evil people 5

Prisoners who served more than sixty years[edit]

Name	Sentence start	Sentence end	Sentence duration	Country	Description
Charles Fossard	1903	1974	70 years, 303 days	Australia	Homeless French Australian recluded in the J Ward mental asylum in Ararat, Victoria after murdering an elderly man and stealing his boots. Died while still incarcerated at the age of 92.[1]
Francis Clifford Smith	7 June 1950	ongoing	69 years, 218 days	United States	Oldest prisoner in the United States. Sentenced to death for the murder of a nightwatchman during a robbery at a yacht club in July 1949, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1954, only two hours before his scheduled execution.
Paul Geidel Jr.	1911	1980	68 years, 245 days	United States	Longest-serving prison inmate in the United States whose sentence ended in release. Incarcerated from 1911, aged 17 and released 1980 at 86. He died in a nursing home in 1987, aged 93.
John Phillips	17 July 1952	ongoing	67 years, 178 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in North Carolina. Convicted for the rape of a five-year-old girl.[2]
Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby	1908	1974	66 years, 123 days	United States	After killing a man in a bar fight he was sentenced to life in prison for murder, he was denied parole 69 times before he was released at age 89. Returned to prison voluntarily, citing difficulty finding a job, but left again in 1976. Died in 1987, aged 101.
Joseph Ligon	18 December 1953	ongoing	66 years, 24 days	United States	The oldest juvenile lifer in the US, Ligon at age 15 was sentenced to life without parole for murder, a mandatory sentence at the time.[3] Ligon first rejected a resentencing and parole offer in 2016.[4] Ligon was again resentenced in 2017 and immediately eligible for parole but refused it, pending his appeal. Ligon contends that he should be resentenced to "time served" and released, so he can cut all ties to the justice system.[3]
William Heirens	1946	2012	65 years, 181 days	United States	Known as the "Lipstick Killer". Reputed to be the longest surviving prisoner in Chicago. Died in prison.
Clarence Marshall	1950	2015	64 years, 70 days	United States	Longest-serving prisoner in Michigan. Sentenced to life in prison on one count of armed robbery and another of unarmed assault "with intent to rob and steal". He was paroled in 2015.
Richard Honeck	1899	1963	64 years, 44 days	United States	Aged 22, Honeck was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a former school friend. He was paroled after 63 years and one month. He died in 1976, aged 97.
Howard Christensen	1937	2001	64 years	United States	Sentenced to life without parole for the murder of a teacher in 1937, when he was 16, along with a 17-year-old accomplice who hanged himself in prison in 1943. His sentence was commuted to 200 years in the mid-1970s. He was paroled in 2001 and died in 2003, aged 82.[5]
Charles Edret Ford	1952	2016	64 years	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Maryland. Ford, who is black, was convicted of murder by an all-white jury in 1952, when he was 19. He was granted retrial in 2015, citing an unconstitutional trial and continued ineffective assistance of counsel who failed to inform him of his right to appeal. He was released to a nursing home.[6]
Walter H. Bourque Jr.	1955	ongoing	64 years, 31 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in New Hampshire. Serving a sentence of 99 years and six months for the axe murder of a four-year-old girl when he was 17.
Warren Nutter	1956	ongoing	63 years, 335 days	United States	Youngest man ever sentenced to death in Iowa, when he was 18 years old, for the murder of a patrolman during a gas station robbery.[7] Sentence commuted to life in prison in 1957.[8]
Oliver Terpening	1947	2010	63 years, 125 days	United States	When he was 16, Terpening shot a 14-year-old school friend and the boy's three sisters, aged 16, 12, and 2. Prosecutors theorized that Terpening wanted to rape the oldest and that he killed the others when they surprised him, while Terpening claimed that he only wanted to know how it felt to kill somebody, and that he had found the experience disappointing. Died in prison.[9]
"Old" Bill Wallace	1926	1989	63 years	Australia	Imprisoned for shooting a man in an argument over a cigarette in a cafe of Melbourne. Died a month before his 108th birthday, still in prison, incarcerated in J Ward.
Hugh Alderman	1917	1980	62 years, 192 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Florida. Escaped twice in 1919 and 1924. Moved to a mental hospital in 1927, where he died in 1980, aged 86.
Howard Unruh	6 September 1949	19 October 2009	60 years, 1 month, 13 days	United States	Mass murderer who killed 13 people and injured three in Camden, New Jersey. Recluded in a mental hospital without trial or conviction where he died aged 88.

Prisoners who served between fifty and sixty years[edit]

Name	Sentence start	Sentence end	Sentence duration	Country	Description
Raymond L. Shuman	13 June 1958	3 February 2018[10]	59 years, 7 months, 20 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Nevada. Jailed for the robbery and murder of two men while he and his partner (who was the one that pulled the trigger) were AWOL from the US Navy. Set another prisoner on fire in 1973 due to a dispute about leaving a window open. Died in 2018.
