Throughout history, courts have handed down incredibly long prison sentences. Factors like mandatory sentencing, jury input, victim statements, and judges’ decisions sometimes lead to severe punishments for convicted felons. For instance, Chamoy Thipyaso in Thailand received a sentence of 141,078 years for a massive pyramid scheme affecting over 16,000 people. Though Thai law capped her actual time at 20 years, and she served only eight, the sentence was a powerful statement.
The United States has also seen its share of lengthy sentences. In 1976, Dudley Wayne Kyzer was sentenced to two life terms plus 10,000 years for murdering three people in Alabama, including his wife and mother-in-law. This extreme sentence aimed to underscore the severity of his crimes for any future parole boards.
While such lengthy sentences often carry symbolic weight, the actual time a person can serve is limited by their lifespan. Still, some individuals have spent an almost unimaginable amount of time incarcerated. This list explores ten American prisoners who endured some of the longest periods behind bars in the nation’s history.
Richard Honeck: 64 Years
Richard Honeck’s story begins in 1899 when he was convicted for murdering a former high school classmate, Richard Koeller. Earlier that year, Honeck and an accomplice, Herman Hundhausen, were arrested following a string of suspicious fires in Hermann, Missouri. Koeller’s testimony was crucial in linking Honeck to the arsons.
Seeking revenge, Honeck plotted and carried out Koeller’s murder by stabbing him. He was swiftly arrested and confessed in September 1899. Honeck then spent the next six decades in prison, reportedly leading a quiet existence with few disciplinary issues. His life sentence for murder, however, meant a long stay. He was finally paroled on December 20, 1963, after serving over 64 consecutive years.
At 85, Honeck moved in with his niece, amazed by the modernized world. He lived freely for nearly 14 more years, passing away in 1976 at the age of 97, having spent two-thirds of his life imprisoned.
William Heirens: 65 Years
In late 1945, Chicago was gripped by fear of a serial killer. First, Josephine Ross was found murdered. Weeks later, Francis Brown’s murder caused a citywide panic due to a chilling message scrawled in lipstick near her body: “For heaven’s sake, catch me before I kill more, I cannot control myself.”
Two weeks later, six-year-old Suzanne Degnan was found dead and dismembered. The killings paused for several months until police arrested teenager William Heirens for burglary. His fingerprints matched those at the Degnan crime scene. Heirens confessed to the murders and received a life sentence.
Years later, Heirens recanted, claiming he confessed only to avoid the death penalty. Debate over his guilt persisted for decades, with some even suggesting a reporter fabricated the famous lipstick message to sell papers, dubbing him “The Lipstick Killer.” However, authorities stood by his confession. Heirens began his sentence in 1947 and was repeatedly denied parole. After over 65 years in prison, he died at Illinois’s Dixon Correctional Center in 2012, at 83 years old.
Warren Nutter: 65 Years
Warren Nutter was just 18 when a series of reckless choices dramatically altered his life. In early 1956, he and his friends were arrested for robbing a gas station. After being placed in an Iowa jail, Nutter managed to escape.
Instead of fleeing, the teenager returned to the jail armed with a shotgun, intending to free his accomplices. During the chaotic escape attempt, Nutter shot and killed police officer Harold Pearce. He was quickly recaptured, charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to death, making him the youngest person Iowa had ever ordered to be executed.
His death sentence was short-lived. A year later, a judge commuted Nutter’s sentence to life in prison after his attorneys successfully argued that his difficult upbringing should spare him from hanging. The state of Iowa later abolished the death penalty. Warren Nutter spent the next 65 years in various Iowa prisons. He died in December 2021 at age 84, having been incarcerated for nearly seven decades.
Sammie Robinson: 66 Years
Sammie Robinson was only 16 when he was sent to Louisiana’s notorious Angola Prison in 1953, convicted on an aggravated rape charge. His initial sentence wasn’t expected to be a life term. However, in 1954, he killed another inmate during a prison fight. This led to a murder conviction and a life sentence without parole.
What might have been a shorter stay turned into an eternity. Robinson endured years in what is considered one of America’s toughest prisons. He later recalled harrowing experiences, including being set on fire in his cell. “I don’t know how I survived,” he told The Guardian in 2017. “I had a tough time. I’m lucky to be living now.”
In the 1970s, his original rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court, but his murder conviction kept him imprisoned. Nearing the end of his life, Robinson dreamt of freedom, saying, “I could go somewhere and make me a living… I could start all over again.” Sadly, he never got that chance. Robinson died behind bars in 2019 at 83, after 66 years of incarceration.
Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby: 66 Years
Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby’s imprisonment began way back in 1908. He was playing cards in an Indiana bar when another man accused him of cheating and instigated a fight. Grigsby stabbed the man and then, surprisingly, resumed his card game. The injured man didn’t seek immediate medical help or go to a hospital.
Instead, the man reportedly sat at the bar, bleeding from his stab wounds. Hours later, it was too late to save him. What initially seemed like a non-fatal wound became mortal. Grigsby later recalled, “The man was a crazy man… He couldn’t be talked to. Stayed at the bar like a crazy man or something, instead of getting to a hospital. He was a fool, is what he was.”
Police arrested Grigsby for second-degree murder. He was convicted and sentenced to prison, where he remained for the next 66 years. After nearly seven decades, Grigsby had accepted he would never be free. Then, in 1974, at 89 years old, he was unexpectedly paroled from the Indiana State Penitentiary. He was released and moved to a nursing home, enjoying over a decade of freedom before his death in 1987.
