Speaker 1: M m A Wall Street line, shackle change, Oh someome gird,
it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's
been a tentery juice as the huge stream game Wrangle three.
Speaker 2: Come here.
Speaker 1: By me or die inside these walls, inside the wild.
Speaker 2: And went no girl as I'm hey everyone, welcome back
to Bloody and Gola, a podcast one and forty two
years in the making, the complete story of America's bloodiest prison.
I'm Jim Chapman and this should be the first episode
that I have recorded since the New Year. So Happy
New Year to all of you out there listening to
Bloody and Gola. I hope you got some good goals
set for twenty twenty six, I'm looking forward to bringing
you the best in prison podcast asking telling you the
notory stories of Louisiana State Penitentiarating in Goola. And we're
gonna add some other prisons into the mix as we
go along, and that's sort of what we're doing today.
And look, I will be the first to tell you
Louisiana State Penitentiarating Gola a very dangerous place, and honestly,
most maximum security prisons in the United States same way. Now,
what makes them dangerous is not so much the prisons themselves,
although that helps. It's also those who inhabit those prisons. Now,
as you know, maximum security prisons throughout the United States,
they don't house jaywalkers, they don't house people who receive
speeding tickets that they hadn't paid, those sorts of things.
These prisons are full of murderers, rapists, major drug dealers,
the worst you can think of in society. Now, in
maximum security prisons there is a hierarchy shot callers, if
you will. In a place full of dangerous people, these
shot callers are considered the most dangerous. So I got
curious and I went down I guess kind of a
rabbit hole of who people in the know would consider
the most dangerous prisoner ever in a max security prison.
And of course that's a very subjective question. Everybody's going
to have a different opinion. But the name that would
surface frequently in my research was an inmate by the
name of Thomas Silverstein, who went from a teenage robber
to becoming a high ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Now,
his path would lead to a string of murders within
the walls of max security prisons and eventually an unheard
of thirty five year I'm in solitary confinement in a
supermax prison. So he's going to be our subject for today.
And I'm going to start off by telling you a
little bit about Thomas Silverstein's early life. Now, he was
born Thomas Conway in Long Beach, California. This was on
February fourth of nineteen fifty two. His mother divorced her
first husband while she was still pregnant with Thomas, and
she married another guy. His name was Thomas Conway, which
young Tommy would claim as his biological father. So eventually
she divorces Conway and then she marries a guy by
the name of Sid Silverstein. And that's where Thomas got
his last name Silverstein. And I know a lot of
this information is a lot to keep up with. She's
already married three times, right, he's very young, but it's
important to the story. And you could already see that
there's a a lot of instability in Thomas's early life.
Now that being said said, Silverstein was pretty financially stable,
and Thomas would grow up in the fifties in the
early sixties and what you would consider a middle class
neighborhood in Long Beach, California. Now, Thomas was not what
you would consider a typical kid growing up. He was
very timid, shy, kind of awkward. So he would get
picked on a lot. He just came across as a target.
And because his last name was Silverstein, even though that
wasn't his birth name, kids would assume he was Jewish.
And this was at a time in history when Jewish
kids got picked on, and in later interviews he would
say they would bully him relentlessly about the fact that
he had a Jewish last name, even though he was
not Jewish. Now, due to this bullying, he would run
home a lot. He was scared of these bullies. He
would freak out, run home, cry to his mom, and
his mom, Virginia, in an effort to toughen him up,
would tell him that he would either need to face
down these bullies and stand up to them, or she
was gonna whip his ass herself. And look, I don't
think she meant anything negative with that. I think she
was trying to toughen her son up. And that's just
what Thomas did. He would face down the bullies and
he would actually start fighting back and winning these fights. Now,
this type of environment, it would harden Thomas very early
in life. And in nineteen sixty six, at just fourteen
years old, Thomas ends up in a reformatory, which is
basically like a youth prison, after getting in some trouble.
And it's not clear exactly what trouble that he had
got into, but he ended up in a pretty harsh
refe formatory. But one thing about youth prisons is you
fight a lot. Even in today's day in time, you
constantly are fighting inside juvenile lock up, right, And Thomas
would fight nearly every single day inside of that youth prison.
