Deep in the Colorado mountains lies ADX Florence, America’s only supermax prison. Known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” it houses over 300 of the nation’s most violent criminals. These inmates spend 23 hours a day locked in their cells. Terrorists, spies, serial killers, and cult leaders live side by side, some even forming unlikely friendships. While everyone there has a horrific record, here are ten of the absolute worst.
10. Michael Swango: “Dr. Death”
Dr. Michael Swango, like all medical professionals, swore to do no harm. However, he broke this oath repeatedly. He was convicted of killing four people and suspected of killing up to 60 while working as an EMT and physician. Since his early days as a volunteer ambulance driver, patients around Swango died at an unusually high rate. Coworkers also fell violently ill after consuming food he handled. While training at one hospital, he earned the nickname “Double-O Swango,” a grim reference to James Bond’s license to kill.
He may have also caused his fiancée’s death, Kristin Kinney, who committed suicide in a state of confusion possibly caused by arsenic poisoning. Blacklisted from U.S. medical institutions, he fled to Zimbabwe, where patients continued to die under his care. He committed forgery and assault to continue his deadly career but was eventually charged by U.S. and Zimbabwean authorities and is now serving three consecutive life sentences.
9. Robert Hanssen: Russian Spy
Robert Hanssen spent only three years as a clean FBI agent before beginning 22 years of spying, later described as “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history.” In 1979, assigned to collect Soviet intelligence, he contacted the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and became a double agent.
For two decades, Hanssen leaked vast amounts of intelligence to the Soviets, including spy identities, FBI investigations, and technological information. He even investigated who leaked the identities of two Soviet agents helping the Americans, unaware that he was the leaker. Attempts to track Hanssen’s leaks were complicated by a second mole, Aldrich Ames. A joint FBI-CIA task force targeted Hanssen, and agent Eric O’Neill secretly downloaded Hanssen’s data from a PDA, revealing a planned drop of classified material. Hanssen pled guilty to avoid the death penalty and is serving fifteen consecutive life sentences.
8. Richard McNair: Master Escape Artist and Murderer
Richard McNair is an unlikely Supermax inmate. Once a sergeant at an Air Force base in North Dakota, he committed burglaries. In 1987, caught robbing a Farmers Union office, he shot a staff member and killed a truck driver while fleeing. His stolen goods were stored in a local facility, raising suspicion.
Arrested, McNair escaped his handcuffs using lip balm. Recaptured, he received two life sentences at the North Dakota State Penitentiary. Using his job as a prison reporter, he gathered information and escaped through air ducts in 1992 with two others, remaining free for nine months. His most notable escape was in 2006, packed in a mail shipment. He even convinced a pursuing police officer that he was just a jogger. Recaptured in 2007 by rookie officer Stephane Gagnon after appearing on America’s Most Wanted, McNair now serves two life sentences at ADX Florence, from which no one has ever escaped.
7. Abu Hamza al-Masri: Al-Qaeda Kidnapper and Trainer
Abu Hamza al-Masri, also known as the Hook Hand, is an Egyptian national and former club bouncer and civil engineer who became an Islamic extremist and terrorist leader. Inspired by the Iranian Revolution, he joined the fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, losing both hands and one eye. After treatment in the U.K., he fought in Bosnia. From 1997 to 2003, he was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, supporting terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks.
In 2003, the mosque was shut down amid investigations into ricin production. Al-Masri continued preaching outside. He sent trainees globally to commit violent acts, including a kidnapping in Yemen where four hostages died. His team also attempted to create a terrorist training camp in Oregon, leading to U.S. involvement. In 2006, he was sentenced to seven years in British prison for inciting violence. Extradited to the U.S. in 2012, he was convicted of 11 terrorism counts and sentenced to life in prison in 2015. His prosthetic hook hand was replaced with a plastic spork in Supermax.
6. Eric Rudolph: Atlanta Olympic Bomber and Christian Extremist
Eric Rudolph spent five years on the FBI Most Wanted List for terrorism until a rookie officer found him scavenging behind a grocery store. Rudolph grew up in a compound run by the Christian Identity movement, a racial interpretation of Christianity. He enlisted in the U.S. Army but was discharged for marijuana use.
