Oct. 10, 2024

Alone

Alone

In this episode of Bloody Angola, we discuss the stark realities of death and burial within Angola Prison, inspired by Wilbert Rideau's writing which highlight the emotional turmoil of inmates facing mortality. We recount the poignant scenes of...

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Season 6

In this episode of Bloody Angola, we discuss the stark realities of death and burial within Angola Prison, inspired by Wilbert Rideau's writing which highlight the emotional turmoil of inmates facing mortality. We recount the poignant scenes of funerals and contrast the beauty of Point Lookout cemetery with the grim reality of unclaimed graves raising critical questions about dignity in death and calling attention to the humanity lost within the prison walls and the fears that accompany dying in isolation in America’s bloodiest prison.

Timestamps
06:31 The Funeral of James Cripps
10:45 Point Lookout Cemetery
13:05 The Lease System's Brutality
17:25 The Aftermath of the Lease System
31:03 Changing Conditions in Modern Prisons
35:11 Fulgham's Experience in the Hospital
40:11 Addressing Elderly and Ailing Prisoners
47:15 Fulgham's Medical Furlough and Final Days
48:41 Reflection on Wilbert Rideau's Writing

#bloodyangola #podcast #crime #louisiana #penitentiary #criminal #convict

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WEBVTT

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I walk straight line.

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Shackle change, Oh weesome, gird, it's calling my name. There

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is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice as

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the hill stream game Wrangle three, I'm here but by

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mere to die inside these walls, inside the wild and

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went no girls.

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I Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angola, a

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podcast one and forty two years in the making, the

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complete story of America's bloodiest prison. I'm Jim Chapman, and look,

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today I am going to open your eyes, maybe a

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little bit, to the horrors for lack of a better word,

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of what it is like to die in prison and

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Angola specifically, be bare read there, what happens to you

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and what happened back in the past before Bloody Angola

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was bloody Inngla and it was still a slave plantation

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just starting to grow. I guess you could say it's

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prison roots. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

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And what got me thinking about this was an article

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that I read from Wilbert Rido and of course I've

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talked about him in the past. Did a full episode

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on Wilbert Rideau, certainly the best author and writer to

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ever come out of Angola, but one of the best

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authors of all time in my opinion, whether he was

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in prison or not. So I'm going to read you

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that article that he wrote, and it's going to give

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you an idea of what this is like in a

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way that only Wilbert Rideau paint it. And it reads.

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It was a nice spring morning, with a soft breeze

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rustling the leaves of the tall trees, but its beauty

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was lost upon a handful of the maids who had

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just finished digging a deep, rectangular hole that would be

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the final resting place of James Crepps number seven six

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zero six ' nine. Laying their shovels aside the grave,

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diggers inspected their work. They had done a good job.

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The hole was deep and the sides were smooth and

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even tired and dirty. They loitered around the grave, chatting

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as they waited for the scheduled funeral to take place.

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It wasn't what they wanted to be doing, but it

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was better than working in the field. A few prison

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officials arrived, soon followed by the warden. Then a yellow

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school bus pulled up on the side of the road

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directly across from the burial site. Some two dozen inmates,

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all trustees, filed out of the bus. Slowly. They began

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to wander through the cemetery, exploring it with a wide

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eyed fascination and calling out to each other in odd

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voices as they were recognized for many names of former

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inmates on some of the tombstones. Point Lookout was a

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place they had all heard about throughout their imprisonment, but

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one that most were seeing for the first time, in

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a significant departure from the typical prison funeral normally attended

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by only a chaplain, the undertaker in one or two officials,

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and the grave diggers. The warden had granted the request

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of the prisoners, all friends of Krups, to attend that funeral.

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Murmuring voices signaled the arrival of a black hearse, which

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pulled up alongside the road in front of a grave

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and stopped. The driver conferred briefly with Warden Ross Maggio

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and Chaplain Gary Pitton. Maggio turned to the waiting inmates,

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give me six of y'all to serve as pallbears. Six

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inmates moved forward, took hold of the coffin as it

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was slid out, and slowly walked the short distance to

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the grave. The chaplain led the procession, with the warden

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bringing up the rear. Two inmates carried Flora Reese, purchased

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by the inmate organizations. The typical prison funeral had no reas,

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but Cripps have been popular. He was well liked by

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the inmates. The coffin was placed on the wood planks

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above the grave, and the pallbearers stood on each side

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in a strict formation. It was a cheap, beige coffin

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made of some synthetic material that looked unmust like wood.

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Someone had written head across one end of it with

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a mark a lot so people would know the difference.

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Penton stepped to the head about his head and began

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the service by announcing to the gathering that Crypp's mother

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was an aging and seriously ill lady who wanted them

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to know that her son was not being buried in

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the prison cemetery because he was unloved, but because she

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was financially unable to bring him home and have him

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buried near her. She would have liked to have attended

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the few funeral service, Penton told the gathering, but was

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too poor and ill to make the trup. She requested

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that the thirty third Psalm be read over. Her son,

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Maurice pop Bickham, stepped beside the chaplain at the head

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of the grave. He was normally a spry man who

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moved about pretty well. Despite his sixty seven years of age,

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Bickham moved with a slowness that mirrored his depression. He

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had been a prisoner for the past twenty six years

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and had been a close friend of Crupps. He first

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met Crups on death Row, where they had spent many

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years awaiting the execution that never came. When the US

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Supreme Court spared the nation's condemned prisoners with its nineteen

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seventy two ruling that the death penalty as administered violated

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the Eighth Amendment, they joined the prisoner's regular populations to

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serve life sentences. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall

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not want he maketh me lie down. Faltered as he

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read the passage from the Bible. The words soon blurred

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from tears that filled his eyes. He continued to recite

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from memory, fighting the anguish that stirred in his gut.

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He and Crips had struggled for many years for a

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freedom that neither had realized they had been through a

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lot of good and bad experiences, had slept only a

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few beds away from each other, and now he had

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to read the Psalm over his friend. It unleashed his

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own fears of death and dying in prison. Though I

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walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I

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will fear no evil. With the Psalm read, the chaplain

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asked another prisoner to lend a song to the occasion.

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Warren Lewis stepped forward and began, Here I stand before

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your throne. His strong voice filled the hush stillness of

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the cemetery. I stand at your throne, Oh God, plead

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my case, Oh Lord. Following Lewis's solo of the other

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inmates were invited to step forth and say whatever they

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wished about the man they had known. Crips was born

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and reared in rural Michigan and was an only child.

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While living in New Orleans, he and a traveling companion

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murdered a man, and in nineteen sixty eight he found

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himself under a death sentence. After his death sentence was

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set aside, he was resentenced to life imprisonment in nineteen

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seventy three. He adjusted well to prison life despite its

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then violent nature, and according to prison officials, he was

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never a disciplinary problem. Like so many lifers, Crips tenaciously

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clung to the dream that he would one day regain

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his freedom, but since he was poor and essentially alone

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in the world, it was a lonely struggle. With his

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mother living so far away, he rarely received visitors, except

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for a male religious adviser who occasionally came by to

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see him. For a long time, he worked in the

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prison's print shop, A tireless worker who rarely complained. He

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was always cooperative and willing to do whatever he could

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to help others. A sports enthusiast, he rode the animals

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in the annual prison radio for several years. He also

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played softball and football, once even playing on an otherwise

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all black softball team and earning the moniker the White Shadow.

