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Welcome to Top10Archive!
When a person is sentenced for an incredible amount of time, chances are they aren't intended
to ever make it out of prison.
But not everyone is willing to just roll over and die in a cell.
For this Top10Archive, we're going behind bars and exploring the top ten people that
outlived crazy prison sentences.
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10.
Eddie Collins Drug deals often go wrong, and in the case
of Eddie Collins, his went terribly, terribly wrong.
While engaged in an exchange of contraband in the 70s, an altercation broke out and Collin's
17-year-old brother Johnnie pulled out a gun and shot their dealer.
Johnnie pled guilty and wound up serving only 10 years.
Collins, on the other hand, was convicted under Arizona's criminal code from 1956 and
was sentenced without eligibility for parole.
Collins spent 44 years behind bars and, despite support from the Arizona Justice Project,
was not released until his incredible sentence was over.
9.
Otis Johnson For 44 years, Otis Johnson lived behind bars
for his attempt at murdering a police officer.
Then 25 years old, at the time of his release in August 2014, Johnson was 69, having lived
the prime of his life in a correctional facility.
Otis had no matter of luck while serving, either, as his original release date was extended
an additional eight months due to a juvenile shoplifting charge he had received when he
was 17-years-old.
The entire time he was behind bars, Otis denied the allegations against him.
Johnson could have gotten out earlier on parole but was denied 7 different times, all because
he wouldn't confess to the crime.
8.
Joe Carr Known for surviving the longest prison sentence
in the state of Kansas, Joe Carr was convicted for the strangling of a newborn baby.
He then disposed of the body in the Arkansas River but left behind enough evidence to be
convicted of the crime.
On September 12th, 1941, Carr told his wife he was going to find a home for their newborn
infant as they had no means to care for it.
Rather than give it a home, however, Carr killed it.
When he was picked up for the infant's disappearance, he pled guilty.
He served all but seven weeks of his 56-year prison sentence and was released on August
13th, 1997 at the age of 77.
7.
Howard Christensen In 1937, 16-year-old Howard Christensen was
convicted for the murder of Ada Carey.
His accomplice, a 17-year-old student, was also convicted but hung himself six years
into his sentence.
Christensen was sentenced to 58 years, though he refused to go the route of his accomplice,
and ultimately lived out his sentence despite declining health.
At the age of 79, three years after his release from the South Dakota State Penitentiary,
he passed away from liver and stomach cancer.
6.
Harvey Stewart In July of 1958, the murder of 26-year-old
James Laird and an armed robbery landed Harvey Steward in prison.
Though Stewart claims the murder was in self-defense and his trial was rigged to land him in prison,
he served the entirety of his 63 years before being released on parole in 2011.
By the time he was released, he was 85-years-old and had served the longest sentence in the
state of Texas.
5.
Charles Edret Ford Ford's story has an ending that is both good
but also incredibly bad.
In 1952, Ford, a black male, was convicted by an all-white jury at the age of 20 for
murder.
In 1975, while he was on parole, he was found guilty again for an assault, despite the victim's
insistence that Ford was not the attacker.
Ford was eventually granted a retrial in 2015 because he had not been informed of his appeal
rights and was ultimately found innocent and released into a nursing home at the age of
84.
4.
Richard Honeck Richard Honeck was first sentenced for the
murder of Walter F. Koeller, a former school friend, in November of 1899.
At 20-years-old, he was sentenced to 64 years for the brutal murder, which he pulled off
with an arsenal of two Bowie knives, a case knife and three different calibers of revolvers.
Honeck was accompanied by a second man, Herman Hundhausen, and aimed to murder Koeller in
response to his testimony against the pair years earlier for setting a series of fires
in Hermann, Missouri.
In 1963, Honeck would be released at the age of 92, then lived his last 5 years as a free
man after serving 64 years and 44 days in prison.
3.
Clarence Marshall Michigan's longest-serving prisoner, Clarence
Marshall spent 64 years and 70 days behind bars after being convicted of an armed robbery
and an unarmed assault with the intent to rob and steal.
His date of sentence was November 18th, 1952, and a public hearing to consider his parole
was held on October 10th, 2012.
He was ultimately granted parole three years later on January 27th, 2015 at the age of
84.
2.
Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby Sentenced to life in prison for the second-degree
murder of James Brown in 1908, Grigsby wasn't released from the Indiana State Penitentiary
until 1974.
He was freed at the age of 89 and had served 66 years and 123 days behind bars.
The incident between Grigsby and Brown unfolded in a saloon in Anderson, Illinois on December
3rd, 1907.
After his sentencing, it took Grigsby days in a horse and cart to reach the penitentiary.
1.
Paul Geidel, Jr.
At the age of 86, Geidel Jr was paroled from his conviction for the murder of 73-year-old
William H. Jackson in 1911.
Geidel was only 17-years-old and working as a bellhop at the time of the murder.
Jackson was found having been suffocated to death.
Two days after the crime, Geidel was arrested and initially sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Unfortunately, his time in custody was extended after doctors determined him to be legally
insane in 1926.
He was moved to Dannemora State Hospital for the Criminal Insane, where he remained in
custody until 1972.
It wasn't until August 1974 that Geidel was granted parole, but after spending 63 years
imprisoned, he opted to remain in prison for another six years, fearing he wouldn't survive
on the outside because he didn't have any friends or family.
Geidel eventually became a free man on May 7th, 1980 and died at the age of 93.
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