From 1996 to 1998, Rudolph bombed two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar. His most infamous attack was at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where he planted three pipe bombs filled with nails, killing two and injuring over a hundred. Security guard Richard Jewell, initially a suspect, was later cleared and hailed as a hero. Caught in 2003, Rudolph pled guilty and received two life sentences for the abortion clinic bombing and two more for the Atlanta bombing. He now spends 22 ½ hours a day in his cell.
5. Simón Trinidad: FARC Guerrilla Leader
Simón Trinidad, born Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda, was a high-ranking member of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), a Marxist-Leninist group responsible for up to 12% of civilian deaths during the Colombian conflict. Palmera, while teaching economics at the Popular University of Cesar, formed the socialist organization Los Indipendientes. In 1987, he stole 30 million pesos and records from a bank to extort and kidnap landowners before joining FARC.
Palmera quickly rose to lead “Front 41” and became a leader in the Caribbean bloc. Extradited to the U.S. in 2004 on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, FARC refused a deal to release hostages in exchange for preventing his extradition. The prosecution argued Palmera was involved in kidnapping U.S. contractors and a former mayor. After a hung jury in his first trial, he was sentenced to sixty years in prison in his second trial.
4. Theodore Kaczynski: The Unabomber
Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, according to his parents, was normal until a long hospital isolation as a child changed him. A mathematics prodigy, he entered Harvard at 16, but described it as a deeply scarring experience. Kaczynski participated in a brutal psychological study involving verbal abuse, possibly linked to CIA’s MKUltra project. He became a mathematics professor but resigned in 1969.
Kaczynski moved to a remote cabin in Montana, resenting encroaching urban development and “industrial-technological society.” Between 1978 and 1995, he sent sixteen handmade bombs to figures representing technology, killing three and injuring twenty-three. In 1995, he demanded newspapers publish his essay “Industrial Society and Its Future.” His brother David recognized his writing, leading to his capture and conviction. Kaczynski is serving eight life sentences at ADX Florence, where he befriended terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Ramzi Yousef.
3. Tyler Bingham: Aryan Brotherhood Leader
Tyler Bingham is a former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, a violent white supremacist prison gang formed in 1964. Originally called the “Diamond Tooth Gang,” they started as a white counterpart to African-American prison gangs, growing to 20,000 members. Their “blood in, blood out” motto means members must kill or assault to join, with death as the only exit.
Despite being less than 0.10% of the prison population, they were responsible for 18% of prison murders in the 2010s. Bingham rose to the organization’s leadership council. In the early 2000s, authorities charged him and 28 other leaders, seeking the death penalty. In 2006, Bingham was convicted of murder and racketeering, but prosecutors failed to secure the death penalty. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers the Aryan Brotherhood the largest and deadliest prison gang in the U.S.
2. Joaquín Guzmán: “El Chapo”
Joaquín Guzmán, or “El Chapo,” is a notorious drug trafficker and murderer. Born in Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1957, he began growing marijuana with his father. He entered the hard drug trade under kingpins Hector Salazar and Miguel Gallardo, starting his own cartel after Gallardo’s arrest in 1988.
Guzman trafficked more cocaine, marijuana, meth, and heroin into the United States than any other drug dealer. In 1993, a rival cartel’s assassination attempt killed the Cardinal Archbishop of Guadalajara and six others. Guzman was ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture. He escaped prison twice in Mexico but was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and sentenced to life plus thirty years on ten charges. He has had at least four wives, including one he kidnapped, and at least twelve children. Despite little education, his Sinaloa cartel controlled 40%-60% of Mexico’s drug trade. Guzman claims to have indirectly killed 2,000-3,000 people, using tunnels for smuggling and escapes. But his tunnel skills won’t work at Colorado’s Alcatraz.
1. James Marcello: Mafia Boss
James Marcello, known as “Little Jimmy,” was a sanitation worker turned mafia boss in Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite being half-Irish, he ran racketeering schemes, planned eighteen murders, and committed fourteen including two mafia brothers. This crime inspired the movie Casino. Marcello’s father was killed in 1973 while collecting a mob debt, possibly influencing his sons’ criminal lives.
In 2007, Marcello was tried alongside mobsters and a former Chicago police officer. Calabrese’s brother Nicholas testified against him. Marcello remained cold in court as all five were convicted. He is serving a life sentence.
Leave your comment below about which inmate’s story you found most shocking!
