Indiana State's Most Dangerous Maximum Security Prisoners (True Crime Marathon) | Real Stories

[Music] what's it like when one of your friends on death row is led away to be executed well you spend you know years and years and months and months and hours of every day with a person you talk every day hey what are you doing and you know let's eat something let's make something to eat and you know and he eventually comes by one day and like yeah i gotta go man and you know when he leaves and turns his back and walks down them steps he ain't coming back they're gonna kill him [Music] about an hour's drive south of chicago in the state of indiana is one of america's oldest and most notorious maximum security prisons the majority of the 1900 inmates here are serving long sentences for unspeakable crimes and when i came at you i wasn't just going to stick you an inch i was going to run something all the way through 12 are due to be executed on the orders of the state for two weeks i was given privileged access to this dark and forbidding world i do deserve to be executed bottom line i ain't going to candy coat it i deserve to be executed welcome to indiana's state prison [Music] thank you my introduction to the prison was dramatic the man who runs it superintendent bill wilson agreed to take me to death row [Music] so this is actually the entrance this is the actual entrance then and it's uh two floors we only have 12 men on on the row right now you have to sign yourself in the superintendent comes to death row every week to check on how the inmates are coping superintendent these are the pictures of people on death row correct these are the 12 gentlemen that are on death row and it shows their cell location so that staff never have to question where they're at no staff members are allowed on the unit when the offenders are out so the offenders actually will secure themselves in the cells and then their cell doors will be closed or opened as they need to come in or out do you like any of these people like they're all they're all different in many ways and i i am respectful of of who they are what they are um would i call them my friends no but there are some characters here that have some personality characteristics that you would say are likable he knows them all by name and they know him mcmanus it always amazed me how clean that cell is keep it up in here i know is that you're not trouble yeah all right wilkes how's your eyes you been over to medical at all yeah okay [Music] i'm all right how are you just more sick how are you man all right you how you doing hi it's tension high not for me okay i'm good all right richie what's up all right mr richie's wife i believe is from england which part of england is she from saint albans uh-huh in hertfordshire yeah yes yeah i met her about four years ago on pen pal and we hit it off instantly and uh she came over and visited couldn't get enough and married me how often do you get a chance to see her every weekend do you mind do you mind doing this no no no not at all yes it is very very unconventional though because the end game in this relationship is one that you know and she knows well yeah kind of because a lot of guys can get off death row a lot a lot of us are getting off death row but cases like mine and like another gentleman back here you know we didn't kill no women or kids we we're charged with shooting a cop a police officer and they just don't let guys like us no matter if you got good issues in your case or not legal issues to let you off to let you off death row it doesn't matter you know what i mean she knows that and she married you i don't know i i found something now see i was a stupid kid at 19 and 20. i made very poor decisions i would make decisions i would do things without without uh thinking about them and i didn't give a damn about the consequence at all that kid to me now 32 years old that kid's gone i'm not saying i'm rehabilitated you know you're not saying that no i'm not but i am sad because i'd be bullshitting you i'm not going to sit here and lie to you i'm the kind of guy that does need to be in prison why are you the kind of guy who needs to be in prison because i'm the kind of guy if i get fired from a job and i can't find a job i'll do it the legal way try to get a job and i can't find a job ah and i can't pay my bills i'll go get a gun and i'll pay my bills and i won't think no nothing about it it won't bother me at all you describe the person you are but how do you see your life looking down the line where does it where does it go where does it end up either in a box or doing a live sentence on in population that's my choices right there doing a life sentence or being in a box i gotta watch my wife grow old through these bars out in the general population convicts are allowed yard time two hours recreation every day save for taking showers and meals this is their only opportunity to mix and to make allies [Music] have you been here a long time 27 years how many 27 years 27 years i was heading to the administrative segregation unit with lieutenant gillespie [Music] the men here are among the prisons most dangerous [Music] this is um sergeant fagan this is his united flag many of the offenders here are gang members drug dealers and sexual predators everything they do is monitored and carefully controlled [Applause] could you tell me what this list of names is all about all right this every cell house in indiana state prison has one of these the idea behind this is to make sure we know where everyone's at what they're doing who they are why they're here etc for for example if someone would accidentally take out 508 and 509 together and let's say they you know 508 it was 509 money so 509's mad about it and they get put in the shower together the door is locked and he has he has a weapon on him 508 could lose his life like that you know just because someone made that mistake so that's why it's important to really understand this board do you feel that you must be constantly vigilant these guys have nothing but time okay we're going home so we're thinking about going to dinner with the wife going to dinner with the mom whatever you know these guys have nothing but time they're sitting here you know and these guys they're smart they don't forget so let's say you made a mad two weeks ago you forgot about it they don't so let's say you're sitting here minding your business doing something come up behind you and assault you yeah you got it you got to be awake you got to be on your toes the offenders in this unit are locked down for 23 hours a day and when they're allowed out for their 60 minute break they're kept apart in individual steel cages one of the men is 38 year old ronald l sanford by any measure and in any prison community his is an exceptional story when did you come here to indiana state prison well i came here in 1989 at the age of 15 years old i was actually convicted of the crime that i'm here for at the age of 13 years old so and what was the crime double homicide so i committed a double homicide at the age of 13 years old at the age of 15 my case had ran his course through the court and i was sent here to this prison in 1989. double homicide at the age of 13 13 years old that's very very young it's tragic uh to say the least and it is very young absolutely it's uh it's unheard of you know um wow it's unspeakable to say the least uh even reflected on it almost 25 years later uh in august it'll be 25 years since that crime took place it's uh it's still very vivid it's still very poignant and still resonates and it still has the same amount of uh tragic elements involved in it now as it did then and it will always be with me for the rest of my life always say it's like arbitrage around my neck no matter where i when i where i go or what i do for the rest of my life it'll always be with me what were the circumstances which led up to the incident which led you in prison at the age of 15. me and a friend are basically uh planning to get money to go to a fair and to do so we're gonna cut grass and we went to a home basically and they said they didn't want the grass cut and rather than continue on the vein and go to the next home we decided to push into the home essentially and it ended in a double homicide it's that simple and uh for our complicity in that crime i was sentenced to 170 years 170. you've got a sentence of 170 years however you cut that you're not going to get out of here i'm elgin for parole when i turn 100 years old have you ever thought about all the things that you have missed that other 15 year olds go through as part of their normal lives absolutely i've never been to the prom i've never driven a car i've never had a driver's license i've never filed tax returns uh i've never been on an airplane i've never traveled abroad should i continue my life has been living in this prison and it seems as though i've been in this prison so long i've never been free uh 25 years in prison you know it's a long time especially when you come in at the age of 15. yeah really aerial thank you so much for talking to me thank you for taking the time i appreciate my first meeting with sanford was a shock but there were more disturbing cases at indiana's state prison [Music] one of the oddities of the american prison system is that an inmate can spend 20 years on death row exhausting the appeals process before he's executed in all that time convicts are confined to this cell block and have little contact with the rest of the prison paul mcmanus killed his wife and two young daughters so i managed the first thing i noticed about your cell that is terribly clean very different from any of the others right why is that um i feel if i don't use it in a month then i probably don't need it yeah but it's it's it's more than that isn't it it's it's uh particularly clean well me personally i don't read or write so i have a lot of time in my hands so so i clean because i don't write letters i don't read books there's only so much on tv you can watch before they show repeats so it gives me a lot of time so i just take pride and clean myself was your life before you came to prison very similar were you a very very tidy person then not so much i worked a lot so i was always busy so i like to stay busy it keeps my mind so it works both ways i guess you know i keep busy in here but i'm pretty well done all i can do in here i might have to move to a different cell and do the same thing but i've been here over a decade so i'm just now getting it where i like it does being on death row take a physical emotional toll on you oh it's definitely up and down definitely definitely now i did weigh 250 pounds uh almost almost two years ago and now i weigh 166. now i have a pictures of them if you would like to see them um i got them right here in my factory yes and you see the difference so this is um it's all me this is all you so you you you lost a lot of weight right as you know it's depression a little bit uh you know and it's also just i mean it's like i said it's a roller coaster it's up and down [Music] mcmanus sees more of indiana state prison than the other men on death row he's a diabetic and is allowed a daily visit to the prison hospital the authorities must treat him although they will in all probability put him to death one day [Music] well here we are out of death row and into the sunlight is this the only chance you get to mix with the rest of the general prison population yes we don't have a lot of contact with them so it is nice to be able to come out and see people that you've uh maybe been locked up with that are not on the road no more um and every once in a while you can you know have a little bit of contact with that person just for a brief second were you on any kind of medication like insulin before you came before you came to prison absolutely none zip uh now you know i take quite a few pills and the insulin shot um it all comes down to the food and also how you you know you have your ups and downs where you gain weight and then stuff like that so i mean that does play a factor what's nice about well here's the nice thing about being a diabetic is that you do get to get out and come over to the hospital daily and then to be around regular people it's nice all right thank you see you later the rest of the prison is distinctly different from the oppressive gloom of death lunchtime in cell block c prisoners have a chance to spend time in the open air they can also earn privileges some have jobs and can request a haircut twice a month all the barbers are convinced rick perrish is serving three life sentences plus 10 years i must say walking into this place is one of the most extraordinary experiences i've had for a long time you wouldn't have thought that this was a barbershop or in a maximum security prison well we we work hard to keep it unique uh in here because we like the atmosphere we like being able to come in here and relax it's neutral territory for gangs for officers i mean if you come to the barber shop and you're a gang member would you start trouble with the guy that's standing here with a pair of shears in his hand like this i know i wouldn't i suspect not too that's why there's no trouble in here there's still though this feeling of unreality about people with instruments like these in a maximum security prison i've been here 37 years we've never had an incident in the barbershop we've never had an incident with the shears never had a problem you've been here since the 70s that's a long time january 75 long time yep yeah well you know if you do it a day at a time like most of us do you do time of day to time sometimes an hour of time sometimes a minute of time whatever it takes to get through uh then you look up one day and 37 years went by there you go young man all right good day thank you rick what are we looking at yeah a little history of the penitentiary in the barbershop the shop was uh remodeled in august of 76 and that's the first picture taken in this shop is that you there yes it is so this is your wall yeah i'm uh i'm all over the wall because it is my wall and this and your pumping iron here yeah that was uh probably 20 years ago when i was uh eating anything it didn't move and pumping iron at the same time so this is a catalog of your life in pictures yeah because you can see you can see the progress from what i look like in 76 up here to where i'm at right now here that's the newest picture what emotions do they invoke wishing i was out there doing it right wishing i could start all over again at 29 30 years of age and not make the mistakes i made but you get past after 37 years you better be past all that you know have your head screwed on you know make the best of what you have but the pictures are constant reminders yeah what was you know that's like you know all of us that got here were violent criminals to get here what was your violent crime rick uh i'm in here for kidnap robbery i pulled a robbery and the car i had uh wouldn't start so i commandeered a vehicle and there was three people in it all the pictures here you have it on mounted on cardboard yeah it's on cardboard so if i ever get out i can take it with me that's what that's what it's for i fold it up and take it with me as a reminder you don't want to go back [Music] [Music] i went back to the