He would say later on. Now he does get released eventually,
but it was not long before he was locked up
yet again, and this time for armed robbery at just
nineteen years old. And unfortunately, this time he gets sent
to what you would call big boy prison and the
infamous San Quentin. And this is in nineteen seventy one,
and y'all, Sam Quintin was rough in those days. As
a matter of fact, in the early seventies, Sam Quentin
was dubbed as the quote war behind walls in the
racial lines inside that prison ran really deep. But Silverstein
would hone his his fighting skills further inside of Singing
Quentin before being released some four years later. This is
in nineteen seventy five, so he gets paroled, but he
did not stay out long. In nineteen seventy five, his father,
Thomas Conway and his cousin along with Silverstein, they pull
off three armed robberies and they netted about eleven thousand
dollars in these robberies combined, which that's about eighty five
thousand dollars in today's money. But they get caught, and
this is in nineteen seventy seven that it's off to
prison again for Silverstein, this time to serve a fifteen
year stint for armed robbery, and this time in an
even more dangerous and infamous prison than Saying Quentin, as
Silverstein is sent to the US Penitentiary in Levingworth, Kansas.
So Levenworth will a bringing ground at this point in
time for gangs, and this is where Silverstein will get
a start with the AB, the Airy and Brotherhood. Now
the AB is very notorious, a very violent white supremacist
prison gang that has gained a lot of traction throughout
the nation in prison, and many people don't realize, so
it may surprise you to learn it's the oldest and
deadliest prison gang in the United States. Now, Thomas Silverstein,
he was already quite familiar with the AB because it
was actually founded just ten years or so prior in
his old stomping grounds. It's singing Quentin now. The AB
was originally formed due to the deep segregation that exists
in maximum security prisons, and this segregation it still exists today.
For example, if you're a white inmate, you hang out
with white inmates. If you're a black inmate, you hang
out with black inmates. Latino who was hanging with latinos.
It was like that then and it's like that now.
You don't play cards, you don't lift weights, you don't
even run laps with anyone outside of your race, or
you could lose your race protection. As a matter of fact,
you will. And most of these gangs, they actually operate
within the prison with a lot of structure. As a
matter of fact, the AB is known for their structure
inside prison. They actually have a twelve man council, which
is kind of like a border directors, and even a
three man commission to make decisions. So the motto of
the AB, the Areyan Brotherhood is blood in, blood out,
which means to get accepted into the AB you have
to commit an act of violence, many times murder, and
to get out, well, there's really no getting out once
you're in. Your technically in for life in membership can
only end by death. Now with the AB, they offer
I guess you could say a vast array of services
criminal activity that would include drug trafficking, murder for hire,
inmate prostitution, and a ton of other nefarious activities. And
this would make them both very powerful and very dangerous
within prison walls. Now, it was in Leavenworth that Thomas
would really deepen his affiliation with the AB, and this
would become apparent when Thomas murders a fellow inmate by
the name of Danny Atwell. This was in nineteen eighty so,
as the story goes, Thomas Silverstein along with an associate
of the Arian Brotherhood named Eddie Hawk and another associate
by the name of Charles McAvoy, they were part of
a group that would smuggle drugs into Levenworth and Danny Atwell,
he was an inmate that had been smuggling in marijuana
for them to sell inside the prison. He didn't want
to smuggle any drugs outside of that into prison. I'm
not sure why. Maybe he was worried if he got caught,
the sentence would be stiffer for a harder drug. But
for whatever the reason, he just totally refused anything outside
of marijuana they were wanting to get into, like speed
and cocaine and all this stuff. Well, that pissed off
the AB and Silverstein and his associates because they were
making big money off of this. It pissed them off too.
And according to the trial testimony, Silverstein and Hawk in particular,
they enter at Well Sell and they just stab him
to death with some chanks. This was on November one
of nineteen eighty and this murder would change a lot
of things for Silverstein. First, the murder would earn him
the nickname quote Terrible Tommy, and it would also turn
that fifteen year stent into life in prison when in
nineteen eighty one he gets convicted of first degree murder
of Danny atwell So how you like that for decision making?
