This Day in History. Richard Honeck, 84, who had served the longest prison sentence in American history, was granted parole on this day in 1963, from the Southern Illinois Penitentiary after serving 64 years incarceration. He had been incarcerated since September 2, 1899, for the brutal murder of schoolteacher Walter F. Koeller and had been eligible for parole since 1945, but had not been released because his immediate relatives had all died. On August 25, 1963, an article by Associated Press reporter Bob Poos brought the case to national attention. One of the people who read the article, Mrs. Clara Orth of San Leandro, California, agreed to take her 84-year old uncle into her home. Honeck would survive 13 more years, dying on December 28, 1976, in a nursing home at the age of 97.
The time served by Richard Honeck has been exceeded since his release in at least three cases.
Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby (1886–1987) served 66 years and 123 days at Indiana State Prison from 1908 to 1974 after stabbing a man in 1907 during a poker game/bar fight.
Joseph Ligon (1938-present) served 68 years at the State Correctional Institution – Phoenix and was at one time the oldest juvenile lifer in the US, Ligon at age 15 was sentenced in 1953 to life without parole for murder, a mandatory sentence at the time. Ligon first rejected a resentencing and parole offer in 2016. Ligon was again resentenced in 2017 and immediately eligible for parole but refused it, pending his appeal. Ligon contends that he should be resentenced to "time served" and released, so he can cut all ties to the justice system. He was released in 2021, after serving 68 years in prison.
Paul Geidel, (1894–1987) who was convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, served 68 years and 245 days in various New York state prisons. He was released on May 7, 1980, at the age of 86. Geidel's case differed from Honeck's in several key respects. First, he was initially sentenced not to life imprisonment but to twenty years to life, but was later declared insane and was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. Secondly, Geidel was offered parole at an earlier date than was Honeck – in 1974, when he had served only 63 years. By this time, Geidel had become institutionalized and declined release, voluntarily choosing to remain confined for an additional six years.
William Heirens, (1928–2012) the "Lipstick Killer," confessed and plead guilty to three murders in Chicago in 1946, sentenced to three life terms, and imprisoned 5 September 1946. He exceeded Honeck's record of time served in August 2010. Heirens died still incarcerated on March 5, 2012.
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