Harvey Stewart	1951	1957	59 years	United States	Longest-serving prisoner in Texas at the time of his third parole. He was convicted the first and third time for robbery, and the second time, for murder.[11]
	1958	1984
	1986	2013
Chester Weger	4 April 1961	ongoing	58 years, 282 days	United States	Convicted for the murder of three women in Starved Rock State Park in 1960. Granted parole November 21, 2019, but not yet released.[12]
Jesse Pomeroy	December 1874	September 29, 1932	57 years, nine months	United States	Teenage serial killer nicknamed "The Boy Fiend", who tortured nine younger children and killed two in Boston, Massachusetts. Sentenced to death when he was 15 years old, this was changed to life in solitary confinement after two consecutive governors refused to sign his death warrant. The solitary confinement was lifted in 1917, and he died in 1932, still in prison.
Booker T. Hillery	1962	ongoing	57 years, 71 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in California. Originally sentenced to death but changed to life in prison in the 1970s. Appealed, was retried and found guilty again in 1986.
Hans-Georg Neumann	1963	ongoing	56 years, 226 days	Germany	Abducted and shot a young couple at a lovers lane. Longest serving prisoner in Germany.
Henry Montgomery	1963	ongoing	56 years, 100 days	United States	Shot and killed a police officer in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the age of 17. He was sentenced to death but in 1966, the Louisiana Supreme Court annulled the verdict after finding he had not received a fair trial due to public prejudice. In 1969, he was again convicted of murder, which triggered an automatic sentence of life without parole. In 2016, his life sentence was vacated and he was remanded for resentencing. He has been denied parole twice.
Mehmet VI	1861	1918	56 years	Ottoman Empire	Kept in the Seraglio and the Kafes from his birth to his accession to the throne, aged 56. He was both the last Ottoman prince to be ritually imprisoned by his family and the one who was imprisoned for the longest time.
Joe Carr	1941	1997	56 years	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Kansas. Convicted of murder for strangling a newborn and tossing his body in the Arkansas river. Carr refused to apply for parole until he was released, aged 79.
James R. Moore	1963	ongoing	56 years	United States	Pled guilty to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to "natural life." Last parole application rejected in 2019.[13]
Sheldry Topp	1963	2019	56 years	United States	Oldest juvenile lifer in Michigan. He was originally sentenced to life without parole for a murder he committed at age 17 in 1962 but his sentence was later lowered due to Montgomery v. Louisiana because of his age at the time of the crime. He was denied parole until his release in February 2019.[14][15]
Leotha Brown	1964	ongoing	56 years, 10 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Louisiana.
William Holly Griffith	1915	1971	55 years, 359 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in West Virginia, known as "the bestial killer" and the "leading bad man" in the state. Sentenced to life for murdering the police chief [16] that was going to arrest him and a constable[17] during his escape to Ohio, where he was arrested. Tried to flee prison several times, the last one when he was already suffering from cancer. Died in prison.
Allen Smith	c. December 1953	September 7, 2009	c. 55 years	United States	A former reform schooler who shot an elderly couple during a robbery north of Newberry, Michigan some days before his 17th birthday. His sentence was commuted for medical reasons on August 2009, only 12 days before his death. He died before he could be released.[9]
Don Diego de Castilla y Sandoval	1369	1424	55 years	Castile	Illegitimate son of Peter I of Castile, recluded by Henry II in Curiel Castle when he was an infant. Freed after his daughter, fathered with the castle warden's daughter, solicited his release to John II. Died in Coca in 1459, aged 89–90.
András Toma	1945	2000	55 years	Soviet Union  Russia	Believed to be the last POW of World War II. Toma, a Hungarian soldier, was captured in southern Poland in 1945 and later interned in a mental hospital of rural Kotelnich, in Russia. His documents were lost and he was listed as KIA by the Hungarian Army. He was returned to Hungary after a Czech linguist realized that he spoke an eastern dialect of the Hungarian language. Died in 2004, aged 79.
John Straffen	1952	2007	55 years	United Kingdom	Multiple child killer. Sentenced to death for his third murder, which took place after he escaped from a mental hospital; the sentence was commuted to life in prison. Longest-serving prisoner in the United Kingdom at the time of his death.
