THOMSON, Ill. — Editor's note: The video above is from June 9.
A federal grand jury indicted a 25-year-old inmate at United States Penitentiary Thomson for the murder of his former cellmate back in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Northern District of Illinois.
Houston A. Clyde faces the following charges:
- Second-degree murder.
- Assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
- Possession of a weapon.
Clyde allegedly stabbed his former cellmate "numerous times," ultimately resulting in their death in November 2020, according to the release from the district.
If convicted, Clyde will be in prison for the rest of his life. Second-degree murder carries a life sentence, assault carries 10 years and possession of a weapon carries 5 years.
This announcement comes just a few weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would be investigating allegations of abuse by prison staff and deaths among inmates.
The release of a "disturbing" report from NPR and the Marshall Project details the deaths of several incarcerated men. Some of the allegations include:
- Staff purposely stoked tensions between cellmates and paired together men they knew would attack each other.
- Staff encouraged assaults against sex offenders and informants.
- Abusive shackling left scars known as “the Thomson tattoo,” sometimes in a room known as the “torture room,” where men would lie shackled to a bed for hours in their own urine and feces without food or water.
- Staff laughed and joked at the expense of a Jewish man as he lay dying in a hospital following an assault that occurred after staff placed him in a recreation cage with known white supremacists.
- USP Thomson had the highest pepper spray usage out of all facilities within the Bureau of Prisons.
- Staff punished men who refused to be housed with cellmates they believed would kill them.
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