You're in there for fifteen years, I mean that's a
short stint relatively speaking, and you commit a murder inside
the walls to where you end up with life in
prison just not very smart. It would also result in
Thomas getting a reputation that would make him very feared
even amongst the harshest inmates inside of Levenworth. So after
killing inmate at Well, Thomas gets transferred to an even
more dangerous prison than Levenworth in nineteen eighty one when
he moves to the United States Prison at Marion, which
at this point in time, y'all, this was the high
I asked maximum security prison the Bureau of Prisons in
the United States had. It was really the United States
first supermax prison, even though it wasn't called that. Marion
is located in southern Illinois and the prison was specifically
designed to house the United States' most dangerous inmates. If
you're curious about some people who of notable people that
had been there, how about John Gottie, how about Nicky Barnes,
Two very high ranking mobsters that ended up in Marion.
So it's secure, to say the least. But as secure
as Marion was, he could not stop Terrible Tommy from
murdering yet again inside prison. When in nineteen eighty one,
the same year that he got convicted in the Danny
Atwell murder, he kills a rival gang member named Robert Chappelle,
and he was a member of the notorious DC Blacks.
In a little about the DC Blacks, this prison gang
originated about five years after the AB formed, and originally,
as you may have guessed, they were a gang consisting
of inmates all from d C. But that kind of grew,
it expanded and now, according to the reports I read,
the largest black prison gang inside of prison. And they
were also the Arian Brotherhood's primary rivals. So, as that
story goes, Thomas Silverstein goes into Chappelle's cell, presumably while
he's asleep, slips a wire around his neck and strangles
him to death right there in the cell. And it's
important to mention that Thomas he actually denies that he
committed this murder all the way up to the day died. Now,
I don't know, you know, obviously I wasn't. There have
no direct knowledge. I don't know if he did or not.
I know that he was tried for it, and I
know he was convicted of it. But a part of
me says, wow, this guy's not somebody who denies killing people.
I mean, he admits to it when he kills you,
and he denied this one. So you know, I don't
know if there's any weight to that or all, but
I don't know why he wouldn't accept the responsibility for
that had he done it. So it's under some debate.
But as I said, regardless, he gets charged with it.
And while he's a waiting trial in that case, as
luck would have it, the leader of the DC Blacks,
a man by the name of Raymond Cadillac Smith, he
gets transferred to Marion. Now, Silverstein would later claim that
he tried to tell Cadillac Smith that he did not
kill Chappelle and that Cadillac did not believe him, and
it bragged to others that he was going to kill
kill Silverstein. Now, this guy making that threat, you better
take that serious. He was not just a member of
the DC Blacks. He was the head shot caller, the
leader of the gang. And the way he saw it,
Silverstein killed one of his peeps, and he was going
to get payback for that personally. Now, there are documents
that say on at least two occasions Cadillac did attempt
to get that payback that he seeked, but that those
attempts failed. Well, Silverstein he sees the writing on the
wall and he ascertains that he had to get Cadillac
before Cadillac got him, right, So he hatches a plan
with another inmate, an AB member by the name of
Clayton Fountain, and they see that play through. So one night,
in the shower of what's known as the Control Unit,
they attack Cadillac. They use shanks and they stabbed Cadillac
sixty seven times. And that wasn't all what they did
after that even more shocking. After they kill Cadillac, they
take his body and they drag it the entire length
of the catwalk, the entire length of the tier, and
they make sure to pass each inmates sell As they're
dragging this guy who is now dead, this leader of
the DC blacks down that tier and they pass all
those cells in an effort to show the dominance of
the AB. Now Silverstein, he admits to this martyr, but
he framed it as a quote killer, be killed type situation. Regardless,
he receives at another life sentence for that murder. So
let's go into October second of nineteen eighty three, and
a day that would pretty much change everything for prisons
as we know them. Silverstein, still at Marion, was being
escorted to the showers and he was handcuffed, and as
he walked down the tier, another inmate by the name
of Randy Gometz he passes Silverstein a shank through the
bars of his cell, and while the escorts had to
pause for whatever reason, for a second before continuing to
go down that tier, somehow Gometz was able to use
a headen key to unlock Silverstein's handcuffs without any of
the correctional officers noticing. Silverstein then, in a fit of rage,
turns on co Merle Klutz and he stabs Klutz forty
times with that shank. Why well, Silverstein would later claim
that Klutz would harass him a lot, and he would
go in his cell and basically shake his cell down
and just destroy his artwork. And apparently, Silverstein, the artwork
was his thing. This was like his baby, and every
time he would finish a project, Klutz would go in
there and just destroy it. And he was pissed and
that was, I guess, all the excuse he needed, so
he stabbed him forty times and killed me. And what
else is interesting is that on that same day, October
two of nineteen eighty three, his old buddy Clayton Fountain.