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Several months before his death, Crips was transferred to the

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main prisons maintenance crew, but something was physically wrong with him.

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He didn't know what it was. He started losing weight

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rapidly and was finally admitted to the prison's infirmary. Over

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the next month, he was admitted several times to the

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hospital in Baton, Rouge and New Orleans, and he died

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in New Orleans Charity Hospital of heart disease. He was

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thirty seven. At the end of the service, the pawbears

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lowered crips into the ground. The men picked up small

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clods of dirt and through them atop the coffin in

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a farewell gesture. As mourners departed the grave, diggers immediately

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began shoveling dirt into the hole. The dry, hollow sound

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of the dirt hitting the cheap coffin unnerved pop Vickim,

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and he looked back as he climbed onto the bus

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Point lookout is the prison's barrier ground, its cemetery, located

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a short distance from the prison's employee residential area. The

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cemetery is nestled among a forest of pine trees. A

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paved road runs in front of it, across from which

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is a dilapidated horse form for employees. A deep gully

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runs behind it, separating it from a thick wooded area

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where some of the employees hunting dogs are pinned. It

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is a quiet and tranquil place. It's silence interrupted from

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time to time only by the wishing sound of a

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passing car. Clusters of sweet gum and oak trees dot

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the well tended lawn. The graves are laid out in

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scattered clusters toward the front. Seven rows of two hundred

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and ninety six white concrete tombstones stretch out across the

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entire width of the cemetery. On a few of the stones,

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names or names and numbers appear, but most only carrying numbers.

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In the past few years, the prison administration has tried

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to bury the dead in a uniform manner and has

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attached little white metal tags with the deceased name and

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number to those headstones. Point Lookout is not a typical cemetery.

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No one goes there except to clean the grounds or

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to bury another prisoner. There are no visitors. Prisoners are

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not permitted to go, Employees generally have no reason to visit,

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and since those buried there are dispossessed and unclaimed, there

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are no friends or relatives to come and lay out flowers.

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Even if there were, Bickam points out, they would have

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to make special arrangements to enter the prison and visit

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that grave. If they're poor and they lack transportation, the

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prison is too remote for regular visits. There's no way

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in the world that someone can catch a ride with

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somebody all the way to Angola, be dropped off at

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the cemetery, and then catch a ride all the way

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back to where they came from. Pop Bickham told the

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Angelite people can do that at cemeteries in the free world,

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but not way up here. You'd have to find someone

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coming to Angola in the first place just to catch

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a ride. And Bickham knows about such matters. He spent

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over two years working as an attendant at the cemetery.

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As long as I worked there, he said, not one

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person visited anybody in that cemetery. Bickham is right about

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the world forgetting about those buried there. Except for the

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recent burials, prison officials can tell little to any inquirer

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about the dead at Point Lookout. In fact, while there

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were two hundred and ninety six tombstones, Assistant Warden Peggy

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Gresham pointed out that it seemed inconceivable that given the

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number of deaths which have occurred over the years here

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at in Goola, there are not more people buried at

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Point Lookout. Prisoners were first sent to Angola in eighteen

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sixty nine after the state leased out all its convicts

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to Major Samuel Lawrence James to ease the financial burden

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of housing them. One of the first moves by James

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was to transfer state prisoners from the penitentiary then located

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in Baton Rudge to his Ngola cotton plantation. James had

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huge ambitions about how best to utilize inmate labor to

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make money. For the next twenty five years, he operated

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the most profitable and brutal enterprise in the history of

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the state of Louisiana, often violating state laws in the

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terms of his contract. While less prior to the Civil

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War had used inmate labor in its manufacturing operations within

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the prison facility, James knew there were enormous profits to

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be made by taking inmates out of the prison, and

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while he started with only a couple of one hundred inmates,

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he used them on the Mississippi River levees and railroad construction,

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as well as other farms and plantations, utilizing brute force

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to maintain the discipline and productivity. The result was a

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living nightmare for the convicts, but an empire for James.

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In a matter of months. During the first year, James

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made a half million dollars which was a king's fortune

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in those days. But by the eighteen eighties the least

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system began to receive public criticism, which grew louder as

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the Major and his subcontractors continued to work, mutilate, and

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kill prisoners throughout Louisiana. In eighteen eighty six, a newspaper

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in Clinton, Louisiana described what was by then common knowledge

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when it stated that the men on James' works are

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brutally treated, and everybody knows it. They are worked mostly

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in the swamps and plantations, from daylight to dark. Corporal

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punishment is inflicted on the slightest provocation. Anyone who has

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traveled along the lines of the railroads that run through

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Louisiana swamps in which the levies are built, they have

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seen the poor devils almost to the waste in the

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black and noxious mud. C. Harrison Parker, editor of the

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New Orleans Daily. Picky Un, a leading critic of the

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horrors inflicted upon the prisoners by James, asserted that it

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00:15:23.639 --> 00:15:26.840
would be more humane to execute anyone sentenced to more

229
00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:30.799
than six years in james Lee system, because the average

230
00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:35.639
convict didn't live that long anyway. In eighteen ninety state

231
00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:40.600
representative C. W. Seals of Clabne Parish also condemned James

232
00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.159
in his brutal system, charging on the floors of the

233
00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:45.960
house that the death rate is about four times as

234
00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:49.000
great in proportion to the number of convicts as the

235
00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:52.919
death rate is in any penitentiary in the United States.

236
00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:58.440
Joseph Ransdell, a North Louisiana attorney who would later become

237
00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:01.720
a US Senator, stated in a trial in eighteen ninety

238
00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:04.039
eight that a friend had told him that he had

239
00:16:04.039 --> 00:16:07.519
seen forty two convicts buried at one camp in either

240
00:16:07.559 --> 00:16:10.919
eighteen eighty five or eighty six, and the deaths were

241
00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.919
nearly all caused by overwork, exposure, and brutality. James kept

242
00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:19.559
his books closed from the public and official scrutiny, and

243
00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:22.799
there was no official reports from the prison for the

244
00:16:22.879 --> 00:16:26.799
years eighteen eighty five and eighteen eighty six. However, the

245
00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:30.919
Prison Border Control admitted two years before Ransdeal made his

246
00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:34.919
charge that two hundred and sixteen convicts died in eighteen

247
00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:39.039
ninety six alone, and until the lease system ended in

248
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:42.480
nineteen oh one, the death rate averaged about ten percent,

249
00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:45.679
with a total of about eight hundred deaths during the

250
00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:50.440
system's last seven years. On the basis of his research,

251
00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:54.720
Mark Carlton of the Louisiana State University estimated that as

252
00:16:54.759 --> 00:16:58.759
many as three thousand men, women, and children convicts, most

253
00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:02.759
of them black, died during the infamous thirty year period

254
00:17:02.799 --> 00:17:07.640
between eighteen seventy and nineteen oh one. During the last