Frank Wetzel	1957	2012	55 years	United States	Sentenced to two life sentences for the murders of two highway patrolmen when he was driving to Mississippi to break his brother out of death row. His brother was executed two months later. Wetzel died of Alzheimer's disease when he was 90 years old, still in prison.[18]
Earl Perry	11 June 1943	23 March 1998	54 years, 9 months, and 12 days	United States	Convicted of the April 1943 rape and strangulation of Theresa "Chi-Chi" Williams, age 4. Perry, who was 17 when he committed the murder, was sentenced to life in prison on 11 June 1943.[19] He was denied parole in 1958,[20] 1963,[21] 1968[22] and 1974.[23] Died in prison on 23 March 1998.[24]
Garold Rheinschmidt	1960	May 1, 2015	54 years, eight months, 12 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Wisconsin at the time of his death.[25]
Jerry Lee Hansen	1965	2019	54 years, 236 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Nebraska. Jailed for the murder of his parents in law and the attempted murder of his then wife. Disarmed a corrections officer and shot his ex-wife a second time in 1973, paralyzing her for which he received two 20 years to life sentences, he has been eligible for parole since 1977 and has been turned down, time after time. last denied in 2009 with another hearing scheduled for January 2020 and committed suicide in May 12, 2019 at the age of 82 in the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution</ref>.[26][27]
Tony Rawlins	28 December 1955	17 April 2010	54 years, three months, 20 days	Australia	Convicted of the "Kissing Point mutilation murder", strangling a 12-year-old girl who rejected his advances. Was Australia's longest serving prisoner when he died, with 18 parole applications being rejected.
Willie Gaines Smith	1960	2014	54 years, 105 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Kentucky. Rejected parole because no nursing home accepted him and he would receive better medical care in prison. Died at the age of 76, still incarcerated.
Machal Lalung	1951	2005	54 years	India	Originally arrested for "causing grievous harm," Lalung was interned in a psychiatric hospital until he was declared "fully fit" in 1967. However, he was mistakenly transferred to prison rather than released, and forgotten about until 2005. He was released without ever being tried or convicted, aged 77.[28]
Robert Stroud	1909	1963	54 years	United States	Known as "the Birdman of Alcatraz" for the research on bird diseases that he conducted alone in his cell, although he actually did it at Leavenworth Penitentiary before he was moved to the federal prison in Alcatraz Island.
Antonio "Tony" Wheat	1965	ongoing	54 years, 71 days	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Washington state for the murder and robbery of a gas-station worker.[29] Next parole hearing in 2020.
Richard Robles	1965	ongoing	54 years, 41 days	United States	Perpetrator of the Career Girls Murders.
Giulio d'Este	1506	1559	53 years	Ferrara	Illegitimate son of Ercole I d'Este, duke of Ferrara. Organized a failed plot aimed at eliminating his half-brothers duke Alfonso I d'Este and cardinal Ippolito d'Este. Sentenced to death, his penalty was commuted to life imprisonment. Freed by his grandnephew Alfonso II d'Este in 1559 at the age of 81.
Peter Woodcock	1957	2010	52 years, 328 days	Canada	Declared not guilty by reason of insanity and recluded in a mental hospital for the murder of three young children. Murdered a fellow patient in 1991. Died in 2010, still interned.
William MacDonald	May 1963	May 12, 2015	52 years	Australia	English-born serial killer known as "the Sydney Mutilator." Oldest and longest serving prisoner in New South Wales at the time of his death.
Jimmy Ennis	November 9, 1964	2016	52 years	Ireland	Longest held prisoner in Ireland. Sentenced to life in prison for fatally bludgeoning a farmer in County Cork following a dispute. He had just finished a prison term for attacking a woman with a hatchet.[30] He refused to apply for release until he was freed in 2016, aged 87.[31]
Myron Lance	1967	ongoing	52 years	United States	Spree killer who murdered five people and raped two in Utah On December 1966 with his cousin Walter Kelbach.[32]
Winston Moseley	1964	2016	51 years, 291 days	United States	Murderer of Kitty Genovese. Died in prison.
Alfred "Alf" Vincent	1968	ongoing	51 years, 163 days	New Zealand	Man held in preventive prison for the longest time in the world: sentence was imposed for assaulting five boys. Suspected of having molested between 200-500 children.[33] He is held in Rimutaka Prison's high dependency unit due to suffering from dementia and a heart condition.[34]
Ian Brady	1966	2017	51 years, 10 days	United Kingdom	Perpetrator of the Moors murders together with his girlfriend, Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002. Longest serving prisoner in the United Kingdom at the time of his death.
Walter Kelbach	1967	2018	51 years	United States	Spree killer who murdered five people and raped two in Utah On December 1966 with his cousin Myron Lance. Walter died in August 2018 of natural causes.[32]
Alfred Tai	1963	2014	51 years	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Hawaii. Paroled at the age of 72.[citation needed]
Theo H.	1960	2011	51 years	Netherlands	Involuntarily committed when he was 17 after a sex offense in which the victim was a minor. He relapsed twice while on leave, in 1967 and in 1985. Died in 2018.[35]
Sirhan Sirhan	1969	ongoing	50 years, 269 days	United States	Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. Originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted in 1971 to life in prison. Parole has been denied 15 times.
