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Pablo Lucio Vasquez, the Texas Vampire, was executed for killing a 12-year-old boy
and - according to his own account - drinking the child's blood - he had a message for
relatives of his victim:
"You got your justice right here."
It was, perhaps, a reminder that justice can be harsh, regardless of whether or not
you think it fair.
And sometimes justice can be very harsh indeed, even for those who are not
executed.
While some prison sentences provoke cries of horror that a criminal will be out of jail
way too soon, in a few cases, it's quite the opposite.
Chamoy Thipyaso, Thailand - 141,078 years
The longest prison sentence handed down by a court is thought to be that received by
Chamoy Thipyaso of Thailand, who in 1989 was given a jail term of 141,078 years.
The wife of a senior Thai air force officer, Thipyaso had been involved in a pyramid
scheme that defrauded 16,231 people out of a total of about 2 million.
Given that some of her victims had allegedly been members of the Thai royal
household, she probably wasn't expecting leniency.
Thipyaso, however, was lucky in one respect because in 1989 Thai law decreed that
regardless of the sentence given, the maximum time anyone could actually spend
behind bars for fraud was 20 years.
Otman el-Gnaoui, Spain - 42,924 years
A similar technicality applied to terrorist Otman el-Gnaoui, who was given a 42,924year prison sentence by a Spanish court for mass murder due to his part in the 2004
Madrid train bombings.
His accomplice Jamal Zougam got 42,922 years for involvement in the bombings
that claimed 191 lives.
As in Thailand, however, Spanish law limits the time that can actually be spent in jail,
so in practice the longest either man will remain in prison is 40 years.

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Charles Scott Robinson, US - 30,000 years

When it comes to sentences where there is no hope of anything like a 40-year limit
on time really served, the longest might be that of Oklahoma child rapist Charles
Scott Robinson.
In 1994 a jury recommended 5,000 years' jail for each of the six counts against him.
Then District Judge Dan Owens decided he was weary of criminals serving only a
portion of their time. So to guarantee that Robinson wouldn't be released early from
any of the 5,000-year sentences, Judge Owens ordered them to be served
consecutively rather than concurrently - landing the child rapist with a 30,000-year
jail term.
"I think I can assure that you will spend the rest of your natural life in the confines of
the Department of Corrections," the judge informed Robinson, who couldn't get
parole until he was at least 108.
Darron Bennalford Anderson, US - 11,250 years

So many Years in Jail

Staying in the incarceration-happy state of Oklahoma, a contender for the most

catastrophic appeal in judicial history might be that launched by rapist Darron
Bennalford Anderson.
After being convicted of the robbery, kidnap and rape of an elderly woman in 1993,
Anderson appealed, perhaps hoping to have a century or two knocked off his original
2,200-year sentence.

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It went well for him at first. He won a new trial. That, however, also ended in
conviction. And this time the jury decided his sentence should be 11,250 years - thus
extending his jail term by 9,050 years.
Anderson is due for release on August 1 9746. Which gives him plenty of time to
contemplate the fact his efforts have secured him a Guinness World Record entry for
"the greatest amount of jail time given as a result of an appeal."
When it came to appeals, Anderson's accomplice Allan Mc Laurin was luckier. He got
500 years lopped off his sentence. Although since the original jail term was 21,250
years, he wasn't that lucky.
Dudley Wayne Kyzer, US - 10,000 years
To find America's longest sentence for a single count, you have to move to Alabama,
where "Halloween murderer" Dudley Wayne Kyzer of Tuscaloosa got 10,000 years
for killing his wife.
Desbribed as a "born killer" by one prosecutor, Kyzer was convicted of killing his
estranged wife, Diane Kyzer, his mother-in-law, Eunice Barringer, and Rick Pyron, a
college student, who by complete mischance was at the Barringer home on
Halloween in 1976.
He was sentenced to death in 1977, but in 1980 the US Supreme Court overturned
Alabama's death penalty as unconstitutional, so Kyzer was retried. The result was
that in 1981 he received two life sentences for the killings of Ms Barringer and Mr
Pyron, plus the 10,000 years for murdering his wife.
Friends of Kyzer, now 74, say he has become a born-again Christian in prison and
feels remorse. He was denied parole - for the 10th time - last month.
Charles Scott Robinson, US - 30,000 years
When it comes to sentences where there is no hope of anything like a 40-year limit
on time really served, the longest might be that of Oklahoma child rapist Charles
Scott Robinson.
In 1994 a jury recommended 5,000 years' jail for each of the six counts against him.
Then District Judge Dan Owens decided he was weary of criminals serving only a
portion of their time. So to guarantee that Robinson wouldn't be released early from

LatestLaws.com

any of the 5,000-year sentences, Judge Owens ordered them to be served

consecutively rather than concurrently - landing the child rapist with a 30,000-year
jail term.
"I think I can assure that you will spend the rest of your natural life in the confines of
the Department of Corrections," the judge informed Robinson, who couldn't get
parole until he was at least 108.
Darron Bennalford Anderson, US - 11,250 years

Long Jail Terms

Staying in the incarceration-happy state of Oklahoma, a contender for the most

catastrophic appeal in judicial history might be that launched by rapist Darron
Bennalford Anderson.
After being convicted of the robbery, kidnap and rape of an elderly woman in 1993,
Anderson appealed, perhaps hoping to have a century or two knocked off his original
2,200-year sentence.
It went well for him at first. He won a new trial. That, however, also ended in
conviction. And this time the jury decided his sentence should be 11,250 years - thus
extending his jail term by 9,050 years.
Anderson is due for release on August 1 9746. Which gives him plenty of time to
contemplate the fact his efforts have secured him a Guinness World Record entry for
"the greatest amount of jail time given as a result of an appeal."

LatestLaws.com

When it came to appeals, Anderson's accomplice Allan McLaurin was luckier. He got
500 years lopped off his sentence. Although since the original jail term was 21,250
years, he wasn't that lucky.
Dudley Wayne Kyzer, US - 10,000 years
To find America's longest sentence for a single count, you have to move to Alabama,
where "Halloween murderer" Dudley Wayne Kyzer of Tuscaloosa got 10,000 years
for killing his wife.
Desbribed as a "born killer" by one prosecutor, Kyzer was convicted of killing his
estranged wife, Diane Kyzer, his mother-in-law, Eunice Barringer, and Rick Pyron, a
college student, who by complete mischance was at the Barringer home on
Halloween in 1976.
He was sentenced to death in 1977, but in 1980 the US Supreme Court overturned
Alabama's death penalty as unconstitutional, so Kyzer was retried. The result was
that in 1981 he