Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  For the record, Walters repudiated any brutal treatment of Hoss and denied telling Hoss that he’d never again see the light of day. “Mr. Hoss is in segregation with a lot of other men,” said Walters. “Much is up to him as to when he gets out.” If Western’s officials had been privy to Hoss’s letter to Diane of September 6, 1973, though, he would have assured himself of a vastly extended stay in isolation:

  Yes, I find those things that was in the newspaper amusing, and I can assure you there’s alot [sic] more to come. I’m going to make the infamous Stanley B. Hoss, Jr., the most feared person in the whole state.

  Finally, mightily sick of Hoss, Walters executed a petition of his own, one for the transfer of his contumacious charge.

  I’m at Graterford Prison near Philadelphia. It’s a long story how they got me here but if I can help it, I’ll be back. Needless to say, they got me in the hole, and I mean hole. We get a paper spoon. When it gets wet, that’s it.

  They sent me across the state just to kill someone. They know that’s what will happen because it’s 25 black to every one white, and you know how I am.

  Hey Diane, you think we got problems? The guy in the next cell stands in his toilet, plays with the water and laughs all night to himself.

  Within two weeks Hoss was back in Pittsburgh, writing Diane he felt like an orphan, as “every prison I got to did not want any part of me. I wonder why? And these people sure as hell hated to take me back.”

  True. But Walters had got the message from headquarters: Hoss is your problem. Deal with it.

  . . .

  Jill Joy felt Hoss was a man who could guard his emotions, for sure, but she saw him opening up more and more each visit. Given her sweet words to him, even mush, Stanley could be excused if he thought she was smitten. She hoped, maybe soon, he’d feel the same.

  Advancing the relationship in whatever small ways she could, Jill said, “Do you know we have the same color eyes? We like country music, and”— in funny reference to the flowers Hoss had sent Jodine—“I like roses, too. My favorite’s the Sterling Rose.”

  But there was more on Jill’s mind this day. She was nearly bursting with excitement. “Stanley, did you see the paper today, about the reward? I guess back in 1970 a magazine called Inside Detective ran a big story on you. Well, just yesterday they announced a four thousand dollar reward for information to find the Peugeots.” (Jill pronounced the name “Poo-jits.”)

  Hoss raised an eyebrow but remained silent as Jill leaned closer, her voice a whisper. “Stan, listen … I understand about the cop. You didn’t have a choice. He’d have killed you, I know. And I know you, too. I won’t ask you why it was with the Peugeots but I know you had to do whatever you did. No one could ever tell me different. All I know is I trust any decision you’ve ever had to make.” She kissed his cheek and his hand. “But think of all that money, Stan, and really, all that family wants is to bury them back home. As a woman, Stan, I can understand that, and maybe you can, too. It sort of would be a good thing to do and,” Jill giggled, “you get a big payday out of it, because you know why?” She squeezed his hand harder. “Because if we work this out, I’ll give you all the money. They said the recipient can be anonymous.” Jill hesitated before she mentioned that out of all that money, perhaps she could have just a few hundred. “It’s just that I need to get my phone turned back on so you can call me, and catch up on some rent … but that’s all, Stan. I’ll put the rest in a bank account for you. It’s all yours!”

  Stan thought he could use some dough. Maybe he could bribe someone high up to get him out of segregation. He had to admit Jill was growing on him, but he wondered if he could trust her.

  “I heard something last week,” said Hoss. “There’s a CO who sometimes works the visiting room. I got his name. Word is he’ll clear the place out pretty good then arrange the seating so a guy can go pretty far with a girl, uh … as long as the guard gets some first, in a motel or somewhere. I hate to ask, but I don’t know another way.” Now it was Hoss who squeezed Jill’s hand. “Will you do it for me?”

  Shaken at the suggestion, but calculating the odds and knowing, really, what her response must be, Jill replied, “I don’t like the first part, but I want you, Stan. Yes, I’ll do it.”