John Weber	1926	1976	50 years	United States	Originally an immigrant from Austria-Hungary, Weber was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the fatal shooting of his 18-month old daughter, which he served in Columbus' Ohio Penitentiary. In 1972, Governor John J. Gilligan commuted his sentence to murder in the second degree. This made him eligible for parole, but he never benefited from it. Was the oldest prisoner in the United States at the time of his death, only a few months from his 100th birthday.[36][37]
Hugo Pinell	1965	2015	50 years	United States	Nicaraguan national sentenced to life in prison for rape. See below.
John Franzese	March 1967	June 23, 2017	50 years	United States	Italian-American mobster of the Colombo crime family who was sentenced to 50 years in prison for masterminding several bank robberies. He broke parole and was returned to jail six times, the last time when he was 92 years old.[38] At the time of his release at the age of 100, he was the oldest federal prisoner in the United States and the only centenarian ever.

Prisoners who served between forty-four and fifty years[edit]

Name	Sentence start	Sentence end	Sentence duration	Country	Description
Bobby Beausoleil	April 18, 1970	ongoing	49 years, 268 days	United States	Member of the Manson Family originally sentenced to death for the murder of Manson's former associate Gary Hinman in 1969. The Family perpetrated the 10050 Cielo Drive and Tate-LaBianca murders in a failed attempt to make police believe that Beausoleil was wrongfully accused. He was recommended for parole in January 2019, but was denied by the Governor of California.
Heinrich Pommerenke	10 June 1959	27 December 2008	49 years, six months, 17 days	Germany	Serial killer known as "the Monster of the Black Forest." Was Germany's longest serving prisoner when he died.
Søren Mathiasen	1876	1925	49 years, 180 days	Denmark	Farmer sentenced to life of hard labor in Horsens State Prison for killing the moneylender he was indebted to. Paroled.
Betty Smithey	1963	2012	49 years	United States	Longest serving female prisoner in the United States at the time of her parole. She was originally sentenced to life without parole for a murder in Arizona.[11]
"Crazy Jimmie" Williams	1948	1998	49 years	United States	Longest serving prisoner in Arizona at the time of his death, aged 66.
Melvin Thomas Mott	5 March 1965	19 February 2014	48 years, 11 months, 14 days	Australia	Originally sentenced to two and a half years for child sex offences and escaping from custody, he was convicted of the 1964 murder of a 13-year-old girl in 1968 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Longest serving prisoner in Queensland when he died, having had 14 parole applications rejected.
Leslie Van Houten	March 21, 1971	ongoing	48 years, 296 days	United States	Member of the Manson Family involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Recommended for parole three times, but denied all by the government of California who considers her a "danger to society" with "potential for future violence".
Patricia Krenwinkel	March 21, 1971	ongoing	48 years, 296 days	United States	Member of the Manson Family involved in the Cielo Drive and Tate-LaBianca murders. Next parole hearing in 2022.
Tex Watson	October 21, 1971	ongoing	48 years, 82 days	United States	Second in command of the Manson Family and leader in the Cielo Drive and Tate-LaBianca murders.
Carlos Eduardo Robledo Puch	1972	ongoing	47 years, 341 days	Argentina	Serial killer. Longest serving prisoner in South America.
Bruce M. Davis	April 21, 1972	ongoing	47 years, 265 days	United States	Member of the Manson Family involved in the murders of Hinman and Donald Shea. He was recommended for parole in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2017; every time the sitting Governor ordered a review or reversed the decision.
William Pierce, Jr.	February 1973	ongoing	46 years, 344 days	United States	Robber turned serial killer who murdered nine people in South Carolina after being paroled in 1970.
Charles Manson	22 April 1971	19 November 2017	46 years, 7 months, 27 days	United States	Leader of the Manson Family.
Pietro Acciarito	29 May 1897[39]	4 December 1943[39]	46 years, 6 months, 5 days	Italy	Attempted assassin of Umberto I of Italy. Sentence spent entirely in solitary confinement.
Rudolf Hess	10 May 1941	17 August 1987	46 years, 3 months, 7 days	United Kingdom  West Germany	Deputy Führer of Nazi Germany who flew solo to Scotland to negotiate a peace treaty but was instead taken prisoner. He was later tried for "crimes against peace" and sentenced to life in prison, which he served in Spandau. Committed suicide at the age of 93.
Herbert Mullin	August 19, 1973	ongoing	46 years, 145 days	United States	Serial killer who claimed to have murdered 13 people as human sacrifices to prevent earthquakes in California.
Edmund Kemper	November 8, 1973	ongoing	46 years, 64 days	United States	Serial killer convicted of murdering eight women, including his mother. He was previously institutionalized as a juvenile for murdering his grandparents.
Juan Corona	18 January 1973	4 March 2019	46 years, one month, 14 days	United States	Mexican serial killer nicknamed "the Machete Murderer", who killed 25 itinerant workers and buried them in fruit orchards of northern California. Died in 2019.
Joanna I of Castile	1509	1555	46 years	Castile  Spain	Recluded in a nunnery of Tordesillas until her death, following orders of her father Ferdinand II of Aragon.
