Huntsville, Texas became the center of national attention
as a tense prison hostage crisis
unfolded inside its 1st state prison known as
the WALLS unit.
For 11 days behind its 15 foot red
brick wall in the sweltering summer of 1974,
3 armed inmates held 15 people hostage,
culminating in a violent shootout that left 2
hostages
and 2 inmates dead.
The longest prison siege in American history started
at 1 PM
on Wednesday, July 24th
1974,
inside the unit's education building.
Frederico Fred Gomez Carrasco,
a 34 year old notorious
drug lord serving a life sentence for the
attempted murder of a San Antonio policeman,
and 2 other armed inmates
stormed the prison library
located on the 3rd floor of the prison's
education building.
Fred Carrasco,
infamously dubbed the Mexican connection by law enforcement,
was the Pablo Escobar of his time.
A notorious drug lord whose empire and ruthless
tactics
echoed those of the infamous
Colombian kingpin.
He ruled a vast cocaine and heroin empire
spanning from San Diego to Chicago.
Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas,
Carrasco embarked on his criminal journey at 15.
By the late 19 sixties, he had ascended
to the pinnacle of his illicit career.
Operating from Nuevo Laredo,
Carrasco maneuvered seamlessly across the United States and
Mexico,
largely undeterred by authorities.
Carrasco's
ruthless reputation was immortalized in Spanish ballads,
celebrated in local dance halls
and feared by many.
He boasted about gunning down 47 men.
His tales of violence and audacity earned him
the fearsome moniker,
El Senor,
the man.
His legend, marked by gun slinging bravado and
a chilling body count, cemented his status as
one of Texas' most feared
and deadly figures in the drug trade.
Aiden Carrasco were inmates,
42 year old Ignacio Cuevas, considered by fellow
convicts as a real nutcase,
and 20 year old Rudolph Rudy Dominguez,
described by the prison chaplain as a vicious
man who believed in nothing.
During their ordeal,
the hostages believed Dominguez was the inmate most
likely to harm them.
Among the hostages was Anne Fleming,
a 50 year old librarian who had been
working at the prison for just 20 days.
Just as the prison whistle blew to signal
that lunch had ended,
Carrasco rose to his feet and fired a
single round into the ceiling of the library
from a 3 57 caliber revolver.
Carrasco shouted,
Stop right there or I will kill you.
Fleming recalled her experience during an interview 20
years ago.
The thing that really amazed me, she said,
was how everyone men, women, guards
was terrorized.
I was afraid.
I realized that there was no way out.
Carrasco used an inmate trustee who worked outside
the prison during the day
to smuggle weapons and ammunition
into the formidable red brick prison that dominates
downtown Huntsville.
His gang threatened to kill the inmate's family
if he failed to cooperate.
They concealed a 38 caliber revolver inside a
hollowed out ham,
wrapped 2 3 57 caliber revolvers in packages
of meat, and hid hundreds of bullets
inside a huge can of peaches.
This elaborate smuggling operation occurred before metal detectors
became commonplace in prisons, airports, and government buildings.
The prison system would have assigned Carrasco to
a maximum security unit,
but he was recovering from 3 gunshot wounds
inflicted by San Antonio police a year earlier.
Instead, officials confined him to the Medium Security
Walls unit due to its proximity to a
prison hospital and the lower risk of an
escape attempt.
The 5 foot-seven tall, 210
pound dangerous inmate was given light duty as
a janitor for father Joseph O'Brien,
the 46 year old prison chaplain.
Exploiting this position, Carrasco illicitly used the prison
chapel's telephone
to make long distance calls to his gang.
When Carrasco seized the library,
he revealed hundreds of rounds of ammunition
that he had cunningly taped around his legs
and concealed under
his pants.
2 of the hostage takers opened fire on
Lieutenant Wayne Scott and Sergeant Bruce Nowinski
when the unarmed officers ran up a ramp
leading to the prison library.