Walter Bourque: 67+ Years
Walter Bourque’s case could eventually top this list. His long imprisonment started in 1955 when he was convicted of murdering four-year-old Patricia Johnson in Boston. Authorities said he killed her because he feared she would reveal he had been molesting her. He was only 17 at the time of the murder and had even joined the search party for the girl when she was thought to be missing.
Once her murder was discovered, police quickly zeroed in on Bourque. He confessed to the crime on the witness stand during his trial. “I wish someone had come down the stairs and stopped me,” Bourque stated, referring to the assault. “I was scared of the father… The whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been thinking about it.” A jury sent him to prison.
In 1979, he received a brief 72-hour leave, a fleeting taste of freedom before returning to prison. Repeatedly denied parole, he finally got a chance years later but quickly violated its terms. Probation officers found he had contact with minors and was caught with a stolen check, leading an unforgiving judge to send him back. As of late 2022, Bourque had served over 67 years and was still incarcerated.
Joseph Ligon: 68 Years
Born in the Deep South, Joseph Ligon moved to Philadelphia at 13. This fresh start, however, took a dark turn. Two years later, in 1953, Ligon and a group of friends were out one Friday night looking for trouble, or perhaps trouble found them. A brawl erupted, leaving six teenagers severely injured and two dead. Ligon was identified by police as responsible for one of the murders. He was charged, tried, convicted, and imprisoned, ending his life in the free world.
For over five decades, Ligon remained in prison for a crime committed in his teens. At the time, the justice system made little distinction for juvenile offenders in such cases. “I knew I had to do time, but I had no idea I’d be in prison for the rest of my life,” Ligon later said. “I had never even heard the words ‘life without parole.’”
After 53 years, attorneys focusing on reforming juvenile sentencing took up Ligon’s case. It took another 15 years of legal work, but their efforts finally paid off. In February 2021, Joseph Ligon, then 83 years old, was released from prison after an astounding 68 years behind bars. He went to live with his sister and niece.
John Phillips: 69 Years
John Phillips’s case stands out as particularly unusual and not as widely documented. In July 1952, the 18-year-old North Carolina native was arrested for the first-degree rape of a four-year-old girl. Police apprehended him the day after the reported assault. During interviews, they realized Phillips had significant cognitive limitations – today, he would be described as developmentally disabled; back then, the terminology was cruder.
Sent to a state mental hospital for evaluation, experts diagnosed him as a “moron,” a common term at that time. Deemed unable to stand trial, a lawyer entered a “guilty” plea on his behalf. Despite psychologists determining Phillips had the intellectual and emotional capacity of a seven-year-old, prison became his fate.
Phillips spent decades in North Carolina mental hospitals and prison wards. By 1991, he had been incarcerated for 39 years. When interviewed by local newspapers about his incredibly long sentence for a non-murder case based on a lawyer-submitted plea, he once said, “This is my home… I’m going to be in prison until I die… Time doesn’t worry me.” As of late 2023, Phillips, affectionately known as Peanut by fellow inmates, was still serving his sentence, marking nearly seven full decades behind bars.
Paul Geidel: 69 Years
Paul Geidel, born in 1894, was orphaned at seven. In his early teens, he moved to New York City and, by 17, worked as a bellhop at a high-end hotel. After losing his job, he went on a bender and broke into the home of a retired Wall Street financier. Armed with chloroform, he intended to incapacitate the man to steal valuables.
However, Geidel misjudged the chloroform and accidentally suffocated the elderly man. The victim was well-connected, being close friends with the Manhattan District Attorney, which did not bode well for Geidel. He was quickly caught, arrested, and sentenced to 20 years to life.
Geidel spent decades in Sing Sing Prison, growing from a teenager into an old man. In 1974, when The New York Times investigated his case, he had served over six decades. “Sing Sing was a bad place when I got in there,” he told the paper. “But I deserved it. I took a good man’s life. Still, to this day, I don’t know how I could have done that.” By 1980, at age 86, officials finally granted him parole after 69 years. He lived his final seven years in a nursing home, passing away in 1987.
Francis Smith: 72 Years
Francis Smith, born in 1924, lived a relatively unremarkable life until 1949 when he became embroiled in one of Connecticut’s most infamous murder cases. At 25, he was accused of fatally shooting a night security guard at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich. Police believed two shooters were involved and quickly apprehended a suspect named George Lowden.
Initially, Lowden didn’t implicate his accomplice. However, he eventually accepted a plea deal, turning state’s evidence against Francis Smith. Lowden, who served 17 years and was released in 1966, claimed Smith was with him on the night of the murder. Police pursued the case, charging Smith.
From the outset, Smith’s case seemed fraught with issues. Despite Lowden’s testimony, suspicions arose that police had coerced him into naming Smith, possibly seeing it as an opportunity to imprison a known petty criminal. During the investigation, at least one witness recanted their identification of Smith, and another man even confessed to being the second shooter, though police disbelieved him. Smith was convicted and sentenced to death, even coming within 24 hours of execution before his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He spent 72 years incarcerated for the murder. Finally, in 2022, at 97 years old, the parole board released him. He walked free, an elderly man re-entering the world after more than seven decades.
These stories are stark reminders of the immense duration some individuals have spent confined, reflecting changing justice systems, the severity of certain crimes, and the profound impact of lifelong incarceration.
What are your thoughts on these incredibly long prison sentences? Leave your comment below and share this piece if you found it thought-provoking.
