EP 70 "The Bloodiest 47 Acres In America": The Dungeon Survival of JB Johnson PART II

If you don't like to think about having to eat a rat raw.....or not seeing the sky for 18 years.... might not be the story for you. Just to jog your memory, we spent EPISODE 68 doing a deep-dive into the very morbid history of one of the US’s oldest and most infamous prisons—the Missouri State Penitentiary—and we ended with a promise to give you the full scoop on one of the most gripping survival stories from one of its inmates that we’ve ever encountered. Definitely go listen to Part 1 if you haven’t but just as a quick refresher; this story begins in the year 1882 when unlucky thief JB Johnson decided that he couldn’t bear to spend one more day sharing one tiny cell and a poop bucket with 12 other men. So, he and a few like-minded buddies swung for the fences and made a dramatic escape attempt that dramatically failed. Since the Mo Pen had a reputation for being a place where a prisoner could be whipped within a millimeter of his life for simply speaking during meal time….it will come as no shock that JB now found himself—for lack of a better phrase—utterly fucked. In the prison’s (insert number of years) lifespan, JB would be the only man who would spend more years in solitary confinement than any other inmate in recorded prison history and live to tell his story. So. Take a deep breath of fresh air and one last glance at the sky before we must follow JB Johnson down, down, down into the dungeon of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Lights Out Campers.SOURCES:"Buried Alive:18 Years in the Missouri Penitentiary" by James B.Johnson & Chas E. Hoffmanhttps://www.missouripentours.com/history/timeline/https://www.visitjeffersoncity.com/blog/post/the-tough-guys-stories-from-within-the-missouri-state-penitentiary/