Walerian Łukasiński	1822	1868	46 years	Congress Poland  Russia	Polish military officer suspected of harboring anti-Russian sentiments, kept in prison even after completing his original sentence of 14 years. Sentence spent entirely in solitary confinement
Iwao Hakamada	1968	2014	46 years	Japan	Spent entirely in death row. See below.
John Joseph Kenny	June 18, 1974	ongoing	45 years, 207 days	Ireland	Bludgeoned an elderly woman with a candlestick during a break-in, when he was 19 years old. He has been allowed outside prison several times and returned every single one after breaching the terms of his release.[40]
Elmer Wayne Henley	July 16, 1974	ongoing	45 years, 179 days	United States	Accomplice of serial killer Dean Corll in the Houston Mass Murders, found guilty of committing seven of them. The crimes were discovered when Henley shot Corll in self defence.
Sundiata Acoli	1974	ongoing	45 years	United States	Former Black Panther Party finance minister and Black Liberation Army member sentenced to life plus 30 years for the murder of a State Trooper during a shootout at the New Jersey Turnpike. He was accompanied by Zayd Shakur, who was killed in the shooting, and Assata Shakur who was also imprisoned for the murder but escaped in 1979 and was granted political asylum in Cuba.
Amy Archer-Gilligan	1917	1962	45 years	United States	Nursing home proprietor who poisoned her two husbands and a number of her tenants to cash on their life insurance. Originally sentenced to death, the sentence was changed to life in prison after a retrial in 1919. Served her sentence in a mental hospital from 1924 to her death.
Clarence Carnes	1943	1988	45 years	United States	Originally sentenced to life in prison for murder when he was 16 years old, he was sent to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1945 after two unsuccessful escape attempts. He took part in the "Battle of Alcatraz" the following year, but was recaptured and was sentenced to a further 203 years in prison. He was granted parole in 1973, but it was revoked twice before he died in prison from AIDS-related complications.
Kim Sŏn-myŏng	1951	1995	45 years	South Korea	Longest held of the "unconverted long-term prisoners," North Korean POWs captured during the Korean War who refused to renounce Juche. Kim Sŏn-myŏng was born in the south but joined the north, and was sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison; his family denounced him and had him declared dead in 1975. Released to North Korea.
Albert Woodfox	1971	2016	45 years	United States	Black Panther imprisoned for robbery and later put in solitary confinement for the murder of a prison guard in 1972. See below.
Richard Phillips	1973	2018	45 years	United States	Sentenced to life without parole for a fatal shooting in Detroit in 1971. The case was "based almost entirely" on false testimony by one witness. Exonerated due to the intervention of the University of Michigan's Innocence Clinic and awarded $1.5 million by the state in 2019.[41]
Kamal Thabet Abdul Majid	1973	2018	45 years	Egypt	Sentenced to 60 years for the murders of his uncle and grandfather, and of his father's murderer (whom he met in prison) when he was 20 years old. Pardoned.[42]
Wilbert Jones	1973	November 15, 2017	44 years, 9 months	United States	Sentenced to life for sexual assault, case later reviewed and he was exonerated in 2018.[43]
Otis Johnson	1970	August 2014	44 years, 8 months	United States	Member of the Fruit of Islam, the paramilitary wing of the Nation of Islam, sentenced to 44 years in prison for the attempted murder of a police officer when he was 25, and 8 months for a shoplifting charge when he was 17.[44][45][46]
Joe Remiro	June 27, 1975	ongoing	44 years, 198 days	United States	Last incarcerated member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, serving a life sentence for one murder.
Magdelaine Chapelain	1679	1724	44 years, six months	France	Parisian fortune-teller involved in the Affair of the Poisons. Died in prison.
Ronald DeFeo Jr.	November 21, 1975	ongoing	44 years, 82 days	United States	Perpetrator of the Amityville family murders.
Sharon Wiggins	1969	2013	44 years	United States	Longest juvenile female serving life without parole. Sentenced to death for a fatal bank robbery when she was 17 years old, commuted to life in prison in 1972.
David Owen Brooks	1975	ongoing	44 years	United States	Second accomplice of Dean Corll.

Longest spells in solitary confinement[edit]

The sentence duration refers to the time spent in solitary confinement, regardless of time spent in normal prison before or after. Death row prisoners, who are usually also held in isolation, are not included.

Name	Sentence start	Sentence end	Sentence duration	Country	Description
Walerian Łukasiński	1822	1868	46 years	Congress Poland  Russia	See above.
Hugo Pinell	1969	2015	46 years	United States	Murdered by another inmate two weeks after his solitary confinement was lifted.
Pietro Acciarito	29 May 1897	4 December 1943	46 years, six months, 5 days	Italy	See above.
Albert Woodfox	1972	2016	44 years	United States	Placed in solitary confinement for the murder of a corrections officer. Released in 2016.
