Thomas Silverstein

American murderer (1952–2019)

Thomas Edward Silverstein (born Thomas Edward Conway; February 4, 1952 – May 11, 2019) was an American criminal who spent the last 42 years of his life in prison after being convicted of four separate murders while imprisoned for armed robbery, one of which was overturned. Silverstein spent the last 36 years of his life in solitary confinement for killing corrections officer Merle Clutts at the Marion Penitentiary in Illinois. Prison authorities described him as a brutal killer and a former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Silverstein maintained that the dehumanizing conditions inside the prison system contributed to the three murders he committed. He was the longest held prisoner in solitary confinement within the Bureau of Prisons at the time of his death. Correctional officers refused to talk to Silverstein out of respect for Clutts.

Silverstein was born in Long Beach, California, to Virginia Conway. Conway had divorced her first husband in 1952 while pregnant with Silverstein and married Thomas Conway, whom Silverstein claimed was his biological father. Four years later, Virginia divorced Conway and married Sid Silverstein, who legally adopted her son. Silverstein was timid, awkward, shy, and frequently bullied as a child in the middle class neighborhood where the family lived, in part because his peers mistakenly believed he was Jewish. Virginia Silverstein demanded that her son fight back, telling the boy that if he ever came home again crying because he had been beaten up by a bully, she would be waiting to give him another beating. Silverstein states, "That's how my mom was. She stood her mud. If someone came at you with a bat, you got your bat and you both went at it." At age fourteen, Silverstein was sentenced to a California Youth Authority reformatory where, he said, his attitudes about violence were reinforced. "Anyone not willing to fight was abused." In 1971, at age nineteen, Silverstein was sent to San Quentin Prison in California for armed robbery. Four years later, he was paroled, but he was arrested soon after along with his father, Thomas Conway, and his cousin, Gerald Hoff, for three armed robberies. Their take was less than $11,000 (~$53,000 when adjusted for inflation in 2022). In 1977, Silverstein was sentenced to fifteen years for armed robbery, to be served at United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.

While at Leavenworth, Silverstein developed ties with the Aryan Brotherhood. In 1980, Silverstein was convicted of the murder of inmate Danny Atwell, who reportedly refused to serve as a mule for heroin being moved through the prison. He was sentenced to life and transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois (USP Marion), which was then a high security facility. At Marion, Silverstein was housed in the "Control Unit", a virtual solitary confinement regime reserved for extreme "management problems" (prisoners prone to assaultive and disruptive behavior) in the prison. Thomas Silverstein spent his time in solitary confinement with a constant ceiling light, ensuring uninterrupted camera surveillance. He was allowed only two phone calls per month and received his meals through a slot. In 1981, Silverstein was accused of the murder of Robert Chappelle, a member of the D. C. Blacks prison gang. Silverstein and another inmate, Clayton Fountain, were convicted and Silverstein received an additional life sentence. He avoided a possible death sentence since capital punishment on the federal level had not been reinstated yet. Silverstein maintained his innocence. While Silverstein was on trial for Chappelle's murder, the Bureau of Prisons transferred Raymond Lee "Cadillac" Smith, the national leader of the D. C. Blacks prison gang, from another prison into the control unit in Marion. From the moment Smith arrived in the control unit, prison logs show that he began trying to kill Silverstein. Silverstein received another life sentence.

On October 22, 1983, Silverstein killed correction officer Merle Clutts at USP Marion. After being let out of his cell for a shower, Silverstein used a ruse to get Clutts to walk ahead of him and positioned himself between Clutts and other officers. He stopped outside the cell of another inmate, Randy Gometz. Gometz passed a homemade prison knife to Silverstein and unlocked Silverstein's handcuffs with a homemade key. Silverstein then attacked Clutts, stabbing him multiple times. Silverstein later claimed that he murdered Clutts in retaliation for Clutts' deliberately harassing him. BOP (Bureau of Prisons) confiscates artwork when it depicts murder. A few hours later, Clayton Fountain (also an Aryan Brotherhood member) used the same strategy to kill correction officer Robert Hoffmann. USP Marion was subsequently placed on an indefinite lockdown, which ultimately lasted for 23 years. Following the murder of Clutts, Silverstein was transferred to the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, where he was placed in solitary confinement. His security status was recorded as "no human contact."

Silverstein claimed that the "no human contact" status is essentially a form of torture reserved for those who kill correctional officers. "When an inmate kills a guard, he must be punished," a Bureau of Prisons official told author Pete Earley. "We can't execute Silverstein, so we have no choice but to make his life a living hell. Otherwise other inmates will kill guards, too. There has to be some supreme punishment. Every convict knows what Silverstein is going through. We want them to realize that if they cross the same line that he did, they will pay a heavy price."