The light fixtures were removed from his cell because he ate the bulbs just to show how fierce and violent he was. The keepers are not permitted to speak with him. Radio and TV are denied him, and he is under CCTV observation 24/7. The iron bars to his cell are covered so he can’t throw anything out, and he’s not allowed to have books, newspapers or magazines. Guards call him Hannibal Lecter as in the movie, “Silence of the Lambs.”īosket is in a kind of Plexiglas cage. New York prisons built a special cell, just for him. Grinding down one end into an ice pick form, he stabbed a guard - almost killing him.īosket now occupies the most solitary confinement of any inmate in the entire nation. In one case he made a shank with a piece of metal torn from the bottom of the typewriter prison authorities gave him to type his legal cases. When he was captured and put in prison, Bosket attacked guards and threw feces on them. When Bosket was released, he returned to crime and bounced between jail cells and the street until eventually getting a life sentence in 1989. Today, the law which allows persons as young as 13 to be tried as an adult is called the Willie Bosket law. The light sentence would bring historic changes, and New York would become to the first state to change juvenile laws.

Two-hundred of those were armed robberies.īosket pleaded guilty to murdering a transit employee and was sentenced to 5 years in a youth facility as he was just 15. By Bosket’s admission, he committed more than 2,000 crimes. Even before the murders, he was a legend with a lengthy criminal record. As a boy of 15 in 1978, he murdered several people on New York’s subway. Willie Bosket has lived in the same size enclosure for twenty years. Now, imagine being in that restricted place for two decades. How long can you stand the isolation? One-hour? Two? Or are you ready to escape after a few minutes? See how long you can stay there before you start to feel claustrophobic as the walls seem to move in. Don’t take anything to read or listen to. Willie Bosket: The Most Isolated Man In America Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA).

All God's Children by Fox Butterfield