Inside the Walls: Huntsville Prison

1974 Huntsville Prison SiegeHuntsville Prison ExecutionsHuntsville Prison HistoryTexas Prison History
Written By Tinu Thomas

1974 Huntsville Prison Siege

One of the longest hostage-taking sieges in the history of the United States took place in Texas’s Huntsville State Prison.

On July 24, 1974, a narcotics kingpin behind bars at the Walls Unit in Huntsville led two other inmates to take over the library and hold 11 prison workers hostage. That act would begin a siege that would last 11 days and end in gunfire and bloodshed.

Federico (Fred) Gomez Carrasco, the former boss of the largest drug-running operation in south Texas, was serving life for assault with intent to commit murder on a police officer and suspected of numerous murders. 

Carrasco used his connections to smuggle guns and ammunition into the prison, and employing the aid of two other inmates, he took eleven prison workers and four inmates hostage in the prison library.  

Over the course of the next 11 days, the inmates made numerous requests, including walkie-talkies, bulletproof vests, helmets and an armored car. He planned to use the hostages as shields for his escape. 

Negotiations began immediately with prison warden H. H. Husbands and W. J. Estelle, Jr., Director of the Texas Department of Corrections. The Texas Rangers, the Department of Public Safety, and the FBI arrived to assist as the media descended on Huntsville. 

On the night of August 3, when one of the hostages suggested a moving structure of chalkboards padded with law books to absorb bullets, Carrasco agreed to the plan. 

The prisoners made a homemade fortress dubbed the "Trojan horse."The three captors entered their escape pod with four hostages and secured eight others to the moving barricade.

While the target was en route to an armored car Estelle’s team of prison guards and Texas Rangers sprayed the makeshift device with fire hoses. Two female prison workers, Yvonne Beseda and Julia Standley, inside the shield were shot to death by the prisoners. 

In a violent end to the standoff, guards and rangers opened fire, causing Carrasco to commit suicide, and killing one of his two accomplices, Rudy Dominquez. The third inmate, Cuevas, survived the shooting and was put to death in 1991.

Los Socios de San Antonio have a tribute song to the Huntsville Prison Siege entitled "La Muerte de Fred Gomez Carrasco"


Huntsville Prison

The Huntsville Prison is a maximum security prison where high-risk and high-security inmates are held in Texas.

It is also the location of the State of Texas execution chamber. Formerly an electric chair named “Old Sparky,” which was built by inmates. The prison has since changed their execution method to lethal injection.

The Huntsville Prison is called the Walls Unit bc of the maximum security wall that surrounds the prison.

Originally Huntsville Prison was only for white texans. The only penalties available to black Texans were whipping and hanging.

During the Civil War, prisoners at Huntsville produced tents and uniforms for Confederate forces at the prison textile factory. After the war, the prison became, within the state, the "first racially integrated public institution.”

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice Prison Cemetery is located at Huntsville Prison and is operated by inmates.

The Huntsville Prison is also home of the Texas Prison Rodeo, where inmates performed for general entertainment and were paid for it. At one point, the Texas Prison Rodeo made so much money that the profits were used to fund and sustain education initiatives and amenities for inmates across Texas. Since shutdown, advocates have been trying to bring the rodeo back into action since 2017.

Johnny Cash performed the first recording of “This Little Light of Mine” live at Huntsville prison.

Across the street from Huntsville Prison is a restaurant that offers what is called an “Execution Special” on days when inmates are scheduled to be executed.

In 1976, the Supreme Court cleared the way to resume executions in the United States. The execution total in Texas is by far the largest in the country. Below are eight noteworthy executions since that ruling.

— Dec. 7, 1982: Charlie Brooks, No. 1, the first Texas inmate executed after the Supreme Court in 1976 reinstated the death penalty. Brooks also was the first U.S. prisoner to die by lethal injection. He abducted and killed a Fort Worth car lot employee during a test drive.

— Dec. 13, 1988: Raymond Landry, No. 29, whose execution was interrupted when a needle containing the lethal chemicals popped out of his arm. Prison technicians re-inserted it and Landry died. It was the first of two such needle "blowouts" in the death chamber. Landry was condemned for the fatal shooting of Kosmas Prittis, a Houston restaurant owner, during a robbery.

— Feb. 9, 1996: Leo Jenkins, No. 105, whose execution was the first in Texas where relatives or friends of the murder victims in the case were allowed to witness the punishment. Victims' rights supporters had pushed for the change after earlier executions in Texas allowed only friends or relatives of the prisoner to be present. Jenkins was convicted of killing Mark Kelley and his sister, Kara Voss, during a robbery at their family-owned pawn shop in Houston. Their parents were among those watching Jenkins die.

— Feb. 3, 1998: Karla Tucker, No. 145, the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Tucker's born-again-Christian conversion and persuasive TV interviews sparked debate over whether her redemption should justify commuting her sentence to life. Tucker was convicted of using a pickax to kill Jerry Lynn Dean during a burglary of his Houston apartment. A woman with Dean also was killed. On a tape recording played at her trial, Tucker said she had an orgasm each time she swung the ax into their bodies.

— Nov. 17, 1998: Kenneth McDuff, No. 161, who was on death row in 1968 when the Supreme Court halted executions. His sentence was commuted to life and he was later paroled. A free man, McDuff was arrested for the abduction-murder of Melissa Ann Northrup of Waco and sentenced to death again. At the time of his execution, he was believed to be the only prisoner who was paroled from death row only to be returned there for another killing.

— March 14, 2000: Ponchai Wilkerson, No. 210, who stunned prison officials when, after declining to make a final statement, he spit out a handcuff key he had hidden in his mouth. Wilkerson had been convicted of the fatal shooting of a Houston jewelry store employee, Chung Myong Yi, during a robbery.

— June 22, 2000: Gary Graham, No. 222, whose loud claims of innocence and racism brought robed Ku Klux Klansmen and gun-toting Black Panthers to Huntsville. The two groups had a tense stand-off while Texas state troopers in riot gear watched. Graham ranted at length in the death chamber that he was being lynched. He had been convicted of killing an Arizona man, Bobby Lambert, during a robbery outside a Houston supermarket.

— Feb. 17, 2004: Cameron Todd Willingham, No. 320, whose arson-murder case became more famous after his death when a new investigation cast doubt on the arson evidence that led to his conviction. Willingham maintained his innocence and berated his ex-wife in an obscenity-filled final statement. He was convicted of the deaths of his three young daughters, Amber, 2, and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron.

— June 27, 2006: Angel Resendiz, No. 368, a drifter known as the "Railroad Killer." Resendiz earned a spot on the FBI's Most Wanted list as he hopped aboard freight trains and committed indiscriminate and particularly gruesome killings in places near railroad tracks. He was convicted in the death of Claudia Benton, a Houston-area physician attacked at her home.

— July 18, 2012: Yokamon Hearn, No. 483, the first Texas prisoner given a single dose of pentobarbital as the lethal injection drug. Drugs used in the previous three-drug process became unavailable after manufacturers bowed to pressure from death penalty opponents. The change in reaction among inmates given the single drug has been negligible. Hearn was convicted of the fatal abduction and robbery of Frank Meziere during a carjacking in Dallas County.

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Tinu Thomas