He kills another guard at that prison named Robert Hoffman,
stabbing him twenty two times. And it was this incident
that legend has in any way, this killing would directly
lead to the supermax prisons as they are known as today,
and all the safeguards, the way they're designed, all a
reflection of this particular killing now marin itself. The prison
it went through a twenty three year lockdown after this incident,
and Silverstein, at this point he was labeled the most
dangerous inmate in America with his third murder inside a prison.
So post that murder, Silverstein gets transferred to what's known
as United States Prison in Atlanta and he gets put
in what's none as a side pocket cell. Now side
pocket sell is basically timy steel boxes. That's basically what
you're in. And they have like picture of the constant
buzzing fluorescent lights. There's no clocks, no entertainment. The only
book allowed in the cell is the Bible. I mean
it's design where an inmate never knows what time it is,
what day it is, and even how long the inmate
may have slept. You wake up. You could have slept
two hours, you could have slept ten hours. You'd have
no freaking clue because you don't know whether it's daytime, nighttime,
what time of day it is. Nothing. The goal is
to totally disorient the inmate. Let's fast forward to nineteen
eighty seven in the Atlanta prison rights. Now, the Atlanta
Prison Rides were an eleven day uprising. This was at
the US Penitentiary in Atlanta, where Silverstein was housed in Georgia,
and it was the longest prison standoff in US history. Now,
it was triggered because the US State Department had announced
an agreement with Cuba to deport approximately twenty five hundred
Cuban nationals to Cuba, and they held a riot. And
there were actually riots all over the country, but the
Atlanta prison riot was the worst. Well, it was during
these riots that Silverstein actually gets released from that side
pocket cell by other inmates, and he remained free within
the prison for about a week before all of this
got under control. A guard who was stuck in the
prison actually had a run in with Silverstein while he
was free within the walls, and by all accounts, Silverstein
actually spared this guard's life because the guard treated him
with some form of respect prior to the incident. Had
he not done that, Silverstein likely would have killed him.
So in those riots, eventually an FBI hostage rescue team
comes in. Everything gets copaesthetic again, and then they round
up Silverstein and they actually transfer him back to Levenworth
where for the next eighteen years he stays locked up
in solitary confinement. So Levenworth knew he was coming back
and they had to prepare for that, and they actually
construct a custom built cell for him. Not only do
they construct one, they would name this cell Silverstein's Suite. Now,
interactions with the staff were minimal. The delivery of his
food is just like you would think you would see
in a movie. Slight through the cell door, right, and
they just passed the tray in. And his cell was
about the size of a king sized mattress. His entire
cell video surveillance in there twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week. He was only allowed one phone
call per month. In my opinion, he deserved every bit
of it. So while Silverstein is living it up, if
you will inside the Silverstein sweet his accomplice and buddy,
remember Clayton Fountain. Well, he dies in two thousand and
four in a federal prison in Missouri, and in two
thousand and five another transfer for Silverstein when a brand
new prison opens up called ADX Florence. This is in Colorado.
It's known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, and it
is considered the world's most secure prison. Imperfect for Silverstein, right,
practically built for him. So a little about ABX, and
I did an episode several years ago on Bloody and
Gola where I actually talked only about ABX Florence. Very
interesting prison. It's designed for near total solitary confinement, and
that's obviously to neutralize dangerous behavior. Only the worst of
the worst in the world gets sent here. Uh, there's
a lot of isolation. Inmates typically spend twenty three hours
a day in a soundproof seven by twelve foot cell.
