It’s no spoiler to reveal that my true crime memoir Chained Birds is also part exposé of the horrific experimental prison program that operated at Pennsylvania’s Lewisburg Prison from 2009-2018. One of the book’s main characters, federal inmate Kevin Sanders, was my inside source who helped me chronicle the cruelty and bloodshed inside Lewisburg as he was swept up in prison gang violence and had hit orders issued against him. The story is structured around my 10-year advocacy of Kevin and his quest to break free of the cycle of brutality that defined his incarceration.
But long before Lewisburg Prison started housing the “worst of the worst” federal prisoners in its Special Management Unit, the historic Lewisburg Penitentiary was renowned for its famous mobster inhabitants and nicknamed “Mafia Row.”
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 5, “The Big House”:
The Big House, as it was known to locals, was a storied institution built in 1932 that, over the decades, housed a roster of notorious organized crime leaders and associates. The list included: Al Capone, a.k.a. Scarface (Chicago’s infamous Prohibition-era gangster), Whitey Bulger (at the time just a bank robber and years away from becoming Boston’s crime boss), Jimmy Hoffa (Teamsters Union president probably killed and disposed of by the mob after his release), John Gotti (head of the Gambino Crime Family, served three years there for airline hijacking), and Henry Hill (mobster-turned-informant whose story became a book and then the film Goodfellas). This unique profile earned the red-brick prison another moniker, “Mafia Row,” which harmonized with the imposing structure’s Italian Renaissance style.
CHAINED BIRDS: A TRUE CRIME MEMOIR, Chapter 5 “The Big House”
Fun fact about Capone/Scarface—he spent less than 2 hours in Lewisburg prison, yet holds a place on the mobster prison roster for causing the biggest ruckus and media frenzy for his anticipated 1939 arrival from Terminal Island prison in Los Angeles. An estimated 50 reporters and photographers gathered at Lewisburg’s prison gates to glimpse the notorious Chicago crime boss, but Capone had been whisked inside and out of a back entrance in less than two hours. No photos or interviews were captured of Capone, according to a fascinating in-depth article from the Daily Item newspaper about the history of the famously incarcerated at Lewisburg Penitentiary.
What Chained Birds and Wise Guy have in common
Mobster informant Henry Hill, made famous by Nicholas Pileggi’s 1985 book Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family—and then more famous still by the movie adaptation Goodfellas five years later—served six years in Lewisburg Prison for extortion from 1972-1978.
In my December 2023 Chained Birds book proposal, I compared the roll of Henry Hill, an associate of New York’s Lucchese crime family, to my inside informant Kevin Sanders, who helped me shed light on abuses and corruption at Lewisburg’s Special Management Unit in the early 2010s.
From my proposal:
When Wise Guy was published, Hill was still a wanted man by his gangster associates. Similarly, in Chained Birds, two hit orders are placed on Kevin Sanders’ life by two separate prison gangs, The Aryan Brotherhood and the Montañistas. And the Montañistas continue to stalk Kevin even after he goes free.
I wish to thank the National Archives’ Hilda Gitchell, from the Archives’ Still Picture Reference department, for providing me with a courtesy scan of the above 1947 photo of Lewisburg Penitentiary and confirming there are no known copyright restrictions on the image.
Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir will be published on November 12, 2024, by WildBlue Press.
Carla Conti is a true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate. Her debut book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, will be published by WildBlue Press on November 12, 2024.