255
00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:10.640
full year of the lease system nineteen hundred, there were

256
00:17:10.680 --> 00:17:13.240
a total of nine hundred and eighty nine prisoners in

257
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:16.880
the state's leased penal system, one hundred forty nine whites

258
00:17:16.920 --> 00:17:20.000
in eight hundred and forty blacks. The light of those

259
00:17:20.039 --> 00:17:22.920
still alive at the end of the year improved considerably

260
00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:27.440
with the resumption of state control. The more brutal methods

261
00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:31.279
employed under James rule were abandoned, and the morality rate

262
00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:36.839
dropped dramatically. Henry Fuculaw, chief administrative officer of the penal system,

263
00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:40.200
reported to the legislature in nineteen eighteen that the death

264
00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:43.160
rate for convicts had dropped to thirty five point three

265
00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:48.079
per year between nineteen oh one and nineteen seventeen. The

266
00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:52.079
next available statistic on the convict death rate was contained

267
00:17:52.119 --> 00:17:55.359
in a nineteen forty prison report, which stated that between

268
00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:58.240
nineteen thirty one and nineteen thirty five, the number of

269
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:01.640
deaths had increased under the juil uneral management of R. L.

270
00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:04.759
Himes to an average of forty one per year. In

271
00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:08.559
his History of the Louisiana Penal System, Carlton states that

272
00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.880
prison officials, squeezed between the depression and their own venality,

273
00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.759
may well have resorted more often to brutality in order

274
00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:21.319
to make the penal system self supporting. On May eleventh,

275
00:18:21.400 --> 00:18:24.759
nineteen forty one, The Time Speaking reported that a study

276
00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.960
of prison records revealed that fifteen hundred and forty seven

277
00:18:28.039 --> 00:18:31.920
inmates were flogged with twenty three thousand, eight hundred and

278
00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:37.160
eighty nine recorded blows of the double lash, which were

279
00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:42.200
inflicted on prisoners in nineteen thirty three alone. Thousands have

280
00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:46.519
died in the Louisiana penal system. The question is where

281
00:18:46.519 --> 00:18:51.440
have they been buried? Information on this is even more

282
00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:54.839
scarce than information about what happened to the prisoners over

283
00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:58.839
the years. The problem is the prison system until recent

284
00:18:58.920 --> 00:19:03.240
times operated in violation of state laws, with a criminality

285
00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:07.039
and violence that matched and often exceeded that of prisoners

286
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:10.799
in its custody. Like any criminal, the system cloaked its

287
00:19:10.839 --> 00:19:15.759
activities in secrecy. Since major James kept his books and

288
00:19:15.880 --> 00:19:19.440
operations closed from the public an official scrutiny during his

289
00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:23.480
murderous reign. There is no way of knowing who died, how,

290
00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:27.920
when or where. Between eighteen sixty eight and nineteen hundred.

291
00:19:28.279 --> 00:19:31.759
Information was obtained during the penal system's transition from the

292
00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:35.079
LEAs to the state, but no major report came out

293
00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:39.680
of the prison until nineteen eighteen, and even that report

294
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.799
offered no precise information as to the number of convicts

295
00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:47.559
actually imprisoned at any time between eighteen ninety three and

296
00:19:47.720 --> 00:19:54.519
nineteen seventeen. It produced only muddled averages for prison population, death, admissions,

297
00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:58.400
discharge and so on, some of which don't jive with

298
00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:03.319
reports from other sources. No more official reports were issued

299
00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:07.200
about the prison's activities until nineteen thirty two as far

300
00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:10.599
as records and public information went, and GOLA ceased to

301
00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:13.799
exist during the nineteen twenties. For the most part, what

302
00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:19.119
happened during that period is and will remain unknown and

303
00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:22.359
aside from the brief report issued in nineteen thirty two,

304
00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:26.279
and GOLA was once again removed from public scrutiny until

305
00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:31.759
nineteen forty, when an anti Huey Long administration assumed the governorship.

306
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.000
It's a dark stain on the state's history that no

307
00:20:35.079 --> 00:20:38.319
one probably will ever know what happened to those locked

308
00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:42.279
up in the penal system. Throughout those secret years, prisoners

309
00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:45.079
could die and be buried, and except for a few

310
00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:48.839
notable points on them boom, and except for a few

311
00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:52.079
notable points in time, their fate was of little, if

312
00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:56.440
any significance to the public or to state officials. Penal

313
00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:01.759
authorities could easily keep their activities, even murder secret, given

314
00:21:01.799 --> 00:21:08.319
the public's apathy. Unfortunately, the public's concern for inmates' welfare

315
00:21:08.359 --> 00:21:12.839
and its enthusiasm for their rehabilitation have always been inversely

316
00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:16.319
proportional to the number of black convicts perceived to be

317
00:21:16.440 --> 00:21:21.160
within the system. Prior to the Civil War, when the

318
00:21:21.200 --> 00:21:24.960
convict population was primarily white, the state and even the

319
00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:29.400
leases chose manufacturing as a means of utilizing inmate labor.

320
00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:34.440
When the inmate population became predominantly black following the Civil War,

321
00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:37.960
the public sin confused the crime problem with the Negro

322
00:21:38.359 --> 00:21:43.000
quote unquote problem, a perception that still lingers today. The

323
00:21:43.079 --> 00:21:45.920
further one moves back in time, the less likely it

324
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:48.480
is that a prisoner's body was claimed by his family

325
00:21:48.519 --> 00:21:52.119
and given a private and decent burial. While prison officials

326
00:21:52.119 --> 00:21:55.119
today can pick up a telephone and immediately contact the

327
00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:57.680
next of ken in the event of a prisoner's death,

328
00:21:57.799 --> 00:22:01.880
communication wasn't always that simple. It was a long time

329
00:22:01.960 --> 00:22:06.680
before telephones or automobiles became meaningful realities for the lower

330
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:09.960
social class, the class from which the bulk of state

331
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:13.400
prisoners have always come from, and the ones least able

332
00:22:13.480 --> 00:22:16.519
to afford the expense of transporting and bearing a body.

333
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:20.920
Given the reality, the frequency in which inmate's bodies remained

334
00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:24.880
unclaimed and the prison had to dispose of them must

335
00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:29.119
have been much greater, if not routine, prior to the

336
00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:32.839
nineteen hundreds. It's reasonably safe to assume that the prisoners

337
00:22:32.839 --> 00:22:36.400
who died between eighteen thirty five, when the penitentiary was

338
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:40.200
located in Baton Rouge and the Civil War were buried

339
00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:43.880
in the pauper cemetery in that city. During that era

340
00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:48.400
of Crewe communication and transportation, it's highly unlikely that the

341
00:22:48.440 --> 00:22:51.640
body of a prisoner without family and Baton Rouge would

342
00:22:51.640 --> 00:22:55.960
have been kept somehow until the family received a mailed

343
00:22:56.200 --> 00:22:59.920
death notice and could come pick up the body. The

344
00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:04.200
same technological and economic realities governing the lives of people

345
00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:07.359
from eighteen sixty eight to nineteen oh one, a time

346
00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:10.799
when prisoners died like flies under the rule of the lease.