So if you're somewhere where you can mark off seven
feet by twelve feet, do it and imagine spending twenty
three hours a day, seven days a week inside of
that space for the rest of your life. That's what
That's what ADX is. The cell features a bad a desk,
it has a stool and all of that furniture is
made of poured reinforced concrete, and that's to prevent people
from making weapons. If you make, for example, a stool
out of wood, what are they gonna do. They're gonna
break one of the legs, sharpen it, and it's gonna
be a pretty bad ass shank. Now, there's a limited
view inside of that cell. As a matter of fact,
some cells don't have any view at all, but some
they have a window that's four inches wide and angled
to only allow a view of the sky or the roof,
and they do this because it prevents the inmates from
knowing their exact location inside the complex. For recreation, the
exercise occurs in what's known as a concrete pit. Imagine
like an empty swimming pool, and you go in that
pit and you basically run in a circle for exercise.
You get an hour a day, often while shackled, and
that's that's that twenty fourth hour of the twenty three
hours you're in your cell. That one hour is just
for exercise, and you're usually shackled when you're out there.
And if you're curious about some of the people that
are housed there, well, they are the world's most notorious
criminals that are behind bars. How about Joaquin El Chapo Guzman,
the former leader of the Sinaloa car Hotel, He's house there.
The Boston marathon bomber, he's housed there. How About a
convicted nine to eleven conspirator Massali, he is house there.
How About Richard Reid, who is also known as the
shoe bomber, He's house there. Several members of ISIS are
housed there. The perpetrator of the twenty seventeen New York
City truck attack is housed there, and even gang members
such as the founder of the Gangster Disciples, a guy
by the name of Larry Hoover, housed at ADX Florence.
So if you're curious how much time, because it just
wasn't ADX Florence that Silverstein was housed at where he
was in solitary confinement. But of his life, thirty six
years of that was spent in some form of solitary.
Now that's thirteen thousand, one hundred and forty days in
a sell smaller than a parking space. Y'all, no human contact.
And after he killed that correctional officer, guards out of
respect for that correctional officer. None of them would speak
to him at all, and that'll give you kind of
an idea of what his life was like. So all
this goes on and eventually Thomas Silverstein files a lawsuit
with help from some students from the University of Denver.
Now these students from the University of Denver, what are
they trying to do. Well, they're trying to get a
law degree. So everything they say take with a grain
of salt. But I'm going to cover it in detail
because really it really does break down the life of
this guy. And he wrote it himself. It's called a
Declaration of Thomas Silverstein. It was accepted into the United
States District Court for the District of Colorado, and it
was Thomas Silverstein versus the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And
it reads, I, Thomas Silverstein, declare, under penalty of perjury,
that I had been held in solitary confinement for the
past ten two hundred and twenty days, which is three
hundred and thirty six moss or twenty eight years. I
am fifty nine years old, and I have spent almost
half my life in solitary confinement. Victim, right, he's a victim.
The purpose of this declaration is to describe my experience
during this lengthy period of solitary confinement, the nature and
impact of the harsh conditions I have endured in spite
of a spotless conduct record for over twenty two years. Now,
I'm just going to interruptate there and say, you know,
throw out the fact that I killed three people in
prison in my lack of knowledge of about what, if anything,
I can do less in my isolation. Nevertheless, I feel
it would be disrespectful to say anything about my conditions
of confinement without beginning with an apology for the actions
that brought me here in the first place. An apology
for the harm I have done is necessary before anything
else can be said. Not a single one of the
thousand days I have spent here has gone by where
I have not regretted my actions that brought me here.
Every day I think back in whish I had not
killed Officer Klutz. I know that some people would continue
to find this hard to believe, but I want it
to be understood that this is not only because of
my confinement that I feel this regret. I feel this
way because I know what I did was wrong. I
have become a person who recognizes and respects the value
of the life of another people can and do change.
I know I have, and I have become someone who
is deeply sorry for having done such terrible harm to others.
I saw the Klutz family at my sentencing hearing. Until
that moment, I had never thought of Officer Klutz as
having a family. As soon as I saw his children,
I recognized I had hurt more people than just Officer Clutz.