  Hoss then told Jill that getting the reward money would be smart, but he had to think on it. “Whatever you say, honey,” said Jill, “but what if others want the reward and someone finds the bodies before you tell me where first?”

  Hoss’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t worry about that, Jill.”

  . . .

  “I never like to give or take orders,” said CO Ron Horvat. “I didn’t want a leadership role but no one was coming forward and there were serious matters ahead of us.” Sporting a goatee and beard, something not seen among the conservative officer corps, Horvat instigated and formed— over management’s opposition—a union.

  “It was post-Attica, very lax. I can understand change but this was overnight and we felt security standards were falling. We had to fight against this.”

  Near Thanksgiving, Ron Horvat, influence rising, was asked to sit in on the Program Review Committee, or PRC, a group of three or four prison officials who’d review cases and make recommendations to the superintendent. “On this one day in the Home Block,” explained Horvat,

  Frankie Phelan is called in. He comes in with a cup of coffee and intimidated the entire group. Phelan says, “Why am I still locked up? Why can’t I get population?” He’d look at each person, glare, and point his finger. Everyone just looked at their papers. Phelan tried to make it personal and continued with this tactic. “I want to know why I can’t be released? What do you personally think, not how you think with your rank or your role?” He went around to everyone like this, then he comes to me. First thing I said was, “Get rid of that coffee.” He stared at me and I said to the guard to take his coffee. Second, I said, “You should never, I mean never, you or Hoss, should never be placed in population.” Phelan says, “Oh, you’re speakin’ as the union president …” I cut him off and said, “No, I’m speaking personally. If you don’t know how to conduct yourself in a controlled environment, if you feel you can do anything you want—terrorize people—I don’t think this is the idea we’re trying to give out here.” Well, that started it. He stood up, started to walk away. He’s supposed to be escorted back to his cell but this happened so quickly. Phelan trounced upstairs on his own. Next thing, he’s screaming to Hoss, “It’s Horvat, Ronnie’s doin’ this to us!”

  “When we finished with PRC, I went to talk to Hoss and he said, “This isn’t the deal I understood. I was under the impression that if I didn’t kill staff I could have my freedom.” See, the biggest thing with Stan is that he don’t want locked up to face himself. Him in his little cell allows too much time to think … that whole line of mayhem and terror he brought on. He sees that cop. He sees that mother and little girl. See, when you’re distracted, out talking, mingling, doing all your treachery, you don’t have time to ponder. Your power is reinforced out with others. If you’re like Hoss, you’re fawned over by other inmates with their perverted respect. Take that same man, though, and put him away and see what kind of man he is. That’s the worst thing you can do to him. And, you know, that’s what should be done. Lock these guys up for the rest of their lives. Let them rot away thinking of their miserable lives. Let them face themselves. But Hoss thought as long as he didn’t kill or assault staff, he’d never be locked up, at least for long, and could always go back to pop to bask in his glory as chief thug.

  With the November winds came more frightening incidents. An even darker mood seemed to descend upon the old prison.

  23

  No one could say for sure when the talk turned serious, turned to murder. It would take some doing to pull it off, but many things had fallen in place that allowed such perfidy to advance. Foremost among these was that, by serendipity or destiny, three like-thinkers had met and, despite being in Western Penitentiary’s mos
t secure setting, managed to intrigue and plot in the Home Block.

  The first member of this fetid trio was the small, dark-haired George Butler, who had earned his place in prison through murders committed the previous year. In December 1971, Butler had entered the Beechwood Inn, twelve miles outside Bedford, Pennsylvania, looking for cash. He’d been there before, and on more than one occasion had received a free hot meal—when he was down on his luck—from the inn’s two kindly proprietors, Mary Deremer and Marguerite Snyder, both age seventy. The women, Christian and trusting, were known to have served many who could not pay. That Butler had been a recipient of their benevolence meant little to him, however. He wanted money.