Robert Stroud	1916	1959	42 years	United States	Imposed for murdering a prison guard in McNeil Island.
Jesse Pomeroy	1875	1917	41 years	United States	See above.
Woo Yong-gak	1958	1999	41 years	South Korea	Captured during a North Korean commando raid after the armistice. Released to North Korea in 2000.
Herman Wallace	1972	2013	41 years	United States	Placed in solitary confinement for the murder of the same corrections officer as Woodfox. Released in 2013, when he had advanced liver cancer, but re-indicted two days later. Died the next day before he could be arrested.
Mark David Chapman	1981	ongoing	38 years, 234 days	United States	Placed in solitary confinement after pleading guilty to murdering John Lennon on December 8, 1980.
Thomas Silverstein	1983	May 11, 2019	36 years, 81 days	United States	Called "America's most isolated man." Placed in solitary confinement for the murder of two inmates and a guard during a prison riot. Died May 11, 2019
Robert Maudsley	1983	ongoing	36+ years	United Kingdom	Serial killer imprisoned in 1977. Placed in a specially-built solitary cell after killing three other prisoners.
Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova	1768	1801	33 years	Russia	Countess convicted of killing 38 female serfs by beating and torturing them to death. Imprisoned at Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow; for the first 11 years, she was chained in a basement dungeon without a window and only given a candle during meals.[47]
Man in the Iron Mask	1669?	1675	c. 29 years	France	A mysterious prisoner kept in a solitary cell with double doors (to mute conversations) and forced to wear a black velvet mask at all times, following direct orders of Louis XIV. Much debate exists about the identity of the prisoner (variously called Marchioly or Eustache Dauger) and the reason of his confinement. After his death, myths arose claiming that the prisoner wore a full-headed iron mask, rather than velvet, and that two Musketeers of the Guard were posted with orders to shoot him if he removed it. The solitary spell was interrupted between 1675 and 1680, when the man in the mask served the also imprisoned Nicholas Fouquet, Marquis of Belle-Îlle as his valet.
	1680	1703
Robert Hillary King	1972	2001	29 years	United States	Placed in solitary confinement for the same murder as Woodfox and Wallace, until his original conviction was overturned.
Salvatore "Totò" Riina	1993	2017	24 years	Italy	Reputed "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian mafia, nicknamed "The Beast". Believed to have ordered over 150 murders in Italy. Died in prison, aged 87.[48][49]
Yolanda Saldívar	1995	ongoing	24 years, 297 days	United States	Found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez on March 31, 1995. Placed in solitary confinement after receiving numerous death threats from fellow inmates.
Ian Manuel	1993	2016	23 years	United States	Tried as an adult and sentenced to life for non-fatally shooting a woman during a robbery, when he was 13 years-old. His sentence was reduced after it was ruled that imprisoning minors who had not killed anyone for life was unconstitutional. Released.[50][51]
Luis Felipe	1997[52]	ongoing	22 years, 331 days	United States	Leader of the New York chapter of the Latin Kings. Convicted and placed in solitary confinement for ordering several murders when he was already in prison for other offenses.
Leonora Christina Ulfeldt	1663	1685	22 years	Denmark	Daughter of Christian IV of Denmark. Confined to a small cell in the Blue Tower of Copenhagen Castle by her brother, Frederick III, accused of treason. Released after 22 years by Christian V, she joined a convent where she died in 1698, aged 76.
Russell Melvin Shoats	1992	2014	22 years	United States	Member of the Black Unity Council, Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of a police officer. Shoats spent his time in solitary in a 7-by-12 foot cell, always illuminated by lights, for 23 or 24 hours a day.
Rudolf Hess	1966	1987	21 years	West Germany	Became the only prisoner in Spandau Prison after all the others completed their sentences or were pardoned.
Clayton Fountain	1983	2004	21 years	United States	Marine sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his staff sergeant in 1974, and placed in solitary after murdering three other prisoners and one corrections officer. Converted to Catholicism and was accepted as a lay brother of the Trappist monks posthumously.
Giovanni Passannante	1879	1899	20 years	Italy	Attempted assassin of Umberto I of Italy. Locked in a dark, small cell below sea level in Portoferraio, Isle of Elba. His conditions became a scandal after they were revealed and he was moved to an asylum in Montelupo Fiorentino, where he died in 1910.
John T. Downey	1952	1973	20 years, 3 months and 14 days	China	CIA agents captured in Manchuria after their plane was shot down by Chinese forces during the Korean War; the mission was part of a failed attempt to establish an anti-Communist guerrilla in mainland China. Released after the thaw of Chinese-American relations. There was a three-week break in their solitary confinement in 1955, when they were allowed to interact with the crew of a downed American B-29.[53]
Richard Fecteau		1971	19 years
Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin	1969	1988	19 years	Soviet Union	Attempted assassin of Leonid Brezhnev. Released in 1990.