I wonder about his kids regularly and hope that they
are okay and had been able to start families of
their own. I have apologized publicly via my blog to
Officer klutz children. I know his daughter saw my apology
because she replied on the blog. Although I apologized, I
would never presume to ask for their forgiveness, as what
I did to them was unforgivable. I wish I could
repair the damage that I have done to other people's lives.
I also regret my actions because they harm my own children.
They have suffered because their father was not there for them.
There's almost nothing as difficult and as painful as knowing
your children are suffering and knowing that you were the cause.
And y'all, he did have children. Not a lot of
information out there on that, but apparently he did. I
feel guilty about this. Every when I feel pain for
not having been there for my own children, I know
that I also did this to Officer Clutch children. I
am the reason they, like my own children, grew up
without a father, and I'm sorry for that. When I
look back on it now, it's hard for me to
understand how I made the choices I did. There's no
justification for my actions. I wish I could go back
and stop myself, though I know this is impossible. I
recognize the pain I have caused others, including my own
family and children, and in response to that, I have
worked to become a different man. Although I cannot repair
the damage I caused. I am committed to nonviolence. It
is a promise I have made myself, and one that
I hope honors those I've hurt. It's a promise I
have every intention of keeping. I understand that I do
deserve to be punished for my actions, and I do
not expect to ever be released from prison. My hope
is simply to be allowed, like other prisoners, to earn
the privileges that are warranted by my constant good conduct.
I do not consider myself to be a part of
any prison gang, nor do I want to be a
part of any prison gang. I just want to serve
out the remainder of my time peacefully with other mature
guys doing their time. And then he goes into saying
the Bureau of Prisons has singled him out and treated
him different. He says, although the Bureau of Prisons suggest
I am irrational to think they are singling me out,
I do not agree. I believe that this is what
they have been doing, and I can understand why they
would do it. I believe I had been treated worse
than any prisoner in the Bureau of Prison. I read
doctor Haney's report that I am the most isolated prisoner
he has ever seen. It sometimes seems that the Bureau
of Prisons is trying to test me, to provoke bad
behaviors so they can justify their treatment of me. For example,
when mentally ill people who scream all night or placed
in my unit, it feels like the Bureau of Prisons
is trying to see if they can make me break me.
I tolerate the noise, though, because I don't want to
break the rules I want to earn my way out
of solitary. I also believe the Bureau of Prisons has
purposely put known informants and sell some wreck areas around
me in order to see if they can discover any
negative information on me. But there's nothing to know, since
I am simply trying to follow the rules. Since I
have had clear conduct for decades, I don't know why
we can continue to be held in isolation, except for
the Bureau of Prisons desire to make me suffer for decades.
Year after year, I've tried to demonstrate I am no
longer the man I was in Marrion. It's important to
note he's writing this inside of the supermacs at Colorado,
right ADX. I've done and continue to do everything I
can think of, all that the Bureau has asked me
to do. I've showed I have changed and should be
given relief from my isolation. I follow the rules. I'm
respectful and polite. I watch the program they tell me
to see. I've tried and every way I can think
of to demonstrate I have no intentions to ever hurt
anyone again. In addition to the efforts I have made,
there is another reality I hope will be considered I'm
quickly becoming an old man. I spend most of my
days croche items for my family and my legal counsel
in working on my artwork. And actually, y'all, he drew
and he was a pretty good artist, believe it or not.
It's hard to reconcile the Guara of Prison's description to
me as frightening and scary when the people who see
me here know I am a man peering through by vocals,
trying to count the number of stitches to make an affghan.
Although I think the way some officers have treated me
as a violation of the rules, I understand why they
act this way. I imagine it is a way for
them to feel loyal to Officer Klutz. Even though it
was very painful that no one would talk to me.
