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As inmates are transported to the most secure prison in the United States, they are granted one final, stunning view.
“As they approach, they witness the majestic beauty of the Rocky Mountains. It truly is breathtaking,” remarked Bob Hood, who once served as the warden of the Supermax prison located near Florence, Colorado. “That will be their last glimpse of freedom.”
During his tenure from 2002 to 2005, Hood routinely patrolled the prison halls, interacting with notorious inmates such as the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, and Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center bomber, alongside numerous serial killers.
Labeled as the “worst of the worst,” these prisoners faced the grim reality of never being released, causing some to deteriorate emotionally.
“I would estimate that 97 to 98 percent of Supermax inmates displayed signs of the prison’s impact,” Hood noted. “I’ve seen men break down in tears, especially around Christmas, lamenting over their children, even though they’re serving multiple life sentences.”
One he witnessed handling the solitude better than most was Kaczynski, who didn’t speak to him for months.
‘He was able to handle the Supermax almost to a point of surprising the staff,’ said Hood. ‘He beat the system in one sense because it never seemed like it ever got to him.
Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, used to run circles in his cage
‘He would always have books and in various languages, I think it was six or seven different languages he knew.’
Met with Kaczynski’s initial silence, Hood decided to employ similar tactics to those of the TV detective Columbo.Â
‘I said, “Kaczynski, over the weekend, I was reading some stuff,” and again very distant, he said, “That’s good, what was it?” I said, “The manifesto that you wrote.” And that’s the first time, after like six months or seven months, that he finally really connected with me. I could tell that I hit a nerve.
‘He goes, “You read my manifesto?” I just simply said, “I read it,” and then I played the Columbo guy. I said, “You know what, Kaczynski, it’s almost like Shelley, the lady that wrote Frankenstein. That was almost like the manifesto, where there’s a monster but it’s technology. Technology could be for the good. In this case, you’re seeing the negative part of the technology.”‘
As the conversation progressed, Kaczynski went on to brag that everybody in the world knew who the Unabomber was, but the warden told him time had passed.
‘I said, “The average person now, the average kid growing up, no one knows about the manifesto. They’re not reading your manifesto.” I told him that. I said, “You know, you killed several people, couldn’t you just have put the damn thing in a book?”
‘He goes, “No, I had to kill somebody to get the attention.” I said, “Well, you have to look at that, you’re sitting in the Supermax for the rest of your life, you die here,” and he did. So, we had those kind of conversations.’
The Rocky Mountains loom over the Supermax facility outside Florence, Colorado
A Daily Mail graphic of a Supermax cell. The cell has been specially designed to minimize the chances of an inmate being able to die by suicide
Bob Hood was warden of the Supermax between 2002 and 2005
One of Kaczynski’s stranger habits was to run in circles in the dog cage where he was sometimes put, calculating in his head how far he would have travelled in a straight line.
Once, when then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was touring the Supermax, Hood took the top law enforcement official to see him.
Kaczynski was running in circles in the cage and each time he passed them said: ‘Hey, warden, I just want you to know I’m in Walla Walla, Washington, right now.’
Mueller was confused. The warden knew that Kaczynski was mentally clocking up the distance from the Supermax to where his brother lived on the West Coast, by doing laps in his cage. The Unabomber didn’t say anything to Mueller and kept on going.
By contrast, Richard Reid, the so-called ‘Shoe Bomber,’ was a ‘street punk,’ Hood said.
He recalled his first meeting with Reid: ‘I walk up to him. He’s in the cell. The door opens up. The officers are standing there with batons left and right of me, and he stands up from his bed, and I say, “Good morning,” and he’s a punk type of guy.
Richard Reid, the British terrorist known as the ‘Shoe Bomber,’ earned his high school diploma in the Supermax
A cell at the Supermax in which inmates spend 23 hours a day
The Supermax in Florence, Colorado, is a state of the art isolation prison
‘He goes, “Oh, who are you?” He doesn’t know. I said, “Well, I’m the warden.” And I said, “So who are you?” And he says, “I’m Richard Reid.” And, I go, “Oh yeah, you’re the guy who couldn’t even blow up his shoe.”
‘He wasn’t very happy with the judge. He wasn’t very happy with administrative types like me. So I said, “Let me ask you a question, do you love your mother? Well, you’re never going to see her again unless I allow it.”‘
The warden then made Reid promise to work on earning his GED high school diploma, and to keep his cell clean, including lining up his shoes neatly.
‘He goes, “Why would I want to get a GED?” I said, “Well you’re not getting out of here, you’re going to basically die here. Sometimes you do it for others, do it for your mother in England.”
‘He takes the GED, he knocks it out, his cell was kept clean, and when I went by there, you know, he wasn’t Mr Happy with me, but he’d say a “Good morning, warden,” and we’d not get any incident reports, any problems with the staff.’
Eventually, his mother was allowed to visit for a short and heavily surveilled meeting, with Hood listening in, at which Reid told her about his GED.
Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is in the Supermax
Serial killer Michael Swango refused to come out of his cell at all for the daily one hour of recreation
Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center bomber, was even less talkative.Â
‘Yousef was looking at getting up on the hour, praying,’ said Hood. ‘He hardly ever talked to me. He was just like, “Good morning, warden.”‘
Another inmate who kept quiet was serial killer Michael Swango, a former Marine and doctor who poisoned patients.
He had been attacked in another jail and slashed across the face with a knife, so was moved to the Supermax.
‘In the years that I was there, he never came out for recreation,’ said Hood.
‘Here’s a medical doctor who can come out one hour a day and see the sunshine above. You can’t see the mountains, you can’t see the beauty, it’s all intentionally built so you don’t see all that beautiful stuff, but you can see the sky.
‘He stays in 24 hours a day. He’s the only one I’ve ever met that’s in the Supermax and said, “No, I don’t want to come out.”‘