347
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:14.920
It must be assame that prisoners were buried wherever they died,

348
00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:19.559
and that could have been anywhere, since Major James worked

349
00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:23.880
his inmates all over the state. Given the high mortality

350
00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:27.240
rate of those working under james whip, it stands to

351
00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:30.039
reason that a lot of inmates died on the Angola

352
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:33.839
plantation between eighteen sixty eight and nineteen oh one, and

353
00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:36.720
the logical inference can be drawn that most of them

354
00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:40.920
were buried on the plantation grounds. It was common practice

355
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:44.359
in the South for plantations to maintain their own cemeteries

356
00:23:44.359 --> 00:23:47.920
for family members and slaves, and it's unlikely Inngola was

357
00:23:47.960 --> 00:23:52.599
any exception. The earliest recollection of the existence of a

358
00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:57.480
prisoner cemetery dates back to the early nineteen twenties. Jack Davis,

359
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:01.400
a former Angola postmaster, grew up in and around Angola

360
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:06.079
during that period. He recalls an inmate cemetery known as

361
00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:10.079
boot Hill and located on a small knoll near the

362
00:24:10.119 --> 00:24:14.000
infamous Red Hat cell block. At some point during the

363
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:17.640
nineteen thirties, all of the Boothill graves were transferred to

364
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:23.039
the present location now known as Point Lookout. C. C. Dixon,

365
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:26.039
who was working at Camp F for a time, recalls

366
00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:28.599
that they would dig up one grave and take it

367
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:31.559
over there and bury it, then go get another one.

368
00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:34.559
They take one at a time, and they just kept

369
00:24:34.599 --> 00:24:38.039
at it until they finally got through with it. Dixon

370
00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:41.519
and Davis recalled it ironically. During a period of strict

371
00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:46.319
racial segregation throughout the South, including in the Louisiana prison system,

372
00:24:46.519 --> 00:24:50.240
prisoners were buried together at the same cemetery without regard

373
00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:54.240
to race. As Grisham points out, that was something that

374
00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:58.240
didn't happen in the free world. Obviously. The only places

375
00:24:58.279 --> 00:25:01.519
in Louisiana where blacks and white it's achieved equality during

376
00:25:01.559 --> 00:25:05.119
that era were at Angola's boot Heel in Point Lookout.

377
00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:08.839
The overwhelming majority of Point Lookout graves are marked by

378
00:25:08.920 --> 00:25:13.839
tombstones bearing a prison's number in ten thousands, twenty thousands,

379
00:25:13.839 --> 00:25:17.960
and thirty thousands, all of which were issued to incoming

380
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.759
prisoners between nineteen twenty and nineteen forty. It's my guess

381
00:25:22.799 --> 00:25:25.880
that most of them died shortly after their number was issued.

382
00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:29.480
Assistant Warden Gresham says, if you look at the number

383
00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:32.000
of deaths during those years, then it's my guess that

384
00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:35.640
some of those people weren't here very long. It's also

385
00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:39.920
worth noting that prisoners generally served out sentences during those years.

386
00:25:40.079 --> 00:25:43.079
A nineteen eighty and Golight study of records from that

387
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:48.160
era revealed that even murderers serving life sentences generally got

388
00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:51.599
out of prison in less than eight years. A nineteen

389
00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:54.559
sixty nine report by the Commission of Law Enforcement and

390
00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:59.000
Administration of Justice stated that the average Louisiana inmate during

391
00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:02.920
the nineteen sixty was freed after only two years in prison.

392
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:06.160
It has been within the last decade that Louisiana inmates

393
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:10.400
had been required to serve four more years than traditionally required,

394
00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:14.960
judging by the prison numbers in the years of their issuance.

395
00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:19.079
Point Lookout experienced most of its burials during the twenties, thirties,

396
00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:24.160
and forties, a particularly harsh and brutal era when official

397
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:30.759
administrative secrecy veiled prison activities, and according to William Woodnear Saddler,

398
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:33.319
the first editor of the Ngolelight, who came to in

399
00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:37.160
gol in nineteen thirty five, the procedure for bearing inmates

400
00:26:37.359 --> 00:26:40.359
was as mean as the world they were forced to

401
00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:44.240
exist in. In nineteen seventy seven, he recalled a nineteen

402
00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:48.599
thirty five burial practice for the Ngollight, and it read

403
00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:51.799
when an Angolan died or was killed, his body was

404
00:26:51.839 --> 00:26:54.319
taken to the ice house next door to the power

405
00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:57.680
plant at Camp E and kept cold for a period

406
00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:03.079
which did not exceed three days. The man's necks of

407
00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:08.240
ken if on record, they were notified. If there was

408
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:10.720
no next of ken, the man would be buried in

409
00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:15.279
the penitentiary cemetery at Point Lookout, halfway between the front

410
00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:18.599
gate and Camp I on the old Camp B road.

411
00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:23.559
The burial crew were three black trustees from Camp A,

412
00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:26.200
and they would bring their two wheeled cart pulled by

413
00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:30.559
a mule, to the ice house. A much used pine

414
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:33.720
coffin was in the cart. The body would be turned

415
00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:35.880
over to them and the crew would wrap the body

416
00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:38.640
in a canvas sheet, put it in the coffin, and

417
00:27:38.759 --> 00:27:44.200
drive the long, slow road to the cemetery. Once there,

418
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:47.680
the crew would dig a hole not necessarily six feet deep,

419
00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:51.920
or often just deep enough to conceal the corpse. The

420
00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:55.079
coffin would be suspended over the hole and the bolt

421
00:27:55.160 --> 00:27:58.119
on the underside would be slept. The bottom of the

422
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:01.200
coffin would swing open because it was hinged on the

423
00:28:01.240 --> 00:28:05.000
other side, and the shoty corpse would tumble into the hole.

424
00:28:05.400 --> 00:28:07.720
Two of the crew would reach down into the hole

425
00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:10.359
pull the canvas shroud off the body so it could

426
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:14.119
be used again. While it was quite evident that the

427
00:28:14.119 --> 00:28:18.119
prison utilized boot Heel and then Point Lookout as burial

428
00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:21.279
grounds for those prisoners whose bodies were not claimed, there

429
00:28:21.319 --> 00:28:24.680
are questions that bag explanation and the two hundred and

430
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.200
ninety six grades of the cemetery only compound that mystery.

431
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:32.279
The average annual death rate between nineteen oh one and

432
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:36.279
nineteen seventeen was officially reported by the prison officials to

433
00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:39.599
be thirty five point three, yet there is only one

434
00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:44.240
grave from that period at Point Lookout, that of NH. Waller,

435
00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:49.319
number ten seven three. It's not likely that the bodies

436
00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:52.519
of all inmates who died between nineteen hundred and say

437
00:28:52.799 --> 00:28:56.319
nineteen forty were claimed by friends or relatives and buried

438
00:28:56.359 --> 00:29:01.519
elsewhere outside the prison. As Gresham pointed out, they didn't

439
00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:04.720
know anything about embalming, and they couldn't very well ship

440
00:29:04.759 --> 00:29:08.000
bodies all over the place. It wasn't practical to ship

441
00:29:08.039 --> 00:29:11.359
bodies long distances back in those days. It would take

442
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:15.119
days to get anywhere by wagons. So it's logical to

443
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:18.079
assume that the prison probably had to bury most of

444
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:21.640
the inmates who died, and a lot of them died.