Clarence Carnes	1946	1963	17 years	United States	Placed in solitary for his part in the "Battle of Alcatraz". The measure ended with the closing of the prison.
Christopher Scarver	1994	2010	16 years	United States	Placed in solitary confinement for the double murder of Jeffrey Dahmer and Jesse Anderson. All three men were serving life sentences for murder at the time of the crime.

Longest spells on death row[edit]

These prisoners were sentenced to death rather than prison, but their execution was stalled for a prolonged time due to different reasons.

Name	Sentence start	Sentence end	Sentence duration	Country	Description
Iwao Hakamada	1968	2014	46 years	Japan	Granted a retrial and found innocent after it was determined that the evidence used to convict him the first time was forged.
Raymond Riles	1976	ongoing	43 years, 341 days	United States	Longest held prisoner in death row in Texas. His execution was stayed several times since 1980, for different reasons. He was later diagnosed with mental problems and is as a result considered not mentally fit to be executed, but won't be moved out of death row either. He tried to commit suicide in 1985 by setting his jail cell on fire.
Richard Gerald Jordan	1977	ongoing	42 years, 342 days	United States	Sentenced to death for the abduction and murder of a woman in Mississippi.[54]
Douglas Stankewitz	October 12, 1978	May 3, 2019	40 years, 203 days	United States	Oldest death row inmate at California's San Quentin State Prison, a member of the Mono nation sentenced to death for the abduction and murder of a 22-year-old woman. Retried twice and sentenced to death on both occasions.[55][56] Retried a third time and sentenced to life in prison without parole.[57]
Cesar Fierro	1980	ongoing	39 years, 330 days	United States	Mexican national arrested in Ciudad Juarez for the murder of a cab driver in El Paso and convicted in spite of no existing physical evidence linking him to the case. Currently held on death row in Huntsville, Texas.
Gary Alvord	1973	2013	39 years	United States	Schizophrenic sentenced to death in Florida for the murder of three women over the price of one game of pool. Died of a brain tumor after several delays.
Lawrence Bittaker	March 24, 1981	December 13, 2019	38 years, 264 days	United States	One of the two "Toolbox Killers" who kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered five teenage girls in southern California during a period of five months in 1979. Died of natural causes in 2019. His partner in crime, Roy Norris, was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 30 years in exchange for testifying against Bittaker.
Carey Dean Moore	June 20, 1980	August 14, 2018	38 years, 55 days	United States	Sentenced to death for the murders of two taxicab drivers in Nebraska. He was executed by lethal injection on August 14, 2018. He was Nebraska's longest serving death row inmate.[58]
Albert Greenwood Brown	February 3, 1982	ongoing	37 years, 315 days	United States	Pedophile who abducted and murdered a 15-year-old on her way to school while being on parole for molesting another girl in California. Brown was scheduled for execution on September 30, 2010, but it was put on hold due to lethal injection supplies being unavailable at the time.
Sadamichi Hirasawa	1950	1987	37 years	Japan	Confessed under torture to have committed the Teikoku Bank Incident of 1948, a mass poisoning of Imperial Bank employees that killed ten people. Hirasawa was never executed because no Justice Minister wanted to sign his death warrant, as all believed that he had been falsely charged. However, he wasn't granted a retrial either, and he was still in death row when he died from pneumonia in 1987.
Brandon Astor Jones	1979	2016	37 years	United States	Sentenced to death for his involvement in the felony murder of a convenience store manager in Georgia. Was retried and sentenced to death again in 1997 because the jurors at the first trial had brought a Bible into the deliberation room. Oldest prisoner in Georgia at the time of his execution, aged 72.
Thomas Eugene Creech	January 1, 1983	ongoing	37 years, 10 days	United States	Sentenced to death for killing a fellow prisoner while incarcerated in Idaho 1981. Creech had been previously on death row for another murder, but his death sentence was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 1977 after appeal.
Ronald Allen Smith	March 22, 1983	ongoing	36 years, 295 days	United States	Only Canadian on death row in the United States and one of two death row inmates in Montana. Smith, along with another man, murdered two Native American men who offered them a ride while the former were under the influence of LSD. His accomplice accepted a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, while Smith refused and requested capital punishment for himself.
Doug Clark	March 24, 1983	ongoing	36 years, 293 days	United States	One of the couple known as the "Sunset Strip Killers", who raped and murdered six women in Los Angeles during the summer of 1980. His partner, Carol M. Bundy, died in prison in 2003.
George Banks	June 22, 1983	ongoing	36 years, 203 days	United States	Spree killer sentenced to death for the murders of twelve people in the 1982 Wilkes-Barre Shootings, including his five children. Although his insanity defence was rejected at the trial, he was later ruled incompetent to be executed in 2004 and 2010.