A bullet grazed the shirt worn by Wayne
Scott, who is now the former director of
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
and Nowinski received a flesh wound to his
left foot.
After taking over the library,
Hrozco
barricaded the entrance with a large file cabinet.
He forced hostages
to take turns sitting on top of it
to deter a rescue assault.
The only entrance was a double plate glass
door that opened to a 2 story tall,
winding
exit ramp.
To prevent inmates from being distracted during school
classes,
the prison system had covered the library's windows
with bricks,
rendering officers unable to see inside or
deploy tear gas canisters.
As a result, they covertly
monitored the situation by slipping a microphone down
a pipe chase.
Carrasco took 11 prison employees hostage, consisting of
7 women and 4 men, plus an additional
4 inmates.
Father Joseph O'Brien, who initially acted as a
messenger,
volunteered to stay with the hostages after the
release of one who suffered a heart attack
during the first day.
Carrasco immediately released 50 sex inmates in exchange
for a TV set
and 15 pairs of handcuffs
used later to restrain the hostages.
Carrasco demanded army m16
rifles with full ammunition magazines
and 100 rounds for each.
Three bulletproof vest, helmets plus walkie talkies.
Barrasca wasn't going any farther than the prison
walls.
The Texas Department of Corrections policy strictly forbade
the release of prisoners in exchange for hostages,
setting the stage for a prolonged standoff.
The Hansel Adams newspaper published its first extra
edition since World War 2,
knocking President Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal
off the front page.
As news of the siege spread,
Huntsville transformed into a media circus.
Reporters from across the country descended on the
small town,
broadcasting live updates
and speculating on the fate of the hostages.
The crisis became a national spectacle,
with millions of Americans following the drama as
it unfolded.
Inside the library,
the situation was tense and unpredictable.
James Estelle junior, the director of the Texas
Department of Corrections, known as the TDC then,
and officials
set up a command post in the warden's
office dubbed the think tank.
Estelle, assisted at times by Ruben Matamero,
Carrasco's attorney from San Antonio,
engaged in marathon negotiations and used stalling tactics.
The mercurial psychopath repeatedly threatened to shoot or
blow up the hostages if Estelle did not
meet his demands.
Dominguez
and Cuevas tormented the hostages
by brandishing guns at their heads.
Carrasco attempted to manipulate the hostages and their
families,
coercing some into crying during phone calls, including
one with governor Doth Briscoe on the second
day of the standoff.
Repeatedly threatened with death, some hostages sharply criticized
the Texas Department of Corrections
for not yielding to Carrasco's demands, believing it
was the only way to secure their release.
In one moment, Carrasco would threaten to kill
the hostages if his demands were not met
within 10 minutes.
In the next, he would calm down and
request Kentucky Fried Chicken to eat.
During the takeover, Carrasco released 4 hostages at
different intervals,
including the prison's director of education, suffered a
heart attack on the 1st day,
and a librarian who faked a heart attack.
An inmate hostage, desperate to avoid implication,
escaped by driving through the plate glass door
on the 6th day.
Carrasco freed a final hostage on the 10th
day of the standoff
to present his escape plan and demands
to prison director Estelle.
Meanwhile, Warden Howe husbands had to maintain order
among 1700
inmates.
The dining hall was located below the library,
and the slightest sounds, such as pots and
pans, would set off the paranoid hostage taker.
Husbands had to lock down the unit and
serve sandwiches and paper bags to the cells.
It became clear to Estelle and FBI agent
Bob Wyatt
that Carrasco did not have a well thought
out escape plan.
At the start of the siege, officers surrounded
the prison and Huntsville
with a security blanket to thwart any attempt
by Carrasco's gang to make his getaway.
A rumor circulated that the gang planned to
kidnap
officers'
families.
Acurasco demanded an expensive men's apparel to replace
their white inmate uniforms.
Bulletproof vest, helmets, walkie talkies and weapons.
Estelle provided $1300
worth of suits and dress shoes.