445
00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:25.039
Yet there are not enough graves at Point Lookout to

446
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:28.240
accommodate the number of inmates who died during that era.

447
00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:34.720
Where were the dead inmates buried, We don't know, Grusham states, Frankly,

448
00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:37.359
we don't know where they died at, whether here in

449
00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:40.599
Angola or elsewhere. If we knew where they were housed,

450
00:29:40.680 --> 00:29:43.759
we could guess where they were buried. The most reliable

451
00:29:43.799 --> 00:29:47.680
indication of who died where and how, and the possible

452
00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:50.359
side of their burial, lies in the manner in which

453
00:29:50.440 --> 00:29:55.599
the prison authorities distributed convicts through its work assignment system.

454
00:29:55.839 --> 00:30:00.279
The classification system employed by penal authorities was simple trned

455
00:30:00.359 --> 00:30:05.240
along racial lines. Levy work in that pre bulldozer era

456
00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:10.160
was deadly, and, according to historian Mark Carlton, was where

457
00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:13.400
most of the recorded deaths between eighteen ninety and nineteen

458
00:30:13.480 --> 00:30:17.680
hundred occurred. After nineteen oh one, the prison assigned only

459
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:20.680
black inmates to work on the levees. The second and

460
00:30:20.720 --> 00:30:24.759
most onerous brutal work assignment was on the sugarcane plantations,

461
00:30:24.799 --> 00:30:29.160
and these assignments were also primarily given to black inmates. Therefore,

462
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:32.480
over two thirds of the prisoners, primarily black, were not

463
00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:37.720
even at Angola, giving the brutal nature of their work assignments.

464
00:30:37.799 --> 00:30:40.480
Most of the deaths among prisoners in the early nineteen

465
00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:45.279
hundreds probably occurred at levee camps or sugar plantations. There

466
00:30:45.279 --> 00:30:48.200
may be more truth than fiction to the tales that

467
00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:52.559
the state's massive levee systems were built atop inmate workers.

468
00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:55.960
Those inmates certainly were not shipped back to Angola for

469
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:00.799
burial at Point Lookout. Imprisonment and penal operations in Louisiana

470
00:31:00.839 --> 00:31:03.880
are no longer crue primitive affairs that they used to be.

471
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:08.720
Federal courts, recognition of prisoner's rights, and enlightened and sophisticated

472
00:31:08.759 --> 00:31:11.200
penal management have put an end to the harsh and

473
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:15.039
brutal practices of the past. Medical care, which was once

474
00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:19.319
almost non existent for prisoners, now exist. It made violence,

475
00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:21.599
which used to tear at the very fabric of the

476
00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:24.720
prison world, has long ceased to be a major factor

477
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:28.559
in the inmate mortality rate. Men now die of old

478
00:31:28.599 --> 00:31:33.039
age or illness. Today's circumstances being what they are, more

479
00:31:33.079 --> 00:31:36.440
of our prisoners are dying of natural cause, as Grusham said,

480
00:31:36.519 --> 00:31:39.160
and are more likely to die in a hospital away

481
00:31:39.160 --> 00:31:42.680
from Angola than in Angola. The prospect of dying in

482
00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:46.640
prison is a nightmarish fear that haunts every prisoner like

483
00:31:46.680 --> 00:31:50.559
a ghost. Dying anywhere isn't a pleasant thing, Mordan Maggie

484
00:31:50.599 --> 00:31:53.839
had pointed out in those dying here pretty much the

485
00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:57.319
same as people in nursing homes, while dying in prison

486
00:31:57.440 --> 00:31:59.680
is perhaps not the same as dying at home. We're

487
00:31:59.720 --> 00:32:02.519
trying to make it as comfortable as possible for them.

488
00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:05.599
In fact, that was a major consideration in the creation

489
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:08.960
and operation of the Old Folks Ward at the hospital,

490
00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:12.839
to have a more comfortable situation for the elderly prisoner,

491
00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:17.279
with nursing care and medical attention readily available. But that

492
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:22.119
knowledge offers no consolation to prisoners faced with the prospect

493
00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:26.799
of dying in prison. It's dying away from home, alone

494
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:30.359
with strangers in the callous atmosphere of the prison. Being

495
00:32:30.440 --> 00:32:33.319
treated and cared for more often than not by an

496
00:32:33.319 --> 00:32:37.160
indifferent hand. It's grossly different from dying in the warmth

497
00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:39.920
of a home, in the bosom of friends and relatives,

498
00:32:40.559 --> 00:32:44.960
which eases the sting of death somewhat. There's nothing in

499
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:48.359
the prisoner's world that can soften the finality of death.

500
00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:52.119
A longing look out of a window reveals a world

501
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:55.920
of guns, curses, and noise, as callous as the concrete

502
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:59.799
it's made of. There is no warmth, beauty or meaning,

503
00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:04.880
no lasting pleasures, touches, joys, or words. In prison, there

504
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:08.920
is nothing. You suffer alone, and you die alone, feeding

505
00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:13.720
the fear and misery of those who must watched you die.

506
00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:17.799
Roy Fogum was a close friend of James Cripps. Fogum,

507
00:33:17.960 --> 00:33:21.359
a patient at the prison hospital, couldn't attend Cripp's funeral,

508
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:25.279
but he watched him languish in the prison hospital ward

509
00:33:25.359 --> 00:33:29.079
until Crips was transferred to that charity hospital in New Orleans.

510
00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:32.759
He shared Crip's frustration during the initial stages of his

511
00:33:32.839 --> 00:33:35.400
illness as the doctors tried to find out what was

512
00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:38.599
wrong with him. They slept two beds of port at

513
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:43.119
the hospital ward. After Crips was transferred to New Orleans.

514
00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:46.880
Fogrum also made a couple of medical trips to Charity Hospital,

515
00:33:46.920 --> 00:33:51.279
and he inquired each time about his friend's condition. I

516
00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:53.960
was told he was unconscious and had a bad heart,

517
00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:58.319
and that they couldn't operate on him. Fogum recounts the

518
00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:01.279
next trip I made the following week, I asked about

519
00:34:01.319 --> 00:34:04.680
him again, and they told me, Roy, your friend is

520
00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:07.440
not going to make it. When word of Cryp's death

521
00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:10.800
finally reached Fogum at the prison hospital, it seemed like

522
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:14.960
a part of me died, he said. A little later,

523
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:20.079
Fogum watched another friend, Charles Little One Collins, who slept

524
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:25.039
three beds away from him, die. Crips had died alone.

525
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:30.159
In contrast, Colin's wife visited him a week before his death,

526
00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:33.440
although she could not stay with him. He suffered day

527
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:37.079
and night. Fogum recalls, I sat there in my wheelchair

528
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:40.000
the night he died. He was hollering about how hot

529
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:43.400
it was. I told him the air conditioner was on.