I understand why people might act that way out of
loyalty and also out of fear. I know that some
people have suggested that my good behavior is a ruse,
that I have been a model prisoner for twenty two
years because I am waiting to have my restrictions lessons
so I can lash out violently. They also say that
I haven't acted out because I can't that my conditions
are so restrictive there's nothing I can do. But this
is just not true. I could have yelled at, or
been disrespectful to, or even spit at the officers. I
could have disobeyed an order or withheld my food trade
and violated communication rules. I didn't, and I don't do
any of these things. It's hard, if not impossible, for
me to prove what is actually in my mind and
what is not. All I can do is askaid others
look at my current behavior and explain that it reflects
my intention to never act violently again. Ever, I know
the consequences, both to myself and others that will follow,
and more importantly, I know that this is not who
I want to be. My actions for the past twenty
eight years are an expression of who I am and
who I wish to be. When they took me from
Levenworth and put me in a van to move me
here to ABX, I thought I might finally be getting
out of solitary confinement. Couldn't believe he said that I
was over fifty years old. It had been incident free
for lust twenty years. During the ride, I imagine myself
having a job and being able to have contact visits
with my family. Instead, I was placed in conditions that
were worse than those at Levenworth. At that time, I
lost hope of ever getting out of solitary confinement. This
lawsuit has given me a little hope that my decades
of clear conduct may be recognized. But even now I'm
not hoping for much. I would like to be able
to eat a meal with someone else occasionally. I would
like to have a visit with my family that ends
in being able to hug my daughter goodbye and to
shake my son's hand. I know that I have sacrificed
most of my rights by virtue of my actions as
a much younger man. I think that these things are
not too much to hope for, even in my circumstances.
And then he gets into his version of his early years.
He says I was born on February fourth of nineteen
fifty two. Grew up in Long Beach, California, and my
parents separated when I was very young, and I was
adopted by my stepfather. My parents were middle class, but
my home was an angry and violent place. It was
not a safe place for a child or anyone else.
My mother became verbally abusive and physically violent When she
was angry. She lashed out at me often and would
hit me with anything she had in her hands at
the time, from a belt to a lamp to a
rolling pin. Once she threw a kitchen knife at my head.
Not only did she hit me and my sister, but
my mom also would hit my stepfather when she was
angry with him. There was constant physical aggression at my home.
My mother's lesson was the only way to be strong
was to be violent. She believed this. Once, after I
was beaten up by another kid and I told you
all about this, my mother told me, if I didn't
stand up and fight for myself the next time this happened,
she would take a belt to me herself. When I
got home. I was miserable at home and also very
confused and began to run away. Eventually, these runaways ended
up with me being placed in juvenile offender centers. These
two turned out to be dangerous places, full of people
who harmed those that they thought were weaker than themselves.
There I learned the single most important survival skill was
to stand up for myself so that people didn't think
I was weak. And prey upon me. By the time
I was nineteen, I had landed in seeing Quentin on
an arm robbery charge. When I was released on parole,
I fell back into the same behavior. After that, I
was arrested for robbery I committed with my biological father
and my cousin, Gerald Hoff. I was twenty three when
I was sentenced to fifteen years for that robbery. My
share of those proceeds was a few hundred dollars. My
life on the outside was over forever. When I interstand Quentin,
the prison system was unstable and there were regular race rides. However,
was not long before I finished my state time and
was transferred to federal custody in USP at Leavenworth. Inside
of Levenworth, the racial lines were strictly divided. Newcomers had
to be careful not to show any weakness or word
would get around that guys could take advantage of them.
Because of the violence, I believe it was necessary to
align myself with others for my own safety. And he's
talking about the Arian brotherhood. In November of nineteen eighty,
I was charged with and convicted of murder of a
fellow inmate, Danny Atwell. I am innocent of this crime,
and the conviction was subsequently reversed. And that's something I
didn't tell y'all about, but it was reversed on some technicalities.
Says at the evidentiary hearing before this case was reversed,
the main witness against me, a prisoner who had benefited
greatly from his testimony, admitted that I had lied and
recanted his testimony. Unfortunately, this information only came out after
I'd been transferred to the control unit at USB Marion.
The control unit in any prison is the most punitive
and restrictive part of the prison. This had special meaning
in Marion, which was the highest security, most restrictive federal
prison at that time. It was none among inmates that
Marian was built to replace the old Alcatraz Penitentiary. Prisoners
from across the country who were hard to house were
sent there, and it soon became one of the most
violent prisons in the system. Fights, riots, and assaults of
prisoners and staff occurred regularly. This was a significant conflict
between the staff and the prisoners At Marion. Even the
control unit was extremely dangerous. Prisoners were armed with hominge
knives or had access to obtaining weapons at all times.