Fearing that prison snipers would shoot them in
the head,
Carrasco ordered the creation of 3 steel helmets
to protect them.
Oh, the headgear resembled the armor the knights
of King Arthur's round table might wear.
These helmets are now on display at the
Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville.
The hostage takers among themselves talked about
escaping to Cuba, where they thought communist dictator
Fidel Castro would give them sanctuary.
On the 8th day of the siege, Carrasco
demanded an armored truck.
While officials did provide the truck, they gave
no assurances that he would be allowed to
drive away with the hostages.
Meanwhile, the inmates built a makeshift
Trojan horse
to cover their escape to the waiting armored
truck.
They taped together a pair of 6 by
6 foot chalkboards,
fortified with £700
of library law books
wrapped around the outside as a shield.
At 9:27
PM, on the 11th and final day of
the standoff,
Carrasco and his 2 henchmen secured themselves inside
the 3 foot space between the chalkboards.
They handcuffed themselves to 3 hostages who volunteered
to get inside the contraption.
Teacher Von Bessetta,
librarian Judy Stanley,
and prison school principal Novella Pollard.
Prison chaplain father Joseph O'Brien also got inside.
The conspirators handcuffed the remaining 8 hostages consisting
of civilian employees and inmates,
to a rope wrapped around the outside of
the Trojan horse.
They were supposed to maneuver the rickety shield
down a winding ramp.
Prison director Estelle had no intention of letting
Carrasco and his Confederates
reach the armored truck.
An assault team hid, waiting with a high
pressure fire hose.
When the Trojan horse jammed against the handrail
of the last
right angle turn of the 4 turn ramp,
officers yelled for the hostages to duck.
They unleashed torrents of water under the Trojan
horse.
However, the plan to knock over the Trojan
horse went awry
when the hose came loose,
causing a significant drop in the water pressure.
As soon as the first water blast hit
the shield,
Carrasco pumped a deadly hollow point round
into Von Bessida's heart.
Dominguez fired 3 deadly rounds into Judy Stanley's
back.
Another bullet splintered Father O'Brien's left arm and
lodged fragments near his heart.
It made Cuevas fake passing out and fell,
taking Pollard down as bullets ripped above them.
Gunfire
from inside the Trojan horse through gun ports
Carrasco and his accomplices had cut into the
chalkboards.
A 22 minute gun battle ensued.
FBI agent Bob Wyatt took 2 rounds in
the chest of his bullet resistant vest.
Texas Ranger captains James Pete Rogers, and G.
W. Burkes also took hits in their vest.
The 3 officers quickly recovered and rejoined the
fight.
Officers used a ladder as a battering ram
to topple the shield.
Amidst the gunfire, TDC Lieutenant Willard Stewart
bravely cut the hostages loose from outside the
Trojan horse, saving their lives.
The toppled Trojan horse exposed Carrasco's body.
He had shot himself in the head.
A Department of Public Safety intelligence officer lunged
into the fray and delivered 3 fatal shots
into Dominguez.
Inmate Cuevas, pretending to be unconscious,
slid down the ramp in a stream of
bloody water
and was taken into custody.
His hostage, Novela Pollard, escaped unharmed.
Prison chaplain father Joseph O'Brien survived the gunshot
wounds.
The last shots were fired at 9:50
PM,
ending the 11 day siege on the moonlit
night of August 3rd,
1974.
17 years later, Ignacio Cuevas was executed by
lethal injection
inside the death chamber of the Walls unit
where he had taken part in the murders
of Von Bessida and Judy Stanley.
The San Antonio police officers who were in
the shootout that had sent Carrasco to the
Walls unit later said,
We should have killed him when we had
the chance.
The Texas Prison Museum commemorated the historic prison
siege on its 50th anniversary
during an event in Huntsville called 11 Days
in Hell,
held on July 27,
2024.
I had the honor of moderating an emotional
tribute
that united families of the slain hostages
and the officers who risked their lives
to end the longest prison siege in the
United States
history.