to facilitate a visit between the two of them, which was highly irregular but deserved, I felt.
During the 20th century, only one correctional officer was killed by an inmate in North Carolina. It happened in the town of Sanford in the 1960s when an escaping inmate used a smuggled gun to kill the officer supervising him while attempting to get away. He was caught the same day. The killer's name was Jimmy Lee, and twenty years after the murder, he was still serving time and was assigned to our unit after finally earning his way out of maximum custody. I got to know him out on the yard, where he religiously lifted weights and played with the feral cats that were always out there. I was fascinated by the case and wanted to see if I could notice any differences between Jimmy and other inmates who didn't have such a lurid history. Aside from being more intelligent than the average convict, he wasn't remarkably different. He was unfailingly polite and cooperative. He told me he hadn't meant to kill the officer he shot, but his story didn't make much sense. I didn't press him on it since it wasn't really my place. (Note: In the 21st century, there have already been five murders of correctional staff in North Carolina.)
Those are just three of the many murderers I met during my years as a correctional officer. They generally didn't seem as dangerous and sociopathic as the guys doing time for armed robbery. Most people in prison for murder aren't repeat offenders. There aren't many serial killers or mob hitmen. They've usually killed someone they know or are related to. Most often, alcohol and drugs are involved. I did encounter some men whom I felt were truly evil and dangerous. They certainly exist, and prison is the right place for them.
Years after leaving the Department of Corrections, I became an activist against the death penalty. One of the reasons I did that was for my fellow guards. Having to warehouse people and then escort them to a room to be killed by the state is an inhumane thing to ask anyone to do. There are numerous former officers in Texas, the execution capital of the U.S., suffering today from participating in executions. The death penalty has been shown time and again to be applied in ways that reflect racial prejudice, ranging from the race of the victims to the racial makeup of juries. There is also the simple fact that large numbers of death row inmates have been proven via DNA to be not guilty. Capital punishment is much more expensive than incarceration, and it does not serve as a deterrent in the states where it is most often used. Most of the Western world abolished capital punishment years ago, leaving only serial human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia and China to accompany the U.S. on its grim mission.
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