530
00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:46.800
Fogram had to watch his friend's agony and death, then

531
00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:50.159
watch the hearst take Little One away the next morning.

532
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:53.639
That kind of thing can get to you, he said.

533
00:34:53.800 --> 00:34:57.400
You're sitting there helping your friend to die. Looking at

534
00:34:57.480 --> 00:35:00.639
him and knowing that the same thing could happened to you,

535
00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:05.199
it starts bugging your mind, and sooner or later you

536
00:35:05.280 --> 00:35:08.880
can't even think right. Sometimes I have nightmares. I lay

537
00:35:08.920 --> 00:35:12.880
in my bed and cry like little one did. There's

538
00:35:12.920 --> 00:35:16.440
no respirit from the pain of imprisonment. When Folgram is

539
00:35:16.519 --> 00:35:19.880
transported to a hospital outside the prison for medical treatment,

540
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:23.400
he travels with his leg irons hobbling him around the ankles,

541
00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:26.199
and with his wrist handcuffed and chained to his waist.

542
00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:31.360
A painful black lock box also on his wrist prevents

543
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:35.039
him from picking the handcuff lock. He goes fully shackled,

544
00:35:35.360 --> 00:35:39.679
as did Crips and Collins, despite cancer eating Collins away.

545
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:43.000
It didn't matter that Crips and Collins were dying. They

546
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.760
had to lie on their stretchers, weighted down by the

547
00:35:45.880 --> 00:35:49.079
chains that bound them and held them prisoner. It's the

548
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:52.559
general policy that when a prisoner is shipped out of Angola,

549
00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:55.400
whether they go to court or another hospital, that he

550
00:35:55.519 --> 00:36:00.199
is to be shackled. Maggio said. My first responsibility is

551
00:36:00.239 --> 00:36:02.400
to make sure that a prisoner is secure when we

552
00:36:02.440 --> 00:36:05.199
send him out of the prisident into the public. The

553
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:07.599
fact that a man is dying doesn't mean that he

554
00:36:07.679 --> 00:36:10.639
won't attempt to escape or that he can't do anything.

555
00:36:11.719 --> 00:36:14.559
If the leg irons and handcuffs would interfere with the

556
00:36:14.599 --> 00:36:17.679
man's medical care, they are not put on the prisoner.

557
00:36:17.960 --> 00:36:21.199
And while it's a general policy to shackle everyone, there

558
00:36:21.239 --> 00:36:24.960
have been numerous exceptions to that policy, and I expect

559
00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:27.320
that there will be more in the future. It all

560
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:30.760
depends on what the medical staff would say about the

561
00:36:30.760 --> 00:36:35.079
inmate's condition. Cripps died in shackles, chained to his bed

562
00:36:35.239 --> 00:36:38.039
in the Charity Hospital in New Orleans, with the cold

563
00:36:38.079 --> 00:36:42.400
steel biting into him as the prisoners that died before him.

564
00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:46.719
The mere idea drives needles of fear into Fulgram, who

565
00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:49.480
wants to die like that, chained up like some kind

566
00:36:49.519 --> 00:36:52.840
of animal. He said, I certainly don't want to die

567
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:57.440
like that. He's trying to avoid the possibility. Though he's

568
00:36:57.480 --> 00:37:01.280
been in prison twenty four years time that would have

569
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:05.840
crushed most family relationships. Folgram's family is still sticking with

570
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.079
him and fighting to prevent his dying chained to a

571
00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:12.519
hospital bed. His family is trying to secure a medical

572
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:16.159
discharge or furlough from prison for him. I'm hoping and

573
00:37:16.280 --> 00:37:19.679
praying that they can get a medical discharge or furlough

574
00:37:19.880 --> 00:37:23.280
or whatever it is, he said from his hospital wheelchair.

575
00:37:23.400 --> 00:37:26.599
There is little n Fogram's immediate world to give him

576
00:37:26.679 --> 00:37:31.119
reason to hope. He watched Collins die waited for a

577
00:37:31.159 --> 00:37:34.719
medical furlough that never came. Looking a few beds away

578
00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:37.559
from him, he watches a nurse and an inmate orderly

579
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:41.840
tending to Joe Brown, another patient. He's got no legs

580
00:37:41.920 --> 00:37:45.719
from the knees down, nothing, said Fulgram. They've got to

581
00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:48.599
take care of him, bathe him and everything else like that.

582
00:37:49.159 --> 00:37:51.159
He went up to the pardon board and asked for

583
00:37:51.199 --> 00:37:53.239
a break, to be allowed to go home, but they

584
00:37:53.239 --> 00:37:56.639
said he ain't served enough time. Hell, how do they

585
00:37:56.679 --> 00:37:59.320
expect the guy to live? I think that any man

586
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:01.880
who has been here in your years and got bad health,

587
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:05.679
regardless of who you are, should be discharged. I mean,

588
00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:08.320
as long as there are people who are willing to

589
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:12.679
take care of you. Maggio believes in the concept of

590
00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:16.719
releasing terminally ill and aging prisoners on medical furloughs, so

591
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:19.880
long as there's someone to release them too, who's willing

592
00:38:19.960 --> 00:38:23.400
to take care of them. But He also pointed out

593
00:38:23.800 --> 00:38:26.400
it all depends on the man. If an eighty year

594
00:38:26.400 --> 00:38:29.239
old man killed someone and came up here, we can't

595
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:31.920
very well ship him right back into the community the

596
00:38:31.960 --> 00:38:36.119
next day. The community and the judge obviously won him

597
00:38:36.119 --> 00:38:39.039
in prison, which is the reason why they shipped him

598
00:38:39.039 --> 00:38:42.199
to us in the first place, so they wouldn't appreciate

599
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:44.880
us shipping him right back the next day because of

600
00:38:44.920 --> 00:38:48.320
his age. Hell, I don't know how you would address

601
00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:52.320
a case like that. Maggio has recommended inmates for medical

602
00:38:52.400 --> 00:38:55.760
furloughs in the past, and if when the medical department

603
00:38:55.880 --> 00:38:59.320
recommends a terminally ill case to me for medical furloughs,

604
00:38:59.360 --> 00:39:02.440
he said, I recommend it to the Department of Corrections

605
00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:06.079
and they take it from there. Folgram is one of

606
00:39:06.079 --> 00:39:10.679
the more fortunate elderly prisoners. He knows it. I've got everything,

607
00:39:10.760 --> 00:39:13.679
he says, I'm one of the lucky ones. Ailing and

608
00:39:13.880 --> 00:39:18.039
elderly inmates are a fast growing problem. They constitute a

609
00:39:18.039 --> 00:39:23.159
class of prisoners with odd needs. Many, if not most,

610
00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:26.960
of them require special attention and medical care in a

611
00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:30.280
slower pace of life than the rest of the prisoner population.

612
00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:34.400
Most are unable to work, and they are more prone

613
00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:38.159
to depression and suicide than any other group. Yet in

614
00:39:38.280 --> 00:39:41.440
most prisons there are no special programs to deal with

615
00:39:41.480 --> 00:39:46.599
the age. They simply vegetate in prison. There are notable exceptions.

