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1924: Pep, “The Cat-Murdering Dog” Pep "The Cat-Murdering Dog" was a black Labrador Retriever admitted to Eastern State Penitentiary on August 12, 1924. Prison folklore tells us that Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot used his executive powers to sentence Pep to Life Without Parole for killing his wife’s cherished cat. Prison records support this story: Pep’s inmate number (C-2559) is skipped in prison intake logs and inmate records. The Governor told a different story. He said Pep had been sent to Eastern to act as a mascot for the prisoners. He and the Warden, Herbert “Hard-Boiled” Smith, were friends. Pep was...

PHILADELPHIA,- A former prison in Philadelphia said visitors during the weekend will be able to sample meals from three periods in the facility's 142-year history. Eastern State Penitentiary officials said the menu for the weekend includes "Indian Mush" from the 1830s, hamburger steak with brown gravy and Harvard beets from the 1950s, and Nutraloaf, a product still used in many prisons to this day, the Philadelphia Daily News reported Friday. "It's one thing to talk about how the food changed over time. It's another to sample it," said Sean Kelley, senior vice president and director of public programming and public...

'A cleaner version of Hell' ADX Florence is a federal supermax prison with a capacity of 490 male inmates in central Colorado, about 40 mi. south of Colorado Springs. Part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex -and operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (a division of the Department of Justice)- the daunting facility only takes-on the MOST dangerous and difficult-to-contain in the entire country. The immaculate, hyper-secure prison was built at a cost of $60M, and largely in response to high-profile security lapses at other federal penitentiaries, particularly a pair of 1983 incidents at Marion, Ill that left two guards dead....

Live Out Your Walking Dead Fantasies In This Abandoned Tennessee Prison - Modern Ruins We're going to have to wait until season three of The Walking Dead TV show to see the zombie-filled prison. But if you're near Nashville, you can visit the Tennessee State Prison, an abandoned penitentiary. It looks like the zombies got to it first. Even before it fell into decay, this prison suffered plenty of woes at the hands of its prisoners. In 1902, a group of prisoners blew out a wing of the facility, killing one prisoner and allowing others to escape (two were never...

NEW YORK - On Wynton Marsalis' upcoming CD, he criticizes political leadership in America, cultural corruption, and sex and violence in rap — and that's just on one song. "I don't speak from outside, I'm not finger-pointing," the 45-year-old jazz great told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I'm a part of it, I'm speaking from inside of our culture," Marsalis said. "We're not taking a moralistic view. It's not, `Let me tell y'all how I'm different from you.' It's a comment on our way of life and our culture." "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" is due out...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- FBI agents and U.S. marshals are searching for a convicted murderer who escaped Wednesday from a federal prison in Louisiana. Richard McNair, 47, is serving a life sentence in the U.S. penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, after being convicted of murder and burglary in North Dakota. "This inmate is considered to be dangerous and should not be approached," the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. Officials describe McNair as a 6-foot tall, 210-pound white male with brown hair and blue eyes. He has scars on his left wrist and both knees.