administrative segregation unit to see ronald l sanford again his story haunted me a killer when he'd barely entered his teams r.l hi how do you get accustomed to life in this environment it takes some getting used to it it's tough there's a young man on the range very young man maybe 19 20 years old he's exhibiting psychosis and they took him to see the psycho the psychologist because he's having trouble adapting this is an abnormal environment for a human being certainly you know these are essentially cages and i think that we stay in them 24 hours 23 hours a day come out for an hour a day it's taxing they may have a look in your cell about absolutely have a look at some of the books absolutely you just you absolutely make so yes returns would you mind opening up i'd just like to have a look yes sir you could you could take whatever down you want to take down and war against the weak what what's that about eugenics eugenics yes sir america's attempt to make a master race essentially and and this one is the tree of life what that's about yes uh it's kabbalah actually it's it's more of uh metaphysics essentially those those deep questions about man where he comes from where we're going and who we are essentially yes i see that you have in addition to your books you have some of your own writing on the walls here strength well-being and health yes just something i try to focus on um if there's anything i want to stay my mind on is as i always say it's something progressive so being strong and having a good disposition and being in good health for certain certain things i definitely want to uh focus on and you have written here no no man is your enemy no man is your friend every man is your teacher yes sir i'm also standing here and i think these are the parameters of your of your existence existence absolutely these four walls it's a pretty isolating place it really is if you see it as such it's isolated only to the extent that you you think it is you know i mean those books allow for a great escape and for uh to be able to leave the the confines of the wall so but i'm only in here for a few minutes and i i feel it as such i feel it i feel that i feel everybody in this building feels the the the um the confinement that we're suffering uh here you know you don't you put an animal in a cage with too great of a less of a time it goes crazy you know how much more so humans you know so [Music] this is what sanford looked like when he came here at the tender age of 15. his murder of two elderly women in 1987 netted him the meager son of five dollars [Music] on that vile act he must reflect for the rest of his life [Music] [Applause] [Music] prison life moves to the relentless and monotonous beat of an unchanging routine some inmates get the chance to relieve the tedium by working at the end of his shift rick perish the barbell returns to what's called an honor cell to which only the most trusted prisoners are assigned and they're all two-man cells two main cells this is my shell here rick who opens the doors is that controlled by the computer up in the office so there's a computer that controls uh all the doors controls our water bag coming to yourself sure please thank you and this is your cell mike hi mike i'm trevor mcdonald nice to meet you how long have you been sharing a cell with rape kid oh about two and a half years isn't that about right right that's correct so which which is your side oh this is your side it strikes me too that there has to be a a rather clear division of what's yours and what's mike's that's uh that's mike's cabinet over there yeah and he has all his commissary and stuff in there this is my cabinet here and i have uh my commissary and things in here but in general we're sharing a space you have to try to give the other person their privacy if he's doing something and he's up walking around i tried to stay over there and he does the same for me you know just you know try to take turns doing things because it is close quarters so this is an improvement from any other part of the prison you've been you've been in a regular cell house you've seen how they live over there you've heard the noise you hear how quiet it is it stays quiet like this most times and uh sure you have to put up with another human being but it's worth it it's worth the sacrifice rick's honor cell does not insulate him from one stark reality death row is within shouting distance in the same block what is it like to live so close to death row well i just block it out i don't pay attention to it i'm a barber and i won't even go over there and cut hair because i don't want to get to know any of them you know you lose enough friends through attrition in here as it is without them being on death row i i don't even get familiar with them why don't you want to get familiar with it because uh you get friendly with them you get to know them they get executed you know you've lost another friend does the mood change perceptibly just before an execution in the the days before an execution yeah it gets even quieter you know everybody knows uh the last one i think was wiggles he stopped here hollered down through there i'll see you fellas he said that yeah he hollered out everybody's usually awake we used to uh midnight we used to beat on the bars and how many times has that happened since you've been here how many executions have there been since you've been here i've never kept track like i said i try not to dwell on it so keeping track of them would be too many as far as i'm concerned rick parrish says he's never kept track of the number of executions someone on death row obviously has [Music] every one of the twelve men on death row will one day be told the date and time of his execution [Music] that common fate inspires unusual friendships [Music] john stevenson was a member of an organized criminal gang he assassinated three people benjamin ritchie who had met before killed a police officer hi how are you doing pretty good man you've been all right yeah good to see you yeah how you doing good to see you good you two uh in adjoining cells how long have you been friends about 11 years since i got here on death row he was already here when i got here how did this friendship come about what what what drew you to each other's friends well just we got the same interest i mean we play our music loud we play video games we work out play basketball eat together if [ __ ] goes down we whoop him up like his ass together that's you know that's how our friendship came about does that mean you have a lot in common yeah well i thought we did you're not sure anymore ah no no i'm just i'm just kidding i don't want you two friends to argue about that we're not gonna argue no i mean if if anything we always argue but we've never come to blows overnight no no that'll never happen to you and then a half hour later hey what we eating tonight you know it's over yeah it don't matter don't mean nothing i'm always right in the end so he's the voice of reason you're the voice of anger from what you say absolutely yeah is that right he keeps a leash on me yeah you know like i'd rather lash out at something like when i first met boyan he hated me because i was just a straight-up [ __ ] i'd be in your face [ __ ] you you know come on in the shower and let's fight and i calmed way down since then yet most yeah emotional police i couldn't stand my ass and i got allowed around older cats and they calmed me down from your point of view what's this friendship based on we heard from richie what he thought about trusted trust in each other you know and you know basically that's you know trust like if [ __ ] goes down i got his back he's got mine see that's why they moved us because he got into it with a dude up here in here and uh almost killed him but the police had to come in and stop it and uh after they broke it up and everything administration got wind that i was gonna try to kill the dude because he cut my buddy with a knife and so they moved me and my buddy tex here to the back and move dude up in the front by itself so nobody could get to the dude within the first two weeks of being on death row i watched man get murdered in front of me get stabbed up 42 times dispatched instantly and that was my wake up to death row like if you come here you want to be a bully you want to take [ __ ] from people this is what's going to happen to you dude was just butchered although you witnessed something so horrendous you still sound pretty angry but see here's the thing if you show any sign of weakness in here the sharks will circle i won't be a victim i'll be one of the sharks wow i think the sharks are gonna circle regardless so [Music] [Music] the average sentence at indiana state prison is 52 years in britain that might seem like two life sentences but it's infinitely preferable to having an execution order hanging over your head hello [Music] lieutenant boyan has taken me to e-blog to meet one prisoner who has escaped the death penalty [Music] what's up harrison how you doing trevor this is a offender harrison i've known uh offender harrison for probably around six years uh i knew him here and also he was uh on death row before how was it that you managed to move from death row um which is not a particularly pleasant environment to this which is comparatively much more pleasant the court ordered me a new trial and they gave me years instead of the death penalty how did you get that new trial the judge that was in my trial was biased so they ordered a new trial and instead of taking the whole thing i just went ahead and took the deal which was 150 years 150 years a long time and that's a very very long time indeed in other words i'll die in here no way i can make out no way i'm 62 now my out date is 66. so there's just nowhere in the world i can i can make it out there are people who might think that there's not a lot of difference between being on death row and having been given 150 years at the age of 62. it was like you said there's still hope there there's no hope on death row once they put you to death that's it there's no more wondering what's going to happen there's no more trying to work your way out of it there's no more there's nothing still in a way a kind of death sentence it is a death sentence but you got a lot more freedom out here and you might as well take the freedom and live your life out here and having a job and being able to work and go to the child hall and go to the chapel and do that and sit up and just wait to die how long were you on death row 18 and a half year what was it like to spend so long knowing that you faced execution it was very very hard very hard it's hard to do it up on expo sitting there waiting for your last your last meal your last day not knowing when it's going to come why were you on death row i said i killed three people you would probably have been executed executed yes had they been set for that yes i had about two months that was a pretty close run thing yes what was that moment like for you when you heard that you had avoided execution it was a it was a great moment it was a great moment even though i still got a lot of time to do like you said where there's life there's hope [Music] as he said james harrison will not leave this prison alive but he knows he'll never be strapped to a gurney and given a lethal injection just after midnight like most of the inmates harrison now enjoys the strange freedom of not knowing the date and time of [Music] before leaving the prison at the end of my first week i asked to see benjamin ritchie again but this time face to face in the year 2000 he shot and killed a policeman at the time richie was on parole for burglary [Music] with less of the bravado he showed in the company of his friend i wanted to hear his view of his life and his crime talk me through the incident which led you to be here well my crime is shooting a police officer and killing me and it started off you know pretty harmless as a theft crime me and my friends would ride around and carjack people and take their rims from their cars from them and my buddy's car was already full so i decided let's get a van or a truck and we'd fill it up with some rims and take it back and we go sell everything i got in a high-speed chase and wrecked into a house and jumped out and took off running i was trying to get away you know but the cop was young and he was on my ass and i thought maybe if i you know take my gun out and fired a couple times it'd scare him because you know he's a beach girl police officer it's kind of a good neighborhood like how many times has he been shot at you know you know if that bullet would have hit just less than half of an inch lower he'd be alive today and i'd probably have a long lengthy prison sentence but i wouldn't be on death row man how were you apprehended how were you caught well i actually got away uh i made it back actually a few blocks away to some family's house and a girl i was saying and got away and i didn't know i killed him until i got back to the house and seen it on the news and that just destroyed me i knew i hit him in the backyard but i didn't know it was he was dead right i fell asleep the next thing i know i wake up and here my buddy says they're outside i wake up and it was like in the movies you see a whole bunch of red dots from their guns going in and out the windows and i was like yeah it's bad man i told him go ahead and go out leave the house and i didn't know what i was gonna do i didn't have no gun i couldn't fight no more so i just gave up what went through your mind when the court pronounced you guilty i was trying to portray a tough guy in court so when they gave me the death sentence i laughed at them and the prosecutor told everybody that's the voice of evil which i i would agree at the time yeah you know i deserved the death penalty i was young and didn't care about anybody at all but myself or anything and uh i deserved that i deserved that sentence at the time and uh yeah i just pretty much laughed at them when they gave it to me but then you know when i was by myself it really sunk in like man you're more likely going to be executed one day and it just it hit me hard you know so i put my face in my pillow and you know i mean cried a little bit was it inevitable that sooner or later you would end up in a place like this i always knew as a kid i'd probably end up in prison yeah it's it's it's it's weird because when i was a kid i was i was fascinated with prison movies every time we drive by prison i would wonder what are those guys doing what's it like in there what are they up to you know what i mean why should i care i'm a kid why should i care but i just because i just always knew i was going to end up in there because i just had a problem with the rules with authority and as you can see i'm here because of that because you killed the police officer you face execution if it does come to that would you face that moment with deep regret with remorse or with defiance i would i would i would definitely regret regret it and definitely have remorse but i'd also have a little defiance like why are you killing me you said killing's wrong but yet you're premeditatedly strapping me to this table and you're gonna poison me to death you're gonna kill me and uh that's what i would uh you know present so these are the steps which an