616
00:39:46.840 --> 00:39:50.920
Some prison systems provide special accommodations for the age denailing.

617
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:55.679
The federal prison system operates two minimum security prisons solely

618
00:39:55.679 --> 00:39:59.679
to house its ailing and elderly prisoners. The state of

619
00:39:59.719 --> 00:40:02.559
cal Nia has a similar one hundred and fifty million

620
00:40:02.639 --> 00:40:06.639
facility in Chino, where elderly prisoners are permitted to live

621
00:40:06.679 --> 00:40:09.440
at a slower pace, away from the stress field and

622
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:13.440
violent worlds of other prisoners. Louisiana is in the process

623
00:40:13.519 --> 00:40:16.920
of addressing what should be done with old sick prisoners.

624
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:20.760
Upon assuming office several months ago, Governor Edwin Edwards, and

625
00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:23.400
it's important y'all to mention this was written back when

626
00:40:23.559 --> 00:40:27.000
Edwin Edwards was in office. Governor Edwin Edwards appointed a

627
00:40:27.079 --> 00:40:32.000
Forgotten Man Committee to study the prison system and recommend reforms.

628
00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:37.199
Correction Secretary s Paul Phelps is fond of pointing out

629
00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:39.639
that if the state doesn't do something about them, the

630
00:40:39.679 --> 00:40:43.519
Department of Corrections will soon be operating the largest old

631
00:40:43.559 --> 00:40:47.280
folks home in the state. While prisoners generally fear the

632
00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:50.440
prospect of dying in prisons, few of those who do

633
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:54.800
actually end up buried here. Most are retrieved by relatives.

634
00:40:55.559 --> 00:40:58.719
Only eight prisoners have been buried at Point Lookout during

635
00:40:58.760 --> 00:41:01.920
the past five years. A study of five of them,

636
00:41:01.960 --> 00:41:05.480
selected at random, reveal a pattern. What we're looking at

637
00:41:05.519 --> 00:41:09.000
are individuals with low education levels who were born and

638
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:13.159
raised outside of Louisiana and whose family lives outside of

639
00:41:13.199 --> 00:41:16.599
the state. Grusham said they were individuals who had been

640
00:41:16.679 --> 00:41:21.119
constantly conflicting with the law and spent considerable amounts of

641
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:24.800
time in jails and prisons away from their families throughout

642
00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:28.599
their lives. And that's important because individuals who are in

643
00:41:28.679 --> 00:41:31.639
constant trouble are less likely to be able to maintain

644
00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:35.840
a close family tie throughout long periods of separation. And

645
00:41:35.880 --> 00:41:38.639
it appears that this is what happened in their cases

646
00:41:38.920 --> 00:41:42.960
because they have families, so there was an evident deterioration

647
00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:46.800
of family ties. In addition, they were all either single

648
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:50.760
or divorced, which means no immediate family ties, and they

649
00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:54.679
had no visits. Now, when you put all these factors together,

650
00:41:55.039 --> 00:41:58.679
the accumulative effect is that it appears these people had

651
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:03.280
earlier in their lives lost initial closeness with other family members.

652
00:42:03.719 --> 00:42:06.400
While the families of two of the inmates refused to

653
00:42:06.400 --> 00:42:09.519
claim their bodies, grush And pointed out the families of

654
00:42:09.559 --> 00:42:12.280
the other three men were unable to claim bodies because

655
00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:16.360
of financial difficulties. They wanted very much to claim the bodies,

656
00:42:16.480 --> 00:42:19.119
and bear was delayed in a couple of cases to

657
00:42:19.159 --> 00:42:21.559
give families more time to try and work out some

658
00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:25.239
of the financial arrangements. In fact, some of the family

659
00:42:25.239 --> 00:42:28.119
members came to the prison for one of the funerals.

660
00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:32.760
You have to understand the background that prisoners primarily come from.

661
00:42:33.199 --> 00:42:36.320
That for me and golis chaplain Gary Penton, who explained

662
00:42:36.880 --> 00:42:40.280
they generally come from poor families, people already caught up

663
00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:42.679
in the trauma of life, and people who don't have

664
00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:46.159
much don't expect to have much. They do well to

665
00:42:46.239 --> 00:42:49.079
keep the car running, for instance, just to go to

666
00:42:49.119 --> 00:42:51.840
work if they got to work to go to and

667
00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:55.159
it's a very real hassle just keeping their own life together.

668
00:42:56.119 --> 00:42:58.920
Then they may live out of state, and in the

669
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:02.199
case of crips, then you suddenly thrust upon them the

670
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:06.119
expense of having a body shipped prepare for burial and

671
00:43:06.280 --> 00:43:09.639
the general cost of dying, which is pretty high. They

672
00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:13.440
can't handle it, especially if they're ailing in elderly people

673
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:17.199
living on fixed incomes crips having to be buried here

674
00:43:17.480 --> 00:43:20.159
is a good example of that. There are always going

675
00:43:20.199 --> 00:43:22.559
to be those men who don't have anybody in their

676
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:27.159
lives anywhere, Pitton pointed out. And it's not a case

677
00:43:27.199 --> 00:43:31.119
of rejection, but simply not belonging. They've been here for

678
00:43:31.159 --> 00:43:33.719
so long that their folks have all died, and what

679
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.159
other family ties they might have had simply disintegrate with

680
00:43:38.280 --> 00:43:41.360
the passage of time. They're being locked away from them

681
00:43:41.400 --> 00:43:45.599
for so long. Just the natural growing away from each

682
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:50.320
other when people are apart, it's a natural process. When

683
00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:52.960
I was in the military, Pitton continued, I had to

684
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:56.039
spend a year on a remote radar site off the

685
00:43:56.039 --> 00:44:00.840
coast of Alaska covering chaplain duties. When I returned home

686
00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:04.440
after one year, my wife and I had to get reacquainted.

687
00:44:05.480 --> 00:44:09.440
We'd sort of grown apart. She had taken on out

688
00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:12.559
of responsibilities and learned to function on her own during

689
00:44:12.599 --> 00:44:14.920
my absence, and I had to kind of wiggle back

690
00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.480
into her life when I returned. When a person copes

691
00:44:19.559 --> 00:44:22.880
without someone for so long, it becomes somewhat difficult for

692
00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:25.559
them to make a spot for them in their life again,

693
00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:29.559
especially when they've become involved with life and their burden

694
00:44:29.679 --> 00:44:34.400
with so many other responsibilities and demands, you simply grow apart.

695
00:44:34.719 --> 00:44:37.159
And Two, if you're the kind of person who has

696
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:39.400
been in and out of trouble and in and out

697
00:44:39.400 --> 00:44:42.480
of jails and prisons throughout your life, you don't have

698
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:45.840
the time and the opportunity to develop those close and

699
00:44:45.960 --> 00:44:49.920
lasting relationships to begin with. Grusham pointed out a lot

700
00:44:49.920 --> 00:44:53.719
of family relationships of people in prison were already strained

701
00:44:53.719 --> 00:44:57.480
and shattered or even broken before they came to prison.

