Meet The Men On Death Row (Prison Documentary) | Our Life

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 [Music] 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 gonna candy coat it i deserve to be executed welcome to indiana's state prison thank you my introduction to the prison was dramatic the man who runs it superintendent bill wilson agreed to take me to death row so this is actually the entrance this is the actual entrance and 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 what i call them my friends no but there are some characters here that have some personality characteristics that you would say are likeable he knows them all by name and they know him mcmanus had always amazed me how clean that cell is keep it up in here i know has been out of trouble yeah all right wilkes how's your eyes you been over to medical at all yeah okay i'm all right how are you just more sick how you man all right you how you doing hi it's tension height 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 uh-huh in hartfordshire 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 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 because i'll 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 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 [Music] 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 have you been here a long time 27 years how many 27 years 27 years [Music] i was heading to the administrative segregation unit with lieutenant gillespie 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 owes 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 fight away 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 all 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 [Applause] 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 [Applause] 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 um 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 like albatross 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 got a sentence of 170 years however you cut that you're not going to get out of here i'm eligible 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 uh i've never been on an airplane i've never traveled abroad shall 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're coming at the age of 15. yeah really aerial thank you so much for talking to me thank you for taking the time i appreciate [Music] 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 it's like man it's the first thing i notice about yourself 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 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 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 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 that's all me this is all you so you you you lost a lot of weight right as as you know it's depression a little bit uh you know and it's also just uh 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 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 a 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 yeah yeah all right 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 [Music] 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 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 yeah yeah well you know if you do the day at a time like most of us do you do time a 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 here a little history of the penitentiary in the barber shop 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 everything 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 uh 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 wouldn't start so i commandeered a vehicle and there's 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'll fold it up and take it with me as a reminder you don't want to go back [Music] [Music] happy 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 rl hi how do you get accustomed to life of this environment it takes some getting used to it it's tough there's a young man on the range there's a 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 and 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 maybe i have a look in your cell about absolutely have a look at some of the books absolutely you you absolutely make so yes would you mind opening up i just like to have a look yes sir you can you can 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 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 the 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 uh 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 [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 sum of five dollars on that vile act he must reflect for the rest of his life [Music] [Applause] just came down [Music] prison life moves to the relentless and monotonous beat of an unchanging routine [Music] 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 mate mike hi mike i'm trevor mcdonald nice to meet you how long have you been sharing a cell with rape yeah 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 my commissary 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 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 to attrition in here as it is without them being on death row so 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 trapped 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 you doing pretty good man yeah good to see you yeah how you doing good to see you good you two are 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 whip them up [ __ ] 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 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 and then a half hour later hey what are 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 said absolutely yeah is that right he keeps a leash on me yeah you know like i'd rather lash out at somebody 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 of the police they 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 the police had to come in and stop it and uh after they broke it up and everything administration got wind that i was going to 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 can get to the dude within the first two weeks of being on death row i watched a 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 and 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] [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] so 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 bias 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 no way 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 a date 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 his death [Music] before leaving the prison at the end of my first week i asked to see benjamin richie again but this time face to face [Music] 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 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 fill it up with some rims and take it back and we can 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 fire it a couple of 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 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 going to 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 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 [Music] 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 that's what i would uh you know present

Channel: Our Life

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Keywords: our life, documentary, world documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, documentaries, real life, death row, death row documentary, indiana prison, prison, prison documentary, jail, jail documentary, life on death row, indiana death row, death penalty, crime, true crime, violent offenders

Id: U4ZccPoSA6M

Length: 44min 39sec (2679 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021