inmate who is about to be executed would take into this interface area correct [Music] next time i talk to the man who could be next in line to be executed when you sit here now on death row and you reflect on what you did what do you think [Music] i deserve to be here [Music] i meet rascal the cat well i expected a male because i put in for a male cat and then about a month later i realized it wasn't a boy and a killer who never knew his victims you were offered money yes to kill yes that's it i've never believed in the death penalty myself but when i think about what you do i begin to understand why people feel it should be the appropriate sentence for crimes like yours do you understand that i do deserve to be executed bottom line i ain't gonna candy coat it i deserve to be executed [Music] about an hour's drive south of chicago in the state of indiana is one of america's oldest and most notorious maximum security [Music] prisons the majority of the 1900 inmates here are serving long sentences for unspeakable crimes and when i came at you i wasn't just going to stick you an inch i was going to run something all the way through you camera 12 are due to be executed on the orders of the state hi for two weeks i was given privileged access to this dark and forbidding world stealing cookies as a seven-year-old kid boy in school turned into a 20-year-old killing a cop landing himself on death row it went from stealing cookies to shooting a cop welcome to indiana's state prison my second week at the prison began back on death row the 12 men here are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day they're given a single hours recreation taking his is frederick bear his crime the murder of a mother and her young daughter bear could be next on the list to be executed is this your exercise routine is my recreation right now [Music] and how's the cap that's my girl so looks particularly well fed always what's your exercise routine well it usually consists of the leg press machine or going outside or hitting the weights or sitting there calling somebody your loved ones your family on the telephone you know or you can just sit up there like i was doing just writing a letter writing my girl over in germany so is she in germany doing what she's in germany probably right now getting ready to fix supper so she uh her name is susan and she's a she's a very beautiful person it must be strange having a relationship when your a is so far away and when you are in the circumstances that you are ain't no ain't gonna sugarcoat it most of us probably won't get off death row we'll be executed or we'll die from our appeals running out of you know whatever health reasons or whatever i hope maybe one day i might get off but the reality and the truth of that i probably won't there's like 16 levels to death row appeals from the start all the way to the finish and that's not including clemency asking the governor for you know please grace [Applause] and uh what stage are you at i'm on 13. i've been here seven years my appeals have been going since then and i'm kind of rapid on mine that's what tells me i don't know if i'll get off or not it sounds from what you say and what you admit to yourself that time is running out yeah it is it is that's the reality of my situation when your time runs out you know you're handcuffed and you're strapped down you stick a needle in your arm and they kill you it might sound cold but that's the reality the last man to be given a lethal injection at indiana state prison was matthew eric wrinkles convicted of killing his wife and two relatives he spent 14 years on death row [Music] on the night of december the 11th 2009 wrinkles was put to death in this building [Music] superintendent bill wilson who presides over all executions at indiana state prison is taking me to its death chamber so these are the steps which an inmate who is about to be executed would take into this into this area correct um there's a a process or a time frame in which we do everything but yes approximately between four and five uh the night of the execution we would bring the offender over here and he would be housed in a holding cell until the time of the execution as the appointed time for the execution draws nearer the prisoner is kept under close observation this is usually a very quiet time for the offender though some make themselves preoccupied with television uh others just sit here and and meditate and are very quiet for the last few hours my job is one single event and that's to to put this man to death that's that's very a surreal moment in time now new overnight the state has executed an indiana man convicted of killing his wife and two of her relatives matthew wrinkles died by lethal injection just after one this morning a jury convicted him of killing his wife her brother and sister-in-law inside their evansville home back in 1994. police say he wore camouflage and face paint when he broke into the home and shot them about a half dozen people stood outside the indiana state prison in michigan city last night protesting this execution he did not try to appeal or ask for clemency [Music] how do inmates react right at this at this point every every execution that i've been a part of every offender has done it differently most have always has at this point they've they've accepted their their their station their position the the process and that's happening one of them the the first execution that i was ever a part of the offender turned to us and and apologized to us about having to put us in this place and he basically said i'm sorry you guys have to do this do people resist i mean there's not very much to resist with handcuffs all around and being tied up to the gurney the only time i've ever had any resistance was one offender was passive he didn't actually participate in in movement he didn't participate in getting on the bed so we had to actually carry him from from the holding cell and on to the execution bed are there any any words exchanged what what do you say well we do everything we can to make sure that the offender's comfortable we do talk to him we make sure that he understands where we're at in the process we constantly are encouraging him to ask questions or just trying to be there for him once he's placed on the gurney he's allowed to give a final statement an actual death warrant is read to him so that he understands again why he's in this position and at that point then we start the execution process [Music] [Music] every week on average nine new prisoners arrive at indiana state prison the majority are young men [Music] many will spend the rest of their lives behind bars are you suicidal no he's sick or weak no take meds no are you being treated for medical dental or mental health no here we go lieutenant gillespie takes me to sell house c to which some of the new arrivals are assigned [Music] it's the largest block at indiana state prison it holds almost 400 offenders nearly all convicted murderers see charles 23. this is um sergeant zimmerman how are you doing i'm trevor mcdonald he's pretty much runs the house yeah it's just after lunch and the inmates are returning to their cells i can just see stroking a cat down there yes how did he come by that cat well we have a program a pet program here at um indiana state prison that uh based on conduct history and uh each offender can put a request in and they come by it as a privilege yes oh definitely a privilege oh yeah it's not a right definitely a privilege and sort of thing is what it does it gives them a sense of responsibility help medicate that so to speak you know that that temperament that stress that they may have throughout the day and not being able to talk to their loved ones or family members so the cat replaces that which they don't have or lost on the outside what's up oh they're interested in your cat hello how are you doing i'm trevor mcdonald hello nice to meet you hello so you've named him roscoe yeah it's a she oh she actually sorry forgive me i i i kind of put an order in for right yeah when you uh get put on the list for a cat you ask uh they ask you what kind of cat you want a male or female i expected a male because i put in for a male cat so i had bought all this stuff and got it all ready even named it because i knew what i wanted to name him and then about a month later i realized it wasn't a boy i couldn't change her name then so that's rascal it was and rascal it is rascal it was and rascal it is and you think it's changed the way you look at your time here well it it helps me get through my time you know like i said if i have bad days or you just don't think you can take anymore come home and she starts me out and she's like my kid i've raised her since she was a little bitty kitten and i love her like she's my kid you know you use the word home well this has been home for the last 24 years really i've been here over half my life so i'll be 45 in august been here since i was 20. and how long do you expect to be here well right now i get out in november 2040. 2004-0 2014. that's a long time real long time i'll be 72 years old 20 to 72 is a long time the worst part is losing the family that you love all your loved ones and everybody that ever loved me that never turned her back on me those are the ones that are gone now my mom died just a few years ago and that was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life the pain of that memory must haunt you it crushes me every day i keep i keep a photo of her up on my up on my wall she's the first thing i see when i wake up in the morning may we have a look at it yes you can thank you a picture that she had sent me of a cross and she wrote on the back she says put this on your wall where you can always see it love mom and i keep that right there [Music] dennis lehrer will spend more than 50 years in this prison that's par for the course for most men here coming to terms with that seems almost impossible there must be people here who stand no chance of ever getting out true how do they cope with that realization i believe it's an individual thing once you come to the realization and to the fact that possibility that's a chance that i'm going to spend all my entire life in the departments of corrections so those of offenders who come into the realization of that and embrace that are the ones that continue to live their lives the best way they can you talk about their embracing it you use the word embracing yes that must be very difficult to do that to come to terms with the fact that this is it they're never getting out yeah some of the fitness i talk to those are the young ones and that's the problem that we have with the with the young offenders truly have not embraced that they say it's a time frame within one to five years uh a high end of eight years that that an offender fully realized of the fact that he's going to be here for the rest of his life and do people ever abandon all hope and give up when they realize that this is it this is the end they're never getting out yes unfortunately you have uh offenders suicides in the department of corrections uh and it's predominantly those offenders who realize that there's no more hope [Applause] [Music] [Music] the closest any prisoner comes to life on the outside is the prison barbershop [Music] it has an appearance of near normality convicts who work in it are among the most trusted in the institution john sawadka is serving life with no possibility of release zone boyne how long have you been coming here for your haircut um to john i've been coming for about seven years um he was living in my cell house so when i came in it was just kind of a normal face to see so i sat down and he's been cutting my hair ever since john is he a fussy fussy person to have his hair cut don't know sir he's not the lieutenant is the next marine so he likes it high and tight but i was kind of put in check by a certain person in his life that doesn't like it real high and tight she likes it a little bit faded so i take care of what his wife wants he has a very lovely wife for six days a week the barbershop is john cewatka's world it's his escape at the end of his working day the mundane reality of prison life is dormitory earth and here we are yes yes this is where i live this is film you have your your different uh weight machines and stuff like that this is the west side the west side yes sir yes this is my cube and here we are west 51. john this is a privileged relatively privileged part of this this institution oh yes sir but how do you find the fact that you have no no privacy i mean you're living cheat by a jowl here with everybody else oh no there's there's plenty of privacy i have this wall here this wall here and this wall here that's plenty of privacy but that that's all you have yes sir that's enough i mean when when you realize that that man whatever he does or that man or anybody else has nothing to do with me and i don't want to have anything to do with them so this is my cell this is my cube this is my life and that's that's that's all i need and what kind of trouble did you get into i just just happened to commit this one murder it was that that's it that's the only time i've been in trouble uh i got busted for marijuana one time but that was it and that was that was a slap on risk that was a misdemeanor and that was it and then after that i committed this murder and i i took the lives of two innocent people it's all there is to it i'm guilty what were the circumstances john in which you took the lives of two innocent people there was a there was a gentleman that i grew up with and he knew another guy well beings that i was a dolphin this man presented pictures of my mother my father and my brother my mother in the yard with her chihuahuas my father coming out of the ice machine and my brother getting out of his car in our driveway and he said as easy as it is to take these pictures of your family that's how easy it is to kill i can kill these people that was my family and i lost it i don't know where i went but i lost it and i he says this is what i want done and i took the lives of two people when he said to you this is what i want done what did that mean to take the lives of these two people because he was trying to take over the tickets lottery tickets within this year within gary and i didn't know any better and when he i thought he was i thought he was a big time hoodlum and i was scared i was scared more from my family than i was my life i take your point about about being you know worried about the lives of your own family but um you could have reported him to the police i know the thought never came to my mind thought never came to my mind i i don't know why i don't know why so john what what was the arrangement about taking the lives of two innocent people what inducements did he offer did he did the officer pay you yes there was there was a pay but it was it was minimal i can't remember if it was 700 or 800 it was it was no money whatsoever but you know i was just satisfied that nothing was going to happen to my family that was the main thing you were offered money yes to kill yes yes sir there's there's no excuse yes i mean it's it's what you did is is what might be turned horrendous a contract killing i mean you were you were paid to do it yes sir i took the lives of