702
00:44:57.880 --> 00:45:01.519
That's one of the factors in your ultimate having no belongings,

703
00:45:01.559 --> 00:45:04.920
having nobody to really encourage you, nobody to frown at you,

704
00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:09.079
so to speak, because they love you, care about what

705
00:45:09.159 --> 00:45:13.239
happens to you. When you add the natural disintegration of

706
00:45:13.400 --> 00:45:17.800
relationships that go with long confinement, it just goes down

707
00:45:17.960 --> 00:45:22.639
the drain completely. The same thing happens in marital relationships

708
00:45:22.679 --> 00:45:25.679
of people in prison. It's just that the evidence of

709
00:45:25.719 --> 00:45:29.760
that natural disintegration in this instance is an unclaimed body.

710
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:34.079
The other is divorce. The fact of death doesn't change

711
00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:38.440
what has already taken place. I think that it probably

712
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:42.599
insinuates the dread that a man has. He already knows

713
00:45:42.639 --> 00:45:47.199
that there are tenuous ties. Pitton, a former Air Force chaplain,

714
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:51.119
has been a chaplain in Gola for five years. The

715
00:45:51.119 --> 00:45:54.880
burial of Creps was his first prison funeral, an experience

716
00:45:54.920 --> 00:45:58.079
he cites as his saddest since he's been at the prison.

717
00:45:58.760 --> 00:46:02.119
The fact of death is no major fear or dread

718
00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:05.000
or terror for me, he said, That's a natural part

719
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:08.800
of life. But the death where there is nobody to

720
00:46:08.880 --> 00:46:12.960
love you, to mourn your passing, no tears, that's sad.

721
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:16.760
Standing at the head of his grave, I found myself

722
00:46:16.840 --> 00:46:20.559
identifying with him and those gathered around. I can relate

723
00:46:20.639 --> 00:46:24.280
to the pain the fear a man who is as

724
00:46:24.360 --> 00:46:26.760
much a family man as I, A man who feels

725
00:46:26.840 --> 00:46:30.119
the need for human warth and belonging, I can appreciate

726
00:46:30.199 --> 00:46:34.199
the value of a family relationship. He and his non

727
00:46:34.280 --> 00:46:39.079
belonging represent the fear of not only the inmates, but

728
00:46:39.119 --> 00:46:42.880
that of every human being, a being alone in life.

729
00:46:42.920 --> 00:46:47.480
It's a very human fear. It's just that with the

730
00:46:47.519 --> 00:46:51.400
inmate it's worse more intense because he doesn't have much

731
00:46:51.480 --> 00:46:55.320
control over his life and his being. Life in prison

732
00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:59.519
is much more intense. When you're excited, you're really excited,

733
00:46:59.800 --> 00:47:05.280
and you're depressed, you're really depressed, and your fears are

734
00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:08.920
very very real to you. Whether they're real or not,

735
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:15.800
they run that much deeper. Oh, I understand their fear.

736
00:47:16.599 --> 00:47:19.519
And then in the postcript, it said on the morning

737
00:47:19.599 --> 00:47:23.039
of May thirty first, nineteen eighty four, two weeks after

738
00:47:23.079 --> 00:47:27.239
being interviewed, Roy Folgram was informed by prison officials that

739
00:47:27.320 --> 00:47:30.280
he had been granted a medical furlough to his family,

740
00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:34.760
effective June first. On the same day, Edmund Ruffing, a

741
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:38.360
seventy two year old resident of Angola's Old Folks Ward

742
00:47:38.559 --> 00:47:41.880
serving a life sentence for murder, was buried at Point Lookout.

743
00:47:42.760 --> 00:47:46.519
A first defender, he had no family and never received

744
00:47:46.519 --> 00:47:51.280
a visitor during his seventeen years of confinement. Folgram died

745
00:47:51.480 --> 00:47:54.719
on December twenty ninth, nineteen ninety at the home of

746
00:47:54.760 --> 00:47:59.559
his sister. Following publication of dying in prison, which is

747
00:47:59.719 --> 00:48:04.400
what I just Reggie warden Ross, Maggia ordered assistant Roger

748
00:48:04.519 --> 00:48:07.880
Thomas to research old prison records in the state archives

749
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:12.159
and determine the identity of every person buried at Point Lookout.

750
00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:15.880
As a result of Thomas's efforts, names were placed on

751
00:48:16.079 --> 00:48:19.199
every tombstone in the cemetery.

752
00:48:20.320 --> 00:48:20.639
Wow.

753
00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:23.920
What an article that was written in June of nineteen

754
00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:29.400
eighty four by Wilbert Rido. And the reason that I

755
00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:31.719
didn't break that down for you and I just read

756
00:48:31.760 --> 00:48:33.920
straight from it is there is no one on God's

757
00:48:33.920 --> 00:48:36.639
green Earth that can say it better than that, especially me,

758
00:48:37.599 --> 00:48:40.760
And I felt like that's what you needed to hear.

759
00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:45.519
That was strong. That was one hell of an article,

760
00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:50.679
So thank you for listening again. Obviously, know what are

761
00:48:50.679 --> 00:48:53.360
you Everton? This week, last couple of weeks have been

762
00:48:53.360 --> 00:48:57.039
a struggle for both of us to line our schedules up.

763
00:48:57.039 --> 00:48:59.400
He's got some big things coming up with Real Life,

764
00:48:59.400 --> 00:49:02.400
Real Crime Original and that series he's been kind of

765
00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:06.679
teasing that's going to be starting in November, and I've

766
00:49:06.679 --> 00:49:09.360
got some things coming up as well. That lining up

767
00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:12.320
those schedules is really difficult. Look, I'm here every day

768
00:49:12.360 --> 00:49:14.719
in the studio. It's a lot easier for me to

769
00:49:14.880 --> 00:49:18.480
just jump behind here and bring you all something, And

770
00:49:18.519 --> 00:49:21.719
that's what I did today. I hope you enjoyed it. Wow,

771
00:49:21.800 --> 00:49:27.800
what a writer Wilbert Rito is. And that is Bloody

772
00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:30.400
Angla for this week and until next time. For what

773
00:49:30.480 --> 00:49:33.039
do you Everton? I am Jim Chapman, your host of

774
00:49:33.159 --> 00:49:36.400
Bloody Angola, a podcast one hundred and forty two years

775
00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:40.320
in the making, the complete story of America's bloodiest present.

776
00:49:41.159 --> 00:50:04.960
Peace on the street, line, shackle change.

777
00:50:04.760 --> 00:50:12.360
Oh gluesome Gurdi, it's calling my name. There is no

778
00:50:12.719 --> 00:50:19.559
mercy and this being a tentery juice as the huge

779
00:50:19.599 --> 00:50:25.880
stream game Rango the three. I'm here but.

780
00:50:28.360 --> 00:50:30.159
By here to die.

781
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:41.760
Inside these wars, inside the wild and when the girls

782
00:50:41.960 --> 00:50:43.159
I know, it's so.

783
00:50:48.559 --> 00:50:48.960
Bloody.

784
00:50:49.320 --> 00:50:56.760
Anglebody, Angle

785
00:51:02.159 --> 00:51:09.719
The Baad