Murder Unpunished: How the Aryan Brotherhood Murdered Waymond Small and Got Away with It

I worked in the AZ prison system for over 20 years. Tells how everything started with the AB's in the AZ prison system. Great read. Highly suggest you get it.

Great book on Aryan Brotherhood in Arizona and the Prison riot.

Murder Unpunished: How the Aryan Brotherhood Murdered Waymond Small and Got Away With It is a telling example of the truth that entering prison is like entering another culture or country. The rules, customs, and behaviors are foreign to those in the free world. People outside of the walls will never be able to appreciate or accept. The problem, however, is that the prisons are within our country and need to abide by the laws of the United States of America. This book did an excellent job of asking the question, "does justice occur after incarceration?" The short answer is, no. The bigger question to ask is, "when will this country enact laws that can adequately deal with prison gangs and the control that they have in our criminal justice system?" This book is a telling example of all the state and federal correctional facilities will experience with any prison gangs that occupy them. It is a must read for all correctional employees and lawmakers.

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Inmates bent on running the asylum in an out-of-control prison dominated by homicidal gangs. Official corruption. Fraudulent land scales. A car bombing. Jurisdictional struggles. Hypnosis. A hung-over judge. Prosecutorial misconduct. A senile attorney.What might sound like the ingredients of an over-wrought novel are the facts of Durango author Thornton W. Price III's nonfiction true crime book, "Murder Unpunished," published by The University of Arizona Press on July 1.The cast of characters includes a future U.S. Supreme Court justice (Sandra Day O'Connor), a future Democratic presidential candidate (Bruce Babbitt) and the man who pioneered the psychological autopsy (Dr. Otto Bendheim).But most of the players in this extraordinary peek at Arizona State Prison run amok came straight from Satan's casting call, even down to the unfortunate Waymond Small, possibly one of the nation's least likable murder victims.The time is the late 1970s. In less than two years, there have been 14 murders and dozens of assaults at Arizona State Prison. The Arizona Republic has cast a relentless eye on the mayhem. The political pressure to do something ratchets up. And finally the Aryan Brotherhood takes a bridge too far with the murder of Small on the eve of his testimony to the state legislature.Price, the author, was a young attorney. One of the inmates charged in connection with Small's death-a group collectively known as the Florence Eleven-ends up being Price's first murder case.Tempting though it must have been, Price wisely avoids much use of the first-person in this economically written account of five murder trials. When he does resort to it, it's justified by the insight it offers.My own first nonfiction true crime book, "Someone Has to Die Tonight," is scheduled to be published as a Pinnacle mass market paperback in March. I know the challenge Price took on in combing through 16,000 pages of court records and conducting interviews with key players for his narrative.I also know how his involvement in the case probably made the task harder. I became a confidential informant in the case of a self-styled teen militia that I was documenting. Separating oneself from the story and keeping the narrative focused becomes more difficult when there's a personal connection.The Florence Eleven was the case for Price: The case that every cop, attorney or crime reporter knows about-the one you never forget. In spite of this, Price showed remarkable discipline in his writing, and it serves his readers well.My literary attorney, Bob Pimm, counseled me to make my book a train ride that readers wouldn't want to get off. The train needs to take off in the first chapter, he said, and the reader needs to want to say on all the way to the end.Price kept me on the train."Murder Unpunished" has moments of writing that jumps out for its eloquence or economy. He describes one murder in two pithy sentences: "Even with a loaded gun to his head, the idiot wouldn't shut up. He'd dared him to shoot, so he did."And here's how one of the large cast is introduced: "With a thin, six-foot-seven-inch frame, Jerry Joe `Stretch' Hillyer looked like he'd survived the rack."And here, another: "Born in Scottsdale one week before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tidwell's life began in as much ruin as the Pacific Fleet."Price knows we need humor in a dark tale ridden with murder, rape and drug abuse, and he finds it (somehow it always seems to be there, even in the darkest crime, often because of the extraordinary stupidity of some criminals, whose choices in life seem determined to provide job security for police and prosecutors)."Did you see anything?" a tired investigator asks in one of 650 inmate interviews after Small's murder."No.""Would you tell us if you had seen anything?"And then there's Price's account of the state's attempts to hypnotize a witness, a chapter that may alone justify the book's $17.95 cover price.True crime is a tempting genre for the very reason that makes readers sometimes skeptical the writer could really know all he portrays. How could we know people's thoughts? How could we recapture dialog years after the fact?It's possible because of the uniquely thorough nature of investigative and court records, around which entire books can be built. It's not an easy task sifting thousands of pages for the specks of gold that add up to a compelling narrative. There are a lot of mediocre true crime books out there. Price's is not one of them.Here we find a writer unafraid to show a criminal's sheer enjoyment of violence. A writer who's resisted the temptation to include every fact or exchange he personally finds compelling, restraint that must sometimes have been painful.He knows court procedure and introduces us to terms such as the "slow-form guilty plea"-the trial of someone obviously guilty from the get-go.He shows us the Mau Maus, the Mexican Mafia, the Native Brotherhood and the Aryan Brotherhood out of control in Arizona's penal system and what was done to fix it. He gets the prison language of kites, fish and punks exactly right in a sometimes profane book that avoids overdosing on cussing and violence.He explains very well why prison crimes are so singularly hard to investigate.Down among the human dross, Price somehow emerges with none of the nastiness sticking to him or the reader. Better, he somehow makes us care.He gives fascinating insight into how the Aryan Brotherhood worked, like a business. And he offers some motivation without making excuses for his unattractive cast.The case comes as close to Durango as Chimney Rock, just off Highway 160.Despite a misprint in the spelling of Price's name on the cover (one of those palm to the forehead blunders that has probably cost some hapless copyeditor restful sleep) "Murder Unpunished" is otherwise flawlessly edited.This is entertaining, educational and compelling. I hope Price will find another case somewhere in his career worth writing about.

`Murder Unpunished: How the Aryan Brotherhood Murdered Waymond Small and Got Away with It' by Thornton W. Price III, has brought to life the events that I only remembered through newscast snippets and the occasional news paper editorial.`Murder Unpunished' allows the reader to contemplate the concepts of the law being rational, yet the interpretation of the law may seem irrational. The reader can also reflect on why a person can act despicable yet still receive grace. Mr. Price presents the reader with an opportunity to question the concepts of revenge and universal justice. These themes of duality, like old friends, are revisited here in the pages penned by Mr. Price from his autobiographical and historic perspectives that have matured over time. He is unapologetic.I for one wish to apologize for the state of Arizona's justice.

This book was very informitive about the code that convicts live under. Its a testament to learning to keeping your mouth shut when you do some dirt. Prison gangs are hardcore and the Aryan Brotherhood was formed in california with blood and sacrafice to protect white inmates, anybody who joins knows the commitment they are making as a soildier ( blood in blood out )