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Morbid Knowledge@MorbidKnowledge · Dec 20, 2024

The longest prison sentences ever served 🧵

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Summary

A thread documenting the longest prison sentences ever served, ranging from 65 to 70+ years. The cases involve individuals convicted of serious crimes like murder and robbery, with some still incarcerated and others released or deceased after decades behind bars.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    The longest prison sentences ever served 🧵

  2. #2

    10. Warren Nutter spent 65 years, 10 months, 6 days in prison. At 18, he became the youngest man sentenced to death in Iowa for killing a patrolman during a gas station robbery. His sentence was commuted to life in 1957. He died in 2021.

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    9. Kenneth Nicely spent 65 years, 362 days in prison. He is currently still incarcerated and is the longest serving inmate in Arkansas. He was convicted of killing a police officer.

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    8. Sammie Robinson spent 66 years, 85 days in prison. Sammie’s 66 years in prison were spent in Louisiana, beginning when he was 17 and ending with his death at 83.

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    7. Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby spent 66 years, 123 days in prison. After killing a man in a fight, he was sentenced to life for murder and denied parole 69 times before being released at 89. He returned to prison voluntarily due to job struggles but was released again in 1976.

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    6. Joseph Ligon spent 67 years, 54 days in prison. Sentenced to life without parole at 15 for murder, Ligon rejected resentencing and parole offers in 2016 and 2017. Ligon was released from prison on February 11, 2021.

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    5. John Phillips spent 68 years, 236 days in prison. Convicted of s*xually assaulting a five-year-old girl, he was released on parole on March 9, 2021, with his parole set to end on March 8, 2026.

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    4. Paul Geidel Jr. spent 68 years, 245 days in prison. Sentenced to 20 years to life in 1911 at age 17 for robbery and murder, he was found insane in 1926 and transferred to a hospital. He was confined there until 1976 and released in 1980 at age 86. He died at 93.

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    3. Walter H. Bourque Jr. has spent 69 years, 8 days in prison. Walter is still currently imprisoned, serving a sentence of 99 years and six months for the axe murder of a four-year-old girl when he was 17.

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    2. Francis Clifford Smith spent 70 years, 31 days in prison. Sentenced to death for murdering a guard during a 1949 yacht club robbery, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1954, just two hours before execution. Smith was paroled in July 2020.

  11. #11

    1. Charles Foussard spent 70 years, 303 days in prison. Charles spent most of his life at a mental asylum in Ararat, Victoria, after murdering an elderly man and stealing his boots. He died there at 91–92 years old.