Michael Morales	June 30, 1983	ongoing	36 years, 195 days	United States	Raped and murdered a 17-year-old girl who was in a love triangle with Morales's cousin and another man in California; his cousin was sentenced to life in prison as inductor. Though Morales did not deny his guilt, doubts about the evidence presented in his trial mounted as his scheduled execution for February 26, 2006 came near. The execution was postponed indefinitely due to medical professionals refusing to participate in executions, as their presence is obligatory under California law.
Tomiyama Tsuneki	1967	2003	36 years	Japan	Died of kidney failure in prison, at the age of 86.[59]
David Earl Miller	1981	December 6, 2018	36 years	United States	Sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of 23-year-old intellectually disabled woman, Lee Standifer. Miller was executed by electric chair in December 2018. He was Tennessee's longest serving death row inmate.[60]
Edmund Zagorski	March 27, 1984	November 1, 2018	34 years, 219 days	United States	Sentenced to death by the state of Tennessee for the 1983 murders of two men, and was executed by electrocution in 2018.
Ronald Watson Lafferty	May 7, 1985	ongoing	34 years, 249 days	United States	Self-proclaimed prophet from Utah who claimed to have been divinely mandated to murder a number of people starting with his sister-in-law and her baby daughter. A death sentence was overturned on the grounds that he was not competent to stand trial, but he was deemed competent, retried, and sentenced to death again in 1996. Lafferty has requested to be executed by firing squad.
Kevin Cooper	21 May 1985	ongoing	34 years, 235 days	United States	Career burglar sentenced to death for the murders of four members of the same family and attempted murder of two others during a home invasion in Chino Hills, California in 1983, shortly after he escaped from prison. Cooper was scheduled for execution on February 10, 2004, but it was postponed to allow DNA testing of the crime scene and getaway vehicle that did not exist at the time of his conviction. The results of both tests supported the case against Cooper.
Richard Delmer Boyer	14 December 1984	ongoing	35 years, 28 days	United States	Fatally stabbed an elderly couple.
Romell Broom	October 24, 1985	ongoing	34 years, 79 days	United States	Abducted, raped, and strangled a 14-year-old girl returning from a football game in East Cleveland, Ohio, and also attempted to kidnap two of her friends. Survived an attempted execution by lethal injection on September 15, 2009 because the executioners couldn't find a suitable vein; he is next scheduled for June 17, 2020.
Sakae Menda	1949	1983	34 years	Japan	After being arrested for stealing rice, Menda was tortured until he confessed to the murders of a Buddhist priest and his wife, which he did not commit. He was not represented by a lawyer, no physical evidence linking Menda to the murders was ever produced, and the testimony of witnesses backing his alibi was deliberately kept out of his trial. In 1979 he was granted a retrial and in 1983 he was acquitted, becoming the first person in the History of Japan to be released from death row.
Edward Harold Schad	1979	2013	34 years	United States	Oldest prisoner in Arizona death row at the time of his execution by lethal injection, aged 71. Sentenced to death for the murder and robbery of a 74-year-old man in 1978, while he was in parole for another murder ten years prior.[61][62]
Douglas Stewart Carter	December 27, 1985	ongoing	34 years, 15 days	United States	Killed an elderly woman during a burglary in Provo, Utah. Assigned lethal injection.
Gerald Ross Pizzuto, Jr.	May 1, 1986	ongoing	33 years, 255 days	United States	Beat a Marsing, Idaho woman and her nephew to death in July 1985.
Tiequon Cox	May 7, 1986	ongoing	33 years, 249 days	United States	Member of the Crips sentenced to death for the hired mass murder of five relatives of former NFL player Kermit Alexander in their home. Cox was 18 at the time of the crimes.
Jack Alderman	1975	September 16, 2008	33 years	United States	Murdered his wife with a wrench in Georgia. Executed by lethal injection.
Robert Brian Waterhouse	1980	2012	32 years	United States	Murdered and mutilated a woman in Florida while he was on parole from a life sentence for murder.[63]
Ralph Leroy Menzies	March 23, 1988	ongoing	31 years, 294 days	United States	Abducted and strangled a female gas station attendant in Kearns, Utah. Requested death by firing squad.
David Carpenter	May 10, 1988	ongoing	31 years, 246 days	United States	Known as the "Trailside Killer", killed at least ten hikers and attacked another one in state parks near San Francisco. He was attributed a 1979 murder after a DNA match in December 2009.
David Allen Raley	May 24, 1988	ongoing	31 years, 232 days	United States	Security guard who abducted, raped, beat, and stabbed two teenage girls in the abandoned Carolands mansion where he worked, before throwing them in a landfill. One of his victims died and the other survived.
Ronald Gray	June 29, 1988	ongoing	31 years, 196 days	United States	Convict held for the longest time ever on the US Military death row, a serial rapist and murderer who committed his crimes while stationed in Fort Bragg as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Henry McCollum	1983	2014	31 years	United States	Longest serving death row inmate in North Carolina. Sentenced for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, while his half-brother was sentenced to life in prison. Both men were exonerated by DNA and released.[64]