Thora_Jay
Verified Retired Correctional Officer
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2015
- Messages
- 732
- Reaction score
- 4,415
Ok, thank you.
One of the facilities that I worked for, a certain time each shift a "trash run" would be held. One inmate from each unit would bring bags of trash out from the unit that they resided in and it would be placed inside a room in which that room would have a heavy steel bar that was padlocked from the inside and an Officer had to retrieve the padlock key from the Control Room a few minutes prior to the trash run. The trash bags were not searched unless there was probable cause and in my many many years of service, I never saw a trash bag searched. After the inmate places the trash in the area, the Officer then goes through 2 padlocked doors and brings the bags out to the dumpster located just outside of the facility door.
While doing a trash run on May 15th years ago, yes I remember the day and I have never forgotten it. On that day, a new Officer walked past me when I was in the corridor exiting the trash room. He had a look about him that I cannot explain for anyone to know that he had an off the wall look. I asked him if he was ok and he told me that he was not ok. But he was relieved that I had asked him that in that place and time.
He went on to tell me that his father's friend was murdered in a facility where his father used to work as a Correctional Officer. I was stunned and asked him to tell me more he told me that his father worked with a woman named Donna Payant. Donna worked for Green Haven in New York. Her father worked at the Clinton Dannemora Prison for 28 years. Donna's husband worked for Clinton/Dannemora and Donna requested a transfer there from Green Haven i 1981. Donna had just became a Correctional Officer. On 15 May 1981 Donna was murdered in the prison chapel by free-range inmate Lemuel Smith. Smith had a horrifying record before he became the prison free-range.
Donna was a Correctional Officer in the Green Haven Maximum Security Prison in New York State. Yet with all of the security, Donna was tortured, murdered and dumped with the trash.
I have to say that since my co-worker who in a short time became my good friend informed me of his father's friend/co-worker Donna, I never would have know about her and I never would have thought that I would still think about her long after retirement. I always think of Donna, more so in the month of May.
Donna was married and had a husband with three children.
Her father worked for Clinton and so did her husband.
Please, if you have the time, research Donna Payant (Correctional Officer victim) and Lemuel Smith)
That encounter doing that trash forever planted the seed in my mind never to forget what happened to Donna that day. I also made such a good friend. That is so good. The bad thing is that security has not stepped up and the horror that happened to Donna was not taken serious, if Donna's murder was taken serious, drastic measures would have been implored in all facilities nation wide.
Oh, and while you are at it, please check the times of when Donna went missing and when the inmate lock down finally occurred. It will have you seething.
Here are a few links if you would like to know more about Donna;
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/18/n...gregated-from-other-inmates-for-51-years.html
http://www.leagle.com/decision/198410463NY2d41_1101
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/07/nyregion/two-time-murderer-accused-of-killing-a-prison-guard.html
I'm not even sure I can say my post was related. 
Umm... Wow.