Voting Station

Thomas Silverstein

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Murderer

The Resume

    (February 4, 1952-May 11, 2019)
    Born in Long Beach, California
    Birth name was Thomas Conway
    Sentenced to fifteen years for armed robbery (1977)
    Joined the Aryan Brotherhood and rose to a leadership position
    Murdered two inmates and a prison guard
    Spent 36 years in solitary confinement, a record for a federal prisoner
    Died at the Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado

Why he might be annoying:

    As a teenager, he began abusing heroin and committing robberies to get the money to buy drugs.
    After he and fellow Aryan Brotherhood member Clayton Fountain killed Raymond ‘Cadillac’ Smith, a leader of the DC Blacks prison gang, by stabbing him 67 times, they dragged his body up and down the catwalk in front of other prisoners’ cells (September 27, 1982).
    While he was being transferred to the prison showers, he stalled in front of the cell of an accomplice, who unlocked his handcuffs with a homemade key and slipped him a shiv.
    He then fatally stabbed guard Merle Clutts forty times (October 22, 1983).
    He told a reporter he ‘smiled at the thought of killing Clutts.’
    His ability to commit murder in what was considered a high security facility inspired the creation of the Supermax prison.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was bullied growing up.
    His mother demanded that he fight back, telling him that if he came home crying after being bullied again, she would give him another beating.
    His conviction for the 1980 murder of inmate Danny Atwell was overturned after it was determined that the two jailhouse informants who had been the main witnesses against him had committed perjury.
    When ‘Cadillac’ Smith was transferred to the same prison as Silverstein, he immediately began threatening to kill Silverstein; guards did nothing to keep the two apart, fueling suspicions that they were hoping one of them would off the other.
    When rioting Cuban detainees took over the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, they freed Silverstein from his cell. He surprised prison authorities by not attempting to harm any of the guards being held hostage or otherwise participating in violence (1987).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 84 Votes: 69.05% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 103 Votes: 56.31% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 519 Votes: 59.54% Annoying