It's hard to explain how it felt to feel afraid
that you could be killed essentially at any moment. In
their individual cells, prisoners were not safe. I feared a
tax on my life at all times from both prisoners
and staff. The pressure to stand up for myself and
not allow others to perceive me as weak was immense.
Prisoners continue to be killed, even in the solitary and
extreme conditions. In nineteen eighty two, I was convicted in
the death of inmate Robert Chappelle, a murder I was
not guilty of. I plead innocent and maintain my innocence
to this day. I never knew Chappelle and had never
even spoken to him, and I had no responsibility for
his death. The fact that I was alleged to have
been responsible, however, created an additional set of dangers for
me at Marion. After the death of Chappelle, the Bureau
of Prisons transferred inmate Robert Cadillac Smith to Marion. Though
I had never before heard of Cadillac Smith, I learned
that he had been friends with Chappelle. Soon after his arrival,
Cadillac Smith began making it known that he planned to
call me to avenge Chappelle's death. Despite these threats, the
Bureau of Prisons house Cadillac Smith with the three cells
of me at Marion. Since I hadn't killed Chappelle. I
had nothing against Cadillac Smith prior to his arrival, but
I became very apprehensive about him once those threats began.
I'm aware of the Bureau of Prison now claims Cadillac
Smith was the leader of the DC Gang, but at
the time I did not know of this or even
hear of a gang called the DC Blacks. I only
learned that the Bureau of Prisons claimed that Cadillac Smith
was a leader of the DC Blacks when I read
Pete Early's book About ten years after I was housed
in Marion. Cadillac Smith attempted to kill me on two
separate occasions between December of nineteen eighty one and September
of nineteen eighty two, once with a homemade zip gun
that thankfully failed to fire, in a second time with
a knife. Even though Bureau of Prison officials were aware
of his attempt to take my life and put him
into the hole because of it, the Bureau of Prisons
later returned him to my same unit and didn't take
any action to make me safe. When he returned, Cadillac
Smith continued to tell me and others that he was
going to kill me. Believing that Cadillac Smith would not
stop until succeeding in killing me, and seeing the Bureau
of Prisons was not going to take any measures to
help protect me, I killed Cadillac Smith on September twenty
seventh of nineteen eighty two. Although at the time I
believed I was acting in self defense. I deeply regret
my actions. I am sorry for the pain I have
caused the Smith family. After I killed Smith, I lived
in constant fear of reprisals. It was in this state
of mind and believing I was in a life threatening
situation that on October twenty second of nineteen eighty three,
I killed Officer Klutz. I regret my actions, and I'm
sorry for the death of Officer Klutz. I'm also sorry
for the pain I have caused a Klutz family. Even
writing the declaration, I feel my words of regret or
inadequate to explain the remorse I feel and how much
I am sorry for this action. And that is where
I am going to cut it off. For today, but
we got a lot more to cover. We've got this guy,
the most dangerous prisoner in US history in some people's opinion,
Thomas Silverstein, terrible Tommy. We've got the rest of his
story in his own words that I'm going to bring
you on the next episode of Bloody Inngola. Trust me,
it gets wild from here. As a matter of fact,
the next subject we're going to talk about is a
side pocketsel that I mentioned in today's episode. So thank
you so much for listening. Check out the Patreon Patreon
dot com slash Bloody Angola podcast for commercial, free early
release episodes and mores And until next time for Bloody Inngola,
a podcast one hundred and forty two years in the making,
the complete story of America. It's Bloody's present peace.
Speaker 1: I Wall Street, line, shackle, chain, Oh gesome, girdie, it's
calling my name. There is no mercy, and it's been
a century. Juice as the hill stream game, wrangled of three.
Speaker 2: Come here behind by me to die.
Speaker 1: Inside these walls, inside the wild, And when
Speaker 2: Gods I'm know it's abody Angler, ohbody angle,