  It was some time later that a man stopped at the inn for cigarettes and called the police. First to arrive was Corporal Mike Toranczyk of the state police. Toranczyk had visited the inn frequently over the years. A favored customer, he was allowed to go into the kitchen and make his own sandwich on the women’s thick slices of homemade bread. Now the trooper was sickened. The place was ransacked, the cash register emptied. Mary Deremer had been shot once between the eyes; Marguerite Snyder had been shot three times, in the neck and body.

  A year passed before the net closed around George Butler. In August 1972, Butler pled guilty to robbery and murder and received two consecutive life sentences. The community and law enforcement wanted the death penalty, but, only two months earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5–4 vote, had ruled capital punishment to be “cruel and unusual,” and thus had removed execution as an option for any murderer. The ruling was also retroactive; nationwide, those already under a death sentence were spared.

  Shipped to Western Pen to serve his time, Butler ran afoul of the rules and earned time in the Home Block. It was here he met the second member of the trio, Danny Delker.

  Delker was nearly always locked up for one thing or another. Same with his family; a few years earlier, his worn-down mother had had to visit him in turn with his three brothers and his dad, all simultaneously imprisoned in various jails. Delker was typical of the criminal class. He was only technically a school dropout, as he’d barely dropped in. Why study or work when things could be stolen? With this attitude, stirred by an explosive temper, it was only a matter of time before his first mug shot.

  After assorted property offenses, Delker pulled an armed robbery at a supermarket. Only nineteen years old but already married with an infant boy, Delker’s crimes earned him six to twelve years at Western Pen. By 1973, he had dimmed his chances for parole by occasional fights, mostly with black prisoners, and by a recent incident in which he’d busted up his sink and toilet in a fit of rage. Still, all he had to do was stay quiet, out of the way for a while, and he’d soon be a free man.

  In September, though, Delker took a beating when jumped by three blacks. This may have been payback for the times Delker had done the same or, with racial tension at the pen as thick as day-old stew, it may have been random, for the fun of it. Two of the three assaulters, Melvin “Whiskey” Sermons and Brady Jackson, had been grabbed up by the guards. The following day, September 22, the pair was taken into the Third Gate area and placed in a small room across from the major’s office to await a hearing. They sat quietly, handcuffed.

  Though Delker’d had a day to cool off, he hadn’t. From a distance, he watched Sermons and Jackson escorted inside. Knowing from experience there was usually a wait before a hearing, Delker lied his way past the Third Gate. He was patted down, then cleared to walk in. The first room to the right held an open window. It was here Delker stuck his hand out to receive a shiv from a friend standing outside. With the blade up his sleeve, Delker moseyed along the corridor before turning into the room across from the major’s office.

  Sermons and Jackson barely had time to notice just who stood before them. Handcuffed, they didn’t have a prayer. In seconds, Whiskey Sermons was dead. Jackson yelled out but was repeatedly stabbed before a guard wrestled Delker to the floor. Despite spilling as much blood as Sermons, Jackson somehow survived.

  Delker was taken to the Home Block. In his cell that night he heard congratulations for the stabbings from George Butler. And from Stanley Hoss. It was these three, who’d already accumulated six bodies among them, who’d now conspire to kill again, for killing’s sake. They just needed to pick their victim.

  . . .

  For longer than anyone could remember, the Home Block had housed the prison’s most dangerous and unruly, but that was not its earliest purpose. Originally, Western Penitentiary had incarcerated both male and female convicts. Indeed, when the huge gate had first swung open nine decades earlier, twelve forlorn souls had shuffled in, eleven men and one woman— an embezzler. To separate the genders, a stand-alone structure had been built within Western’s 11½ acres. Situated just inside the southern wall, it was as far removed as possible from the main prison’s daily hum.

  The few women incarcerated in Western Pen were housed here, in the long, two-story red brick building that looked at first glance like a large house—if one with bars on its tall windows. Behind those windows, six on each side, were forty barren cells. The new female inmates, disheartened by the starkness of the interior, worked together to brighten their new living quarters, fashioning sheets into drapes, weaving rugs, covering lampshades with pretty yarns, and decorating tabletops with doilies … yes, just like home. The name stuck: the Home Block.