two innocent people did you know these innocent people yes sir no sir and how did you kill them uh they were stabbed to death wow seven hundred dollars yes [Music] do [Music] the twelve men on death row are linked by a common fate [Music] one day they'll formally be told precisely when their lives will end when that day and that hour arrives superintendent bill wilson will carry out the orders of the state of indiana mr mcdonald this is mr allen how you doing mr allen yeah [Music] glad the weather changed homes you doing all right yes all right the superintendent makes a weekly visit to the prisoners on death row the last man he sees today is frederick bear who killed the mother and her daughter this is the the last cell on the on the row last cell on the block you can see mr bear has an infatuation with one of england's most famous people she uh has been a lifelong love of mine since like 10 11 years old when i saw her get married the first time to charles and i followed her all my life why because of her heart what she represents she's just one of those people like mother teresa or jesus for that matter you know just makes an impact on it on not only one part but the whole part of the whole world so that's my second love your cat yes superintendent what's your relationship with mr bear like how would you describe it oh i'd say we have a great relationship um as far as a superintendent and an offender with the death row offenders in particular our destinies are our our course in life will throw us in the same event and as a result i think it's important that i get to know these guys as well as i can or as well as they allow me and mr bear has been one of the offenders that we've had some really solid conversations about life where we're at why we're here how our destinies have actually led us to this point where at one particular juncture we'll we'll participate in the same event that event that you talk about is that you will preside over his execution correct mr bear what do you think of the superintendent having to having made in the compassionate ways he described it that cultivated that relationship with you but in the end he will be the one to take your it's not life mr wilson's taking my life so you know it's the state of indiana that's taken my life he's a good guy he's a fair person he'll listen he'll understand and he'll exercise judgment on what he has to do fairly he's not discriminatory towards anybody and i got to respect that how do you deal emotionally with the fact that you know you will eventually preside over his execution his death i've come to grips with it by virtue of meeting with my religious leaders of my particular church and how the church feels about it i've also asked god for forgiveness for my feebleness in the fact that i may not always understand what his intentions are for us what i do know is that man has been allowed to create laws we enforce those laws and up to and including the death penalty if i don't understand because i can't because i'm human of what god's true intentions are then i ask for forgiveness for that feebleness i say this with some trepidation that it seems that between you both you've made peace with each other about what's to happen inevitably yeah i don't know that we ever had to say that we've been at peace with one another but i think we've had uh we've made the effort to understand where each other are in the process and and how our lives are intertwined um and one on seeing one single day um will have the most effect on one another he he will always be a part of my life and and i then of his at some point i i put myself on the path to put him in the position to do what he has to do again affecting somebody else's life years later by one or several acts of stupidity and okay indescribable things that i've done in my past shamefully regretfully as much as i love that cat and adore her and almo one shy step of worshiping her i would give her up to undo what i've done thanks appreciate it [Music] i'd now spent almost two weeks at indiana state prison [Music] convicts here face acres of time and limited horizons and a routine that can be crushing in its monotony but that can change in an instant morning i've been alerted to an incident in cell house c this cctv footage shows a prisoner being dragged along the range after he'd been badly beaten how badly was the victim beaten up he was beating up i could say pretty bad you know when i got there i actually thought he was deceased because he wasn't moving at all you thought he was dead pretty much yes because i had to get his door open his door was already unlocked because he's a farmer you know firemen are out during the day he was out and his door was closed at the time i had to get his padlock off because he was like getting there i touched him to move him and he finally showed me that he was responsible and one thing about it his light was out so whoever did it they wanted to make sure that we didn't see it you got to be prepared for anything and everything that situation yesterday it could have been me getting walked out on a gurney instead of somebody else you have to be ready for it all the prisoners in this block will now be locked in their cells for 24 hours a day it's an obvious safety measure the prisoners see it as punishment [Music] i went to see how dennis lair who i had met earlier was coping hey dennis how are you good how are you not too bad all right how are things they're okay i guess they've been better yeah how would you describe the atmosphere on the cell block when there is a lockdown like this people don't like it i mean people have their families coming up and there's there's no way that they can notify their family and tell them not to come up to visit like right now i've got a cousin her uh stepson in the hospital had major surgery the other day i don't know what happened you know there's no way for me to contact home and so i don't know if he lived or died you know it was a life or death situation but i have to sit here and i have to wait until i come off lockdown and find out what happened how many times has that happened to you since you've been here oh it's happened a lot i mean i've been on stretches back in 90 90 or 91 where he's locked down for like 11 months straight how do you cope with being locked down for that period of time well you got to deal with it you it finds something to do to keep you busy you don't keep busy keep yourself occupied might go crazy you know what some guys do you know i'm lucky i've got a tv got rascal in there so you know she she helps me pass my time i got my guitar how does rascal cope with being locked in i don't think she likes it i think she wants to get out on the range but uh she's sitting at the bars now so i think uh i think she wants that get out on the range and run around the restrictions apply to her as well oh absolutely yeah she can't come out either you know but yeah she wants out too it's it's hot on her too [Music] my time at this prison was coming to an end [Music] i was surprised that so many prisoners talked about the possibility of freedom one day perhaps is the only way to survive a long sentence even if freedom is an impossible dream before i left i asked for one last meeting with frederick bear in his death row cell i made a final visit to death row i asked to see frederick bear who might well be the next man to be executed at indiana state prison [Music] his crime still provokes outrage and disgust among the other killers here one afternoon in february 2004 he talked his way into a house and killed a mother and her four-year-old daughter by cutting their throats bear who lives in indianapolis and was arrested there last night was working in madison county on a construction site he says he got lost and that's why he was near the clark hole when he was arrested he strenuously denied any involvement in the horrific crime i'm not a violent person i cry when a freaking butterfly gets hit on the windshield that's how soft and sentimental i am because i love life why would i want to destroy life i was driving up and down that road like the the witnesses said and everything yeah that was me i was driving up down the road i was aggravated i was high i'm not going to lie but am i a cold sadistic murderer right cut a little girl's stroke a five-year-old girl's throat no i love kids but that was eight years ago i wonder whether i could begin by asking you what you remember about your life growing up it's a normal childhood i mean i uh i was adopted by my dad about five years old wonderful guy you know didn't have to but he loved us anyway and he adopted me and my brother and uh life was okay it was uh rough didn't know as life went on that a lot of the the abuse and stuff would start but alcoholism and stuff played a part in that and then my sister passed and life sort of fell apart after that but i mean i learned a lot of good things before that and you know hard knocks hard lessons but you know we all have a hard life one way or another so i'm not the only one that's been beat on and all that you know so but it's relatively normal just to some certain extent you know do you remember the first time you broke the law yeah i was uh i've been a thief all my life that's all i've been that's all i've ever been is i'm not proud of that fact but that's all it is you know i'm not going to sugarcoat it for you i'm a thief i've always been a thief i started stealing matchbox cars when i was in a kindergarten and then i graduated you know stealing cars matchbox cars from the store shoplifting and stuff and i uh graduated from that to stealing money you know then stealing just stealing all my life when you look back what is it you would say that set you on the road to crime stealing and drugs and so on that's a hard question after my sister passed away life sort of fell apart and i uh kind of gave up she was like the uh a big figure in my life i sort of just gave up and i stopped caring because you know somebody as nice as she was could be done that way and i ended up being sort of the same people that you know did to her what i've done to others to get here tell me about the incident that landed you on death row what'd i do to get here on death row yep i broke in a house i i walked up and under the ruse of being lost i walked in and i knocked on the door asked to use the phone if somebody you know if nobody answered the door then i would break in the house nobody was home so i knocked on the door and a little kid answered the door and so my first thought was could i use your phone you know throw it off her mom came to the door and uh i asked to use the phone being withdrawing from meth and uh they'd done and see my face you know i i was just really wasn't there my intentions was the raper and uh i couldn't go through with it but it i'd already gone too far and to uh to back out now i know where i was headed i was headed back to prison and i i guess i just thought that uh if i killed them nobody would never know and so i cut their throats i cut both of their throats help me to understand that you went in with the intention of raping the mother but you ended up killing both of them including slitting the throtthaba was she four years of age three four years of age sounds like you already know more than what i have to tell you yes she was uh four years old the mother was 24 years old mother's name was corey and the daughter's name was jenna and i was a cold-hearted son of a [ __ ] you you remember their names yeah through my paperwork i didn't know them then but i know them now through my paperwork i know everything about them not everything about them i on my calendar in my date book i've got their or my calendar marked for their birthdays damn birthdays yeah i mean they're a part of my life and i'm a part of theirs whether they like it or not they didn't want me in their life i intruded in their life yes but you're you're not a part of their lives because they have they've gone on they've they've they've died they've been killed right i'm a part of their their family's lives i've killed a little kid in a most horrendous way in the worst possible way that could be imagined you just don't know i wake up from that still and it's seven years eight years almost now i'll be here on death row well no it is seven years i'll be here on death row seven years and i still wake up cold sweat when i think of what i've done especially to that little girl she was at the beginning of her life and i stopped that how do you think i feel about that no you can't even imagine how i feel i can't i can't i've never believed into death penalty myself and i've i've always been against it and i probably still am but when i think about what you do i begin to understand why people feel it should be the appropriate sentence for crimes like yours do you understand that i do deserve to be executed bottom line i ain't to candy coat it i deserve to be executed by the laws governed in this state of indiana i deserve to be executed over there and and the death penalty was put in place for people who did what i've done what you did right i mean there's no way around it if a person does what i've done they should be executed bottom line that's according to the laws of the state of indiana i eventually took my leave of indiana state prison and the 1900 men confined within its walls but the memory of what i saw and heard stay with me for the rest of my life [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] what was the hardest thing to adjust to when you first came into this prison i've always naively i guess thought that women were the gentler sex that the weaker sex that's what society wants us to believe and the fact that women can stab a man to death 40 times i find that incomprehensible south of chicago in the state of indiana two prisons hold some of america's most dangerous female criminals the rockville correctional facility and indiana women's prison house over eighteen hundred offenders many are serving long sentences for extremely violent crimes some will end their days how severely was the victim hurt the bullet came into close contact with his eye and shot him in the face yes for four weeks i was given access to a world and a culture the like of which i've never known so you were classed as a baby killer i was that i am that i'm a lot more than that as well but that's who i am america imprisons more women than anywhere else in the world [Music] this is indiana women's prison my escort sergeant macpherson is taking me to meet the most notorious inmate in the state a convicted double murderer thank you you're welcome and sergeant we're heading now to to the administrative segregation unit this unit is where our disciplinary offenders are this is uh what you call like a punishment for them we put them here to give them time to think about what they've done and to clear up their negative behavior offenders in this unit spend more than 20 hours a day locked in their cells they have no contact with the rest of the prison population hey sir are you ready sarah pender has been in this segregation unit for nearly five years this is punishment not for the double murder for which she was convicted but for an incident in 2008 which made headline news across the country why do you think they have given you this long sentence as it