  With the opening of a women’s prison in 1920, however, the Home Block was emptied of the fairer sex, leaving the “prison within the prison” free for another use. It was after a 1924 riot—when toughs known as the Four Horseman smuggled in guns and dynamite and killed two officers in the ensuing battle—that Western’s administrators determined that the Home Block would now be used to house those prisoners markedly jeopardous to others.

  To prisoners worldwide, any place of punishment within a prison is called “the hole.” In this sense, the entire Home Block was Western Penitentiary’s hole. However, the Home Block had its own punishment area, not often seen: ten basement cells, all in a row. These cells comprised the real hole at Western.

  Governor Milton Shapp visited Western in February 1972, while Joseph Brierly was still superintendent. During his five-hour tour, the governor said he was pleased the unfortunates behind bars were being granted more rights, greater freedoms. He heard no mention that in some quarters there was emphatic opposition to his views.

  “I was one of the escorts for the governor,” said Sgt. Doug Cameron, “and I’ll tell you, I wish he’d never come. I took him into the hospital and no inmate was handcuffed. We weren’t even allowed in the room with the governor when he’s pow-wowing with these guys—Spruill, Logan … i mean, these were dangerous suckers.”

  Governor Shapp was impressed with the mammoth north and south blocks, which had a combined capacity of some eleven hundred cells. He was particularly interested watching the production of license plates. Last on the agenda was a trip to the Home Block.

  “So we go there and he walks around the whole place,” recalled Cameron,

  asking questions as he goes. The lieutenant of the block, Walt Peterson, came around with us. Then Shapp asked to see “down below.” There’s no access from inside so we all go outside to a set of steps which led to the basement. He told us he heard it was called the “subterranean dungeon,” but it was clean, dry, even bright with white paint and lights, but the inmates always played up the dungeon aspect and the news media ran with it. Shapp said, “Don’t you think it’s severe putting someone down here?” Peterson explained those brought to the basement were dangerous or acting dangerous, or at the very least disruptive, often out of control. Then the superintendent chimed in: “Governor, this is a last measure for us. The ones in the Home Block are the worst of the lot and have really done something to get sent here in the first place. The basement is an important tool for us to keep order in a tough place. We’ve even, as you see, had to encase the porcelain toilets with cement as they started busting those
up, too. It’s always move, countermove. We draw upon Dr. Thomas and our psych staff to see if mental health issues are involved. If so, we go that route, hospitalization and so forth, but if the inmate is just being hateful and aggressive he has to face a consequence which will stop that behavior. In all respect, sir, it works. There is a sense of isolation the inmates do not like. For serious assault a man can serve some weeks but for the most part we have to handle the disruptive ones, the yelling, keeping others up all night. Yet no one is given a set time to serve in the basement, like 3 or 5 days. They are checked hourly, and we keep precise logs on this. It’s more or less a ‘cry uncle’ situation. When the inmate makes assurance he’ll stop the offending conduct, he’ll be brought back upstairs. Frequent is the case where the mere mention of getting sent below has a corrective effect.”

  “The super’s words were reasonable; I even saw the governor’s aides nodding,” said Cameron, “but then Shapp followed with, ‘Do you consider this down here, the basement, as sensory deprivation?’ The superintendent answered carefully, ‘It is in its way, Governor, but that’s the point.’

  “After that, we’re going up the stairs after leaving the basement,” recalled Cameron, “when the governor said, ‘I don’t want to see that basement used again.’ Brierly said, ‘But we have to have this … ,’ but Shapp cut him off, saying again, spacing each word, ‘I don’t want to see that basement used again.’ Lt. Peterson and me looked at each other and just shook our heads.”

  The next morning’s press announcement jolted prison administrations statewide: “The basement section called the ‘hole,’ a solitary confinement symbol of prison punishment for years, has been abolished at Western Penitentiary, according to Governor Milton J. Shapp, who disclosed that Warden Joseph Brierly agreed to closing the ‘hole.’ Eliminating the medieval character at Western is part of a statewide prison reform program.”