were in segregation unit because i embarrassed them how did you embarrass them um well i escaped from what was supposed to be a maximum security prison how did you do that uh an officer aided me um in what way i he was a little embarrassing um uh he drove me out they have these transportation vans that come in to get fuel they have like their own little gas station and we planned it so that when he came in to get fuel then i came out and got in the van how did you manage to persuade an officer well i didn't actually take to take you out i didn't actually ask him um yeah i know it's uh i was having uh when i was planning my escape i plan on doing it by myself and but i needed money and i didn't want to ask my family because i would have to lie to them about what it was for so in order to make money i worked with this officer who would traffic in contraband and then my friends would sell it for money and then i would get the money to save up for my escape and so he was making a lot of money because i was paying him very well to do this and he found out that i was planning an escape and saw an opportunity to make more money and so he said what if i could just roll you out of here i said that would be worth my while and and as a side note i also had a sexual relationship with the officer and that came out when i when i escaped and that was very embarrassing to the department i think i'm beginning to understand why the authorities have taken such a strong line on your case um because you mentioned it was an embarrassment i think it's a huge embarrassment for them yes i and the only explanation that they've given my mother for why i'm in here is that i'm quote too smart for their facility this is the rockville correctional facility from which sarah pender escaped in 2008. she was on the run for more than four months and was labeled america's most wanted woman [Music] leading the way back to indiana two state troopers and an unmarked police car bringing convicted murderer and prison escapee sarah joe pinder back to an indiana state prison pinder has been on the run from police since escaping from the rockville correctional facility last august she'll have no contact with the outside she no phone calls no visits and will minimize her contact with even with staff internally the state has been true to its word and this has been sarah pender's life ever since [Music] scott spitler the officer who helped her escape was jailed for seven years sergeant macpherson has known sarah pender from the day she arrived at indiana women's prison she must have struck up a very deep relationship having targeted that male officer he was having problems at home and she prayed on that she prayed on his emotions she made him feel that she was going to save him that she would be his everything that she would replace what he didn't have and he was so vulnerable he fell for it so he did whatever she asked he fell in love with her he fell in love with her yes but of course she wasn't in love with him she used him to get what she wanted and that was to get out of rockville and you would put that down to her ability to manipulate she is i've seen a lot i've been here for over 20 years sarah is one of the best manipulators i've seen [Music] out in the general population prisoners must conform to strictly regimented days three hours for recreation [Music] 15-minute sittings for meals [Music] apart from this routine inmates are allowed out of their cells although they are confined to their assigned units thank you this is unit 13. offenders have just returned from lunch hi trevor i'm addie what are you doing here today i'm just talking she's doing a little crafting a little writing some cards you're sending cards mother's day cards it's coming up so we got to get them out yeah does your mother come to see you here um no my mother she lives out of state so she really doesn't come up here much she's never come to see you at all we just talk on the phone and how long have you been in this prison um since 2006 2006 yes that's a long time seven years yeah but it's a long time not only for you but for anybody how did that how would that come about um i got strong armed robbery charges so strong armed robbery yeah that's more for like physical um robbery like i didn't have a gun or anything i was fighting punching you know that kind of stuff what were you robbing oh people sorry it was three people what was this in the street yeah we were driving around we stopped when we seen people walking we hopped out the car bum rushed him kind of beat him up knocked him down tried to snatch the purses so you you robbed three people yeah how much did you take oh it was only 300 from that robbery so really wasn't nothing a stupid decision not worth anything especially all these years of my life when you say from that robbery you suggest that there were other instances [Music] yeah there was i just didn't get caught fortunately how how old were you when you started on this may i call it a career oh um well since i was about 13 school um i went to school up until like 10th grade then i started fighting getting expelled and i just stopped going i'm actually really smart in school i always had straight a's but i just couldn't stay there always fighting getting expelled why couldn't you stay there why did you find the need to fight well i just have a really horrible anger problem so i always let that get the best of me even looking at you now i'm finding it difficult to believe that you are capable of having done that i'm very much capable of it because you're still very young yeah i'm 25. and your sentence was 16 years do eight if you behave well yeah if you control your anger right and um actually probably in the most recent year i can say i've been getting control of my anger and i have two kids so i know i have to have two kids yes how old are they they're seven and nine two little girls do you feel you have let them down by not being there for them yes i have and i deal with that every day and that's really like my biggest motivation to changing and being different and coming out of here and you know taking something from it not just oh i've been in prison you know i want to walk out of here and be something for them i just do not want them to follow this same circle like my mother was in prison you know this is the same what full attempted murder and aggravated robbery so that that was not perhaps a great start for you in your life was no it wasn't that's kind of what you know kicked everything off is mama leaving [Music] addie hearts will be free in only a few months [Music] she'd spend much longer picking up the threads of her life [Music] i'm on my way to the rockville correctional facility [Music] this is the largest women's prison in the state of indiana i still need bowen jones fairchild andreas dingle [Music] rockville is a clearinghouse for convicts from all over the state some will serve all their time here others are assessed and moved on to other prisons every month on average 200 new offenders arrive this is their first port of call from now on their every action will be governed by prison rules ready look right up here one two three all right this paper here tells you we don't allow any sexual contact of any kind between you and staff and you or our offenders your stuff okay go over there and get a styrofoam cup put your name on it there's water in the orange thing from the way an intake looks when she comes in here can you tell what she might be in for no i don't ever try to guess some of them when you look at them and you look at the offender it's like you cannot believe that that's what she's here for you're frequently surprised by what they've done very much so yeah you would if you look at you know the paper and then look at her and you're going there's no way but yep do you see many of the same people coming and going yes they'll come in that door back there and say i'm home and i'm going really you know because for some of them this is because they have nowhere else to go okay i'm going to roll each finger and start with your right thumb hello i'm trevor have you been in this prison before yes i have um for a fort wayne fort wayne indiana i've been here for um possession of meth so i've been here before but i only stayed like an intake i didn't leave intake so but this time i will yeah so this time you will be in the general prison population what what sort of prospect is that for you um a little scary but um at the same time like i don't teach me little morals you know teach me not to come back do you have a drug dependency um [Music] i've been to rehab yeah i'm an addict straight up so yeah i do how long have you been an addict um since i was 17 and i'm 28 a couple years a long time do you have children i do i have four um four children i have four my oldest one is 13. i have a 13 year old 12 year old nine year old and a six year old i'm trying to find a hopeful road out of this for you i know i know um what's that i don't know i have to have a game plan when i leave here i know that like going back to life like when i got in trouble this time i violated probation because i didn't have no transportation back and forth and i wasn't using and i haven't used for maybe three months at the most you know and that's pretty good for me because i was doing needles and all kinds of stuff but three months is a big step and i just want it a little bit further and a little bit further but it's just it's hard it's really really hard new inmates have a month of prison orientation they're easily recognized by their orange uniform for every new arrival some other prisoner is about to leave martha's search is quietly counting down the days thank you ma'am you're welcome i caught up with her on her mail delivery round martha how long have you been in almost 20 years the thought of getting out must be a exhilarating one yes but you must also be worried about getting back into the world after all this time yeah i am but um this time has given me time to discover things i didn't have before like patience and um i know it's going to be hard it's going to be a little bit difficult but i just take one day at a time and i'm just anxious to see how the world has changed in that 20 years you'll have a lot to catch up on yes i have a lot of ketchup on and i have two daughters grown that were ages almost 13 and 16 when i was incarcerated who are now 32 and 35. so i haven't seen them in a while have you seen any of them since you've been here i haven't seen my youngest daughter since 99 she couldn't do it no more and my oldest i stopped coming in 2005 because she didn't want to leave without me anymore you missed quite a lot i just went from here to terre haute to the hospital not long ago and i was awestruck at the things i saw and i had had the officer tell me what it was because i didn't i didn't know what it was things things like what i seen this little gadget once and i didn't know what it was someone said it was an ipod so i had to have them explain to me what an ipod was because i don't know and um a cell phone i'm used to your core phones at home so um i'm but i was i'm like yeah i can't wait to get out and try these things i'm i'm the type of person that likes to learn things and i'm curious and i'm going to find out then we'll get on google i found out all about google and none of them i just can't wait i just can't wait to explore everything so you waiting to make your entry back into the real world yes and i've i've told my children that you might still see a little prison in me because i've been down so long you know there might be this what does that mean that might be this one time when i look at the clock and think it's count time or not sure if i should answer the telephone and money's going to be strange to my hands you know and so i said if i act a little different or if i wander off for an hour or two don't worry about mom i'm exploring have you thought what your first night of freedom would be like when you can sleep in a bed of your own i feel it might show me how a little bit of heaven would feel that's how i think of it as a little bit of heaven not in a dome surrounded by other people oh my god heaven heaven for 20 years martha search has been told what to do and when [Music] all those decisions will soon be hers alone prison inmates on long sentences survive partly on dreams of freedom but in august 2008 one female offender sarah pender actually broke out of rockville the convicted double murderer had earlier told me that her escape plan relied on the help of officer scott spitler now since september we've been hot on the trail of a woman authorities have called a female charles manson now recently she was added to the u.s marshal's 15 most wanted list making her the most wanted woman in america but how on earth did the authorities explain the fact that she escaped lieutenant brad gray was on duty on the day of the breakout lieutenant gray what were your impressions of sarah pender while she was here she was always trying to get get an advantage over someone or something it was always about uh anytime you talk to her if you ask her a question she would typically respond with what's in it for me and when people you know either say that or give you the impression that that's what they're trying to do then then it should put you on notice that you know you have to be careful about how you're dealing with them [Music] she got out through a back door in this recreation building having changed into casual clothes she hid her prison uniform in the ceiling the door alarms failed to go off and a white van was waiting with pender crouching under the backseat spitler drove her out of the west gate and out onto the open road what were your feelings about the fact that this was an officer with whom you would work very closely someone you knew someone you had served with and someone you respected as a as a colleague once we discovered that it was him that that had driven pender out of the facility i was just absolutely sick just sick to my stomach physically sick mentally sick over the entire episode sarah panda proved to be as you had probably thought when she came in here that she was just as clever a manipulator as you had originally felt oh absolutely she's proven her has proven herself to be that time and time again and that is probably the the best proof of it right then and there if you can convince an officer someone who was trained not to do this somebody who was trained to maintain the order and the piece of a facility if you can convince that person to drive you out of a correctional facility you can convince anybody to do anything [Music] the authorities were bruised by sarah pender's escape she was put in solitary confinement and has now been here for almost five years longer than any other female prisoner in the state [Music] of the 1200 offenders at rockville correctional facility 85 of them are mothers [Music] i'm on my way to dormitory 2 where new arrivals to the prison are housed thank you paulo mcintosh a mother of four was beginning the difficult process of adjustment paula what was your first night like here um i like going in and seeing all the new girls was it a very talkative dorm did you get some sleep um they let me sleep they helped me they talked to me a little bit tell me if i needed any shampoo or anything they'd help me out but um yeah a lot of noise a lot of echoes you can wake up easy you know what was the biggest shock to you coming into intake when you like get like not really to intake just like when you drive up in that vehicle and you turn around and you see that like the last gate closed it's like your heart goes instant yeah it's really hard will you have a visit soon or no my family won't come up here like um my dad like he doesn't really come and see us because he just it's just really hard on him so i don't i'm pretty sure i won't get no business why won't your father come to see you i think he's too hard on him because there's me and then my brother's eight just turned 18 and he's locked up and it's just like a pattern you know and it's i think it's really hard on him so he can't come see me it's hard on him but it's also very tough on you that he wouldn't come to see you yeah he's got my daughter he's got my nine-year-old right now so you know he's got a lot of responsibilities on him so i said that i don't know pray for him that's all i can do your daughter is nine at that age she's able to understand a great deal i wonder what your what your father said to her or says to her about your situation who knows i'm really melissa's been like i've been locked up before my daughter's melissa and she's like she's really strong and she knows everything i don't lie to her i told her she knows about my drug use she knows about my she knows everything and um i called her this time and told her i was going to prison and she's she's like just um keep your head up gosh that's uh pretty tear-jerking to be told by your nine-year-old daughter to keep your head up and but even for you to make a call to say that you're going to prison yes and you have no idea when you'll see her again no um her dad just got out of prison and he's not seen her not one time and she's nine and i guess he's just like coming around my dad's letting him come and see her like visits so that's like a big step for her too when is this and then it's like i'm there and then i'm gone you know well i hope your time passes here very quickly and i hope that you get a chance to be reunited with your daughter and your family thank you thank you very much for talking to me thank you [Music] at indiana women's prison it's morning recreation [Music] it's a chance for inmates to make friends and cultivate relationships which can be a desperately important part of prison life the most troublesome offenders have few opportunities to do that they are confined to this segregation unit they have one hour out of their cells and are escorted shackled even to go for a shower [Music] sarah panda's cell faces that of her friend armed bank robber desiree hancock put your arms back out here this one i heard you tighten it up after i put it on you all right step back it's about but i noticed your opposite sarah panda yes i love her that's one of my very good friends very good friend she i would like to give her a lot of credit for partly the woman that i am today like when i get ready to show out or i'll get ready to snap because this place will take you there she'll be like desiree shut up or shut up go sit down and i'll go sit down i'll calm down in a place like this friend is not a word that you just throw around it's not something that you just say because women are very vindictive creatures and they're very fake and they're very just catty they will smile on your face and they'll just be like hey and i just hope nothing but the best for you and then you turn around and ate and blue slipped you like 35 times and trying to get you and your girlfriend separated how close do these relationships get you mentioned women and her girlfriend that's a it's a pretty pretty they get pretty pretty deep they get pretty deep a lot of women don't come in here gay i'm i wasn't when i came to prison but i am now and um you [Music] yes i'm a lesbian uh-huh yes i am but you you you discovered that or you became that when you were here and i was like three years before i came to prison to a man uh it's just i don't know loneliness is what started it and then i don't know one thing led to another and it may seem fake on the outside but emotions and feelings are real and you have had such a deep relationship in this two two great loves i've had a dozen relationships but i had two great loves and i had in this prison and i will say that i damaged both of them i damaged both of them how did you do that how did you do being a cheater being a cheater a liar just i'm it was like being a cheater like when you're in a relationship it's like being a kid in a candy store it's not just one word it's not one girl yes 740 girls so and out of 740 probably only 40 ain't gay mm-hmm the rest of them this is the gas place on earth the rest of them are all gay foreign [Music] it's lunchtime on unit 13. inmates follow a well marked out route to the food hall [Music] i meet up again with addie hearts who is hoping very soon to leave this place for good am i allowed to grab one of these yeah okay i'll grab okay what's up what's on the menu today this is a chicken patty with gravy what is this a chicken patty okay gravy this is supposed to be cabbage and this is some kind of spanish rice i'm sure spanish rice yeah some of it's really not bad i'm bashing the food but sometimes it really isn't that bad like i'm gonna eat this though yeah this is a good tray today are you guys ready to stay grace yes okay dear lord we come to you and thank you for this meal we ask that you bless and let it be nourishment to our bodies and your precious amy praying thank you amen amen the gravy's too watery so it made it really soggy the other thing is about this place which is very obvious is that this is an all-female environment um which you had to get used to right and that's kind of funny because on the streets i never really hung around females but there's people here that i'm in i'm close with queenie's one of them this is crusher we're close not like sisters but you know just close people that you you bond with and have fun with yeah it's okay we all have a common bond no matter your crime we all have a common bomb like if we could see someone like of course you're having a bad day or addie have a bad day and then she crying you know this is a no touch facility we're supposed to be hugging but we do i feel like women need to the comfort of hey it's going to be all right and if you you can tell me all day but if you touch me and let me know it's going to be all right keep everything surfaced you know is everything on the surface or are there deeper relationships than that in here yes yeah plenty of them but i try not to get involved in all that i've been involved with deeper relationships in here and it just didn't really go well so i just try not to say you were you say yeah i just didn't go well no not at all like you feel like it's going well while it's going but once they're like out of sight they go home or something it never goes as planned like all the words they've said it doesn't add up now you're looking forward to being out in a few months but what what are the fears what are the worries about this world that you're going into after six seven eight years well what concerns you really just the fact of being put back in the same environment the same surroundings you know and making the other choice not the negative choice so what did i say i don't like it i was just looking at your cabbage i was wondering you're looking at the cabbage you can have my cabbage yes please please have my cabbage we're allowed this year so you you had two cabbages today that's right you'll take the chicken patty i sure will i'm i'm glad my present here is serving some purpose so you left me you've left me bread and rice and i'm not eating my rice thank you very much ladies this how it works around here will you will you miss id would you miss yes i will to me she's a youngster so i think it's my job to put some meat on her brain mean put a little knowledge on her so she won't come back here because this is not where you want to be i keep her grounded like if she's mad i'm like okay addie let's talk do you think that she's going to stay out of trouble i think so i think she got it right she has babies so i think she's you guys are great go home it kind of keeps me really motivated that's the big point for you too is that you have your life back with your with your children yeah it's the biggest thing i just can't wait they deserve so much more you know like this has been my life and this is my parents life and this was their parents life and i'm just so ready to break that curse that cycle [Music] the prison officers i spoke to were optimistic that once she's released addie hearts stands a good chance of keeping out of trouble [Music] at the end of my first visit i asked to see the convicted double murderer sarah pender again hi sarah once described as america's most wanted woman her notoriety is a far cry from her formative years and life as a college student all that changed in the year 2000 pender was charged with the murder of a couple with whom she shared a house they were actually shot by her boyfriend richard hull but the prosecution believed that sarah pender was instrumental in planning the murder she bought the murder weapon [Music] and she helped to dispose of the bodies in this skip she has a charles manson-like ability to manipulate people to act as surrogates for and committing crimes the evidence was overwhelming that if she didn't pull the trigger she did everything else pender has always admitted helping to get rid of the bodies but she strenuously denies masterminding the killings but she failed to convince the jury pender was found guilty of double murder i kept hoping to get to the bottom of the sarah pender story okay the thing that i have always got from the conversations we've had before is that you are not typical of the people in this prison environment generally would you agree i would i would i am i have a wider world view and i think that [Music] i've been able to glean more wisdom than the typical person uh i'm generally more educated i have about i have five years of college um why did you choose the path that ended you up here it was an emotional attachment to someone who when i found out that he dealt drugs that i accepted it because i didn't want to lose him so so at every stage you were aware of where that codependency was taking you yes i went into the relationship with my eyes open however i was very very naive and i never thought that it would bring harm to me or anyone that i loved and like most women i thought that i could change him and i asked him to stop selling drugs and to get a real job and he agreed and that was the path that i thought we were going on at the time are you aware that there were guns in the house or a gun in the house yeah i bought the gun it was my gun i uh he asked me to buy em a gun if someone asked me to buy a gun my first question would be hey why me why are you asking me to do it and what are you going to use it for did you ask those questions yeah and he told me that i was the only person who was who didn't have a criminal background because in well that in itself is awfully suspicious well you can't in america you can't buy a firearm legally if you have a felony and so i was the only person who was legally able to buy it but but i'm talking about the fact that you were being asked to buy a gun by a felon the thought of being left alone frightened me more than whatever consequences would come from purchasing a firearm um what kind of a gun was this it was a shotgun uh that you would use for hunting like i think birds i don't know i didn't pick it out but but in the end it was not used for hunting birds it was used for shooting two people with whom he was in a disagreement yeah well he actually had no disagreement with the woman he said that he shot her just because she was a witness the bare fact of the matter is that you purchased a gun which was used in the killing of two people did you think about the victims of the people who were killed in this in this crime i think about them all the time nothing more about their families the woman had three kids patricia she had three children and uh despite the fact that they were both felons drug dealers doesn't matter they're still people and they have families that love them just like i have a family that loves me and they can't ever get those people back what did you think when you heard the judge or the prosecutor pronounce the sentence on you because you you give him a very long two very long sentences yes i was given 110 years 110 years what were your emotions on hearing that dreadful sentence disbelief why did the jury in the end conclude that you were directly involved in the murder of two people i knew that i had i knew that i had committed a crime but i knew i wasn't guilty of of murder and and i was willing to take responsibility for my actions in that case it was was it in somebody's mind the mind of the prosecutors the prosecuting authorities that you had somehow encouraged or manipulated him into doing into into committing those murders yes yes that was their theory that i had that i had this is where the entire or the entire reputation of manipulation that i manipulated came from the prosecutor had um went forward on the theory that i had manipulated richard into murdering murdering the victims and his theory was that i wanted them out of my house you were being judged or you were seen you were perceived as a two-faced manipulator yeah yeah which is a really hard label to carry every time i meet somebody new if they are aware of my infamous reputation it's a new hurdle jump and uh that's a consequence of my actions [Music] next week i talked to a woman who took the life of her three-month-old son so you were clasty as a baby killer i was that i am that i'm a lot more than that as well but that's who i am i meet newborn zadon what would you tell your son when he is old enough about where he was born and the circumstances in which he was born i would just tell him that mommy made a big mistake and hopefully he won't ever come to a place like this and i speak to a murderer who managed to stay on the run for 35 years i heard something coming in the back door and i thought oh no it's the cops what was the hardest thing to adjust to when you first came into this prison i've always naively i guess thought that women were the gentler sex that the weaker sex that's what society wants us to believe and the fact that women can stab a man to death 40 times i find that incomprehensible south of chicago in the state of indiana two prisons hold some of america's most dangerous female criminals the rockville correctional facility and indiana women's prison house over 1800 offenders many are serving long sentences for extremely violent crimes some will end their days here how severely was the victim heard the bullet came into close contact with his eye and shot him in the face yes for four weeks i was given access to a world and a culture the like of which i've never known so you were classed as a baby killer i was that i am that i'm a lot more than that as well but that's who i am [Music] america imprisons more women than anywhere else in the world [Music] my second visit to indiana women's prison began in its segregation unit the prisoners here are among the most dangerous and some have been punished for breaking the rules they are locked down for 23 hours a day and have no contact with the rest of the institution ms bart some people here would like to meet you yes i'm close to dubai still by here you step in front of your door for anything okay thank you very much for coming out of your cell to talk to us no problem how how long have you been in this segregation unit in about a week it'll be four months so what's that like it's hard especially being pregnant you're pregnant yeah well when did you find out you were pregnant where um when i got arrested they gave me a pregnancy test at um the county jail while i was there and i found out there and i was already like a month in my pregnancy because i'm five months right now it's one thing to be pregnant in in any general prison population it must be particularly agonizing to be pregnant and to be in a segregated cell yeah like i said you feel alone you feel like i mean it's so depressing to where like every day of six o'clock where when we get mail you sit there on your bed and you look under your door to see if you get mail and when you don't like i sit there and i cry because i feel like everybody just forgot about me and being pregnant is even worse because my hormones are driving me crazy one minute i'm mad one minute i'm even mad or one minute i'm really upset it's just an emotional roller coaster in this little room by myself when was your last communication with the father of your child before we came here is this your first baby no i have a daughter she's five she's got my mother right now what does your five-year-old make of uh of your situation because she is probably of the age where she's just about beginning to comprehend that her mother is not around oh yeah i talk to her she knows that i've been in trouble and she tells me like it is i'll call her at home and she'll tell me why can't you just stop getting in trouble and be home with me and you know she tells me she's like the mom and i'm the child that's what it seems like right now boyd escaped from a prison work program which was based in the local community [Music] her punishment is six months in this unit pregnant women who do follow the rules and who have committed less serious crimes are put in a separate wing once they're about to give birth they are taken to a local hospital their babies will then spend the first months of their lives back here [Music] brooke how long have you been in prison i've been here since september and when was he was born december 6th what's his name zadon satan how well did they look after you in this facility when you were in the advanced stages of your pregnancy they looked after us really well once i had to go and be induced so they took me out like wednesday after evening and i went to the hospital got induced and i had him later on that night and we get to stay there 24 to 48 hours depending on whether you bottle feed or breastfeed how does that work in hospital are you do you have a somebody looking over you you have a guard there while you give birth yes the officer usually sits in the room 24 7 and you're shackled to the bed unless you're in active labor then they actually let you stay unshackled until you give birth after you give birth you have to get shackled back to the bed you're shackled to a bed just your ankle just your ankle but you're shackled today it's not the most propriocious no circumstances in which to have something which is so intensely yes personal it was very embarrassing very embarrassing may i see the cell where you spend most of the your time yes thank you see yes how how different would this be in its physical surroundings if you were at home at home he would have his own room i wouldn't have my bed in here he would have a dresser changing table what what would you tell your son when he is old enough about where he was born and the circumstances in which he was born um i really haven't thought about that question yet um i would just tell him that mommy made a big mistake and it was for the better why i came here it made mommy learn a lot and i hope he can learn from my mistakes and see how embarrassing it was to be here and hopefully he won't ever come to a place like this he'll tell him he was born in prison [Music] it's visiting time and kim is preparing to take baby gabriela outside the unit at times like these offenders are sharply reminded of where they are [Music] so you have to be accompanied by these visits out uh kim do you um when we have the babies yes yes why is that um just for their safety i mean there's sexual offenders here that have done crimes like that so that's one of the reasons why we escorted it's difficult to to believe that people will want to do anything to a child being taken out to a visiting area i know that it might happen yeah and you have to make sure it doesn't yes sir this after all kim is a is a women's prison so it's rather difficult to imagine that a woman would do something against a child oh yeah for me it's it's hard for me to fathom that a mother or any woman would be able to do that to a child but it happens and there's actually women in this prison that have hurt their children yeah yeah i couldn't imagine one thirty two one seventy three this is rockville correctional facility the largest women's prison in the state of indiana with more than twelve hundred conflicts lieutenant brad gray is taking me to dormitory five one of the largest in the prison [Music] inmates here are allowed the freedom of the unit during the day come night time they're locked in 16 to a room are there outbreaks of disorder with 16 women in one small space occasionally yeah we have just like any other environment where you have that many people in a small space once they get on each other's nerves to the point that uh that they feel a physical altercation or or a verbal altercation is their only means of resolution then we'll have arguments or fights from time to time much more fundamentally how do you how do you choose or do you choose who is one of the 16 in one of those rooms and how do you do that we just do it through through the offender's behavior those those offenders who who display more difficult behavior we have closer to the officer's station would you put say somebody who has been guilty of check fraud with somebody who's committed murder would you would you put them in one dome yes we would because um it it again is predicated more by the the offender's behavior once they're in the environment than it is by the crime yes absolutely i'd been told about one of the most difficult people in this unit kiana ball is in for armed robbery hello i'm trevor i'm kiana how are you i'm good it's a very crowded space to be in yes it is it's it's kind of odd being in a room with so many females and not really having your own personal space like you have your own personal space but it seems like it's not enough what's the atmosphere like when everybody's here um it can be a little off balance a little frustrating because all the different moods and attitudes that it's like a lot of different personalities and they tend to clash and you have like half the room has their good days and then half the room has their bad days so it's like it's real crazy it's real crazy out of airshot of her cellmates i asked to talk to ball about her crime in 2009 kiana ball and her boyfriend carlton wright attempted to steal a van at gunpoint the owner rinaldo santiago resisted and was shot at point-blank range this is ball and right moments after the shooting they hide their weapons in a nearby apartment block when she was arrested police discovered these guns in kiana ball's handbag how old are you now you are i'm 22 i will be 23 november in november so you were 19 years of age yes when you came to prison it's a lot to handle and i have kids at home so that makes it a little more harder to cope with than anything how many kids do you have at home i have two kids at home i have a little girl brianna she's six she'll be seven july 16th and i have a four-year-old son he zion he will be five june 12th how were you caught how are you found out we found ourselves in a jam with a guy that we had met and um things just got out of hand and we were we were trying to rob him and just things like i said things got out of hand things got carried away and he ended up being shot and we you shot him yes how severely was the victim hurt he was severely hurt on the um left side of his face um the bullet came into close contact with his eye and he struck him in the face yes it came into close contact with the side of his face by his eye now he's permanently blind in his left eye wow yes what's your emotional response knowing what the consequence of your action was i didn't have any feeling at all about it i didn't feel sorry about it i didn't regret it i didn't want to take it back i didn't want to fix anything i didn't feel i didn't feel bad at all but after the fact i felt bad because it's like this is an innocent man i don't know him from anywhere he doesn't know me from anywhere he's never done anything to me because we don't know each other so when i thought about i was like i almost took an innocent man's life and your sentence was my sentence was um i signed a plea pleading guilty to armed robbery with serious bodily injury and i was sentenced to 30 years due 15. you have to deal to the realization that the formative years of your children's development yes will go on yes without you it bothers me because like all the little things that i'm missing out on are all the little things that i would love to be there for like my son's first day of school just all the all the little things is what are the most important to me so it it hurts it is quite conceivable that they might have been out of school by the time you yeah yeah by the time you get up if there's a possibility that's if i don't keep if i don't keep myself out of trouble and i keep down the path that i've found myself being on getting into trouble constantly in and out of luck if i if i keep myself on that path then i'll find myself not getting home to my kids until they're grown and that's something i don't want to happen i want them almost until they're adults yes so i would like to make it home to them before it's too late i would like to be able to spend some time with them before they're too grown kiana ball is one of those who finds it extremely difficult to cope with life in prison compounded by the fact that bad conduct has got her an additional nine years [Music] evening recreation at rockville prisoners have an hour's free time before lights out the tedium of the unimaginable sameness of long days poses difficulties for even the toughest offenders [Music] and for some there's the constant pain of living with the memory of what you did dawn hopkins was convicted of the battery and manslaughter of her three-month-old son after almost 15 years she's about to be released hello do you mind if you interrupt your game for a brief while how much how much time do you get to play table tennis every day we spend about an hour a day doing that monday through friday it gives us something to do and gets us off the housing unit it's a little bit of exercise but it's not really intense how long have you been at this facility i've been incarcerated this facility for one year but i've been incarcerated for 14 and a half years 14 and a half years yes but it's almost over i have two years left in like 29 months i go home in your darkest moments here have you reflected on the circumstances which actually brought you to prison yes um three months into my incarceration i tried to take my own life because i couldn't deal with the guilt of what i had done to bring my stuff here i was very lucky that an officer found me and saved my life i hung myself three months into my stay you tried to hang yourself yes i did i was facing the rest of my life incarcerated i was 25 years old i had taken another person's life and i couldn't live with that and i did try to take my own life when i was first incarcerated so the trigger for your attempting to to take your own life was the fact that you were looking ahead at this vast expanse of time that you had to do in jail and the guilt the guilt of taking somebody's life the pain that i had caused my family and i just felt like i was never going to be able to do anything positive with my life ever again it must be strange to think of going home after all this time actually it's terrifying the world has changed in so many ways and when i'm done i'll have done 16 years and the amount of ways that the world has changed in that time it's scary and i don't have a lot of family support so it'll be like standing on my own two feet for the first time in my life what was your early life like i was a full-time college student i have a bachelor's degree in accounting and i ran a bar that my stepdad owned when i go home i also have a degree in philosophy that i've earned since i've been incarcerated when i go home i'm hoping to eventually own my own like bakery coffee shop i want to get my pastry chef license and do that kind of stuff when i go home you seem to have worked it out pretty well you have you seem determined not to be somebody who comes back and you have a plan for your life in the future absolutely i think that's what you have to do you have to set goals and you have to turn your dream into a goal set the steps and accomplish them one at a time to be able to reach your goal otherwise you're just treading water [Music] for most prisoners here trading water is the sum total of their lives and i'm about to meet a woman who spent more time in prison than any other in the state of indiana at indiana women's prison 69 inmates are here for life they will of course be denied any chance of a return to their families for the majority that's the agony that constantly haunts them one of the prisoners here came to this place years ago as a teenager this is called the programs building my escort is officer frank breyer morning [Applause] these are some examples of some of the things they're making i've been here since i was 16 years old i've done 38 years so you've been here since yeah i don't get out much yeah you've been here since you were 16. yes yeah but uh that's a pretty early age to come to prison yeah i'm the youngest i was the youngest offender ever here and now i'm the longest one to have ever spent as much time here yeah that's your tag yes yes i've got the shortest dlc number which year did you come to this prison which year 275 1975. 1975. yes i've never driven a car uh i never went on a date um never had a checking account i was never able to be a mother but a lot of these people in here that are younger i'm mom do you have many family collections do people come to visit you my sister does with her kids and her great and her grandkids so i still have a connection out there yeah how do they regard you what do they think of you and of your situation oh they want me to come home they want me to my uh yeah my two nieces they went and broke their piggy bank and took their money to their mom my sister and said is this enough to get aunt cindy out gosh yeah and that that's what makes me emotional it's it's very difficult to me to talk about to talk to somebody who's been in this situation for 38 years when i look back on my life and think all the things i have done in that time and to some extent yours has it's in a box you came into prison at age 16 what for murder i committed murder what were the circumstances in which you killed someone i was abused i was extremely abused from a basically a home that i was living at and i tried to leave and i set a fire trying to get out and it got out of hand and they died in the fire so you started the fire trying to escape right and how many people six six people were in the house yes and they died yes did you not know there were people there i knew the people were there what i was thinking was if i set a fire then everybody can get out and i can run that was my intentions the fire got out of hand how quickly were you apprehended a couple of months later i was in the hospital because i was i had burns yeah so you burnt yourself too trying to save them that's how i got burnt i kept trying to go back into the house to get them didn't didn't work no no this is probably a brutal way of of putting it and i acknowledge that but the fact is for you this is it right you will end your life here you will end your days here yeah i am looking forward to growing old in here because i'm looking forward to that yes because you know i i'm going to know that my life is not going to be much longer and there's something always positive on the other side and i believe that it's it's very good to meet you thank you thank you thank you for talking to me thank you god bless you thank you all of you early child line up another day is beginning at rockville [Music] although the majority of inmates here will be released into the community one day prisoners talk endlessly about the years of family life they have missed [Music] the story of one of the people here though is different she watched her children grow up when by law she should have been doing life for murder linda darby's story is remarkable by any standard in 1972 she escaped from prison she went on the run for more than 30 years and in that time managed to create an entirely new life to evade capture she abandoned the family and the town she knew she set out to start again in a small town in tennessee darby's escape from the indiana state women's prison was bloody i was scratched up and bloody and everything from going over the barbed wire for the past 30 years or so the now 64 year old has been living in pulaski even darby doesn't know how she kept her 30-year secret married with two children eight grandchildren a playset is in the backyard she cleaned houses for a living today though this fugitive has a message for people who believed her to be linda mcelroy and not linda darby this is who i am this is who i am so you escaped and you decided to make a clean breast of it start a new life i just changed my last name changed one digit to my social security and that's how i survived were you always in a position where you were looking over your shoulder wondering whether the next tap on your shoulder would be that of a of an arresting officer a policeman somebody in authority there's always the chance i was just i just kept asking god please let me raise my children i couldn't imagine them not being able to take care of themselves did you ever confide in anybody at all about what had happened to you no there was nobody you felt you could talk to about your life in prison before i knew that if i involved them then that would put them in the middle of it too so no i did not but it it it must be difficult when people talk about their lives you know you drift into talking about what you did earlier how was how was it possible never to mention anything about your past to your closest friends it was hard it was very hard but i just kept it within on the day that policemen came to your house on that fateful day what were you what were you planning to do on that day i had just got through working i was working for a cleaning house that day and we had came in fixed dinner and i was sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette my daughter went to the phone went to the door and joe robinson who was the policeman that came to the house and i knew him for 30 years he said i'm going to show you this picture and linda tell me if you know who this person is and i said it's me he said no he said i told him they were wrong he said i've known you 30 years i said joe what's the sense of me lying i could sit here and lie all day to you and fingerprints don't lie i said you know it soon as you took my fingerprints what did you say to your children i told them and they said mom we're behind you 100 because we know you didn't do it i told them that back in 1970 i was accused and convicted then of killing my first or my second husband what did they say they said we don't believe it we know you didn't do it and my husband said the same thing were you surprised that you were an escaped prisoner for so long did it surprise you and now and now all i can do is try my best to work my way out legally walking out the front door i've never heard a story of somebody who's been on the run for 35 years i've never heard anything quite like it [Music] linda darby will probably die in this prison [Music] but unlike the other women here she has memories of 35 years of freedom [Music] [Music] i'm back at indiana women's prison i'm here to see one inmate whose story i had found particularly disturbing [Music] cindy white has the unenviable record of being the longest serving female prisoner in the state of indiana release for her is unlikely at the start of her sentence she was a teenager she's appealed against that sentence again and again cindy white was in court again today and her attorney asked the judge for just one thing that the court considered whether she was competent to stand trial at the time that she went to trial in 1976 but the johnson county prosecutor says cindy white deserves to be in just one place in prison for the murder of a number of people six people charles and carol roberson with four of their children who all burned in a fire that white set more than 20 years ago in this greenwood neighborhood i set the fire it wasn't to kill anybody it was to ask my way of asking for help but white now says that she was not fit to stand trial back in 1976 she claims that she had been traumatized by years of sexual abuse by her father and even by the people she eventually murdered today cindy white hopes that a judge will overturn her murder convictions [Music] none of her appeals has been successful her last was about 10 years ago remember my extended family i said that i have created it here well this lady right here that's needle pointing this is my daughter evie all right hello evie hello how are you doing i'm fine how are you she taught you a lot yes she's probably the strongest woman i've ever met really why do you say that because i can't imagine being faced with what she's been faced with and staying as strong as she is having been here for such a such a long time yes and i just i love him here it's kind of like you see what you get it's we've all been kind of in the same boat hurt disappointed despair so when you can reach out to someone that's walked in your shoes then it makes it easier so which which is your i'm in the bottom one the messy one welcome to my home wow home which is shared with yes this is my bunkie would you introduce yourself cheyenne pennington hello and uh we'll get along really well i'm mama to her she says another member of your extended yes uh i get them without even realizing i have them which is your bun this is my bunk this is where i am secluded in i come in and when i don't want to be bothered with somebody or just alone i will pull out and get down there and hide for just a little bit you must have seen her people come and go here over the years um yeah this unit there's a lot of ins and outs what we call they finish their time and they go home and i really don't deal with them too much because well it hurts because you see people who come here you get to know them and then they leave and you stay yeah and it hurts i'm not going to say it doesn't uh because i really wanted to have that hope of going home but as it is now i know what's for real and i had to be in reality i can't hope on false hopes but it's so it's a recurring hurt because you see people come and go oh yes constantly i'm excited to see them go home because i know that they're going to be doing something that i can't do and that is be with their family but i have made a family in here to take away the pain why do they keep you why in your mind if they decided to keep you in these conditions i don't know that's a question i ask all the time is what is it that i am not doing you know if they tell me what it is that i can do to say okay yes you can go i'll be more than happy to i'll be more than happy to do it you've been up for parole i've been up several times and each time i'm refused and i finally got tired i because the disappointment when i go up for him i'm like yes this year i'm going home i just know it there's no other way but i'm tired of doing that and i'm tired of getting my feelings hurt and i figured this way if they haven't let me go in 37 years that i have tried to go they're never going to let me go so i've got to make do with what i have and make the best of it how have you survived this for so many years i tried to find somebody worse off than me i try to find someone that needs a kind word that needs a hug that needs to be shown that they care i need to care for something or someone i want to love i want to be loved it's a kind of escape from which there is in fact no escape yeah it's just that you find that thing that makes you want to say okay i'm going to be okay today and hold on to it however you mentally come to terms with it it's a very difficult adjustment to make i want something to show for my life other than a doc number a prison prison record number right and right now i don't have it there's nothing out there that says sarah cindy white exists other than the number i'm on my way again to the rockville correctional facility for the last time [Music] of the litany of crimes you hear about in this prison perhaps the most shocking is that of a mother who kills her child [Music] i'd come to see an inmate i'd met before dawn hopkins is now looking forward to her release she had been forced to give up her first two children because she'd abused them [Music] but in 2001 she was convicted of killing her third child three-month-old noah how often do you reflect on the chain of circumstances which actually got you here sometimes it just sneaks up on you like that and you don't even realize it and you're happy and then you realize that you're sad you know and it's something that maybe it's a song that played or something that somebody said or last weekend was mother's day and somebody wished me a happy mother's day and it was not good it just brings all of that back your son was only three months old the realization that you [Music] took the life of someone to whom you gave birth must be probably the most horrendous thing of all absolutely you know i uh i can still remember when i found out i was pregnant you know i was six weeks pregnant and they did this ultrasound and there was this little life and you know they told me he was like an inch and a half long and at that moment you could see his heartbeat and i promised at that moment to keep him safe forever and i didn't and that makes me feel like a monster and it makes me feel like i don't even deserve to be alive some days as an educated person you must go through a lot of self-analysis you must look back and anna try to analyze your actions i don't i honestly don't even have an answer for you i i don't know i struggled with postpartum depression after the birth of my son i was seeing a psychologist regularly i was actually in his office the day that i took the life of my son it was a normal everyday day i had been to the craft store to buy a christmas stocking for him it was right before halloween and i sat you know working on the little felt pieces for this stocking for him for his first christmas and you know it was just him and i that day and i i don't know he was fussy because he was running it had a cold and i don't know i i lost my temper and i should have been better than that was that a moment of blind rage in a moment life changed you know i was sitting on the couch feeding him giving him a bottle and talking to my mom on the phone watching the simpsons and 15 minutes later i was on the phone to the paramedics getting instructions on doing cpr because he wasn't breathing wow gosh that's a terrible to tell the moment life happens in a moment you know and you never you take life for granted you never realize what moment it's going to be that your life is going to change forever what did you do when you discovered your son wasn't breathing i called the paramedic i called 9-1-1 talked to the paramedics began performing cpr until a police officer came in and took over cpr then the paramedics got there we all went in an ambulance to the hospital um they after i don't know about they called in saying that they had a child coming in with unresponsive so they had a chaplain there waiting to talk to me when i got there and they were able to get his heart beating again but due to the brain damage his he was not breathing on his own brain damage yes um he died from shaken baby syndrome how quickly did they blame you for your son's death but they didn't blame me i was honest with them i told them exactly what happened as much as i could remember because at that point all i wanted to do was save his life as possible and it didn't matter what happened to me going through that long process of being in police custody that must have been pretty traumatic knowing what had happened there were death threats made against me and what what people thought you were you were a child killer a mother who kills her child is probably held up as one of the most yes horrific contemptuous in our society i mean the only other the most contemptuous would be a sex offender you know somebody that's a pedophile other than that you're baby killers so you were classed as a baby killer i was that i am that i'm a lot more than that as well but that's who i am i eventually took my leave of indiana and the many women behind bars in this state the thoughts that stay with me are of horrendous crimes and the staggeringly long sentences the thoughts too have wasted lives and the families left behind [Music] you

Channel: Real Stories

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Keywords: inside americas most dangerous women's prison, trevor mcdonald documentary prison, inside indiana state prison, indiana state prison, maximum security prison escape documentary, america's most wanted woman, prison stories, ronald sanford, trevor mcdonald, full length documentaries, female prisoners, death row stories, best documentaries on youtube, full length documentaries 2023, americas worst prison, real stories, orange is the new black, real stories documentary

Id: w45aJDabPM0

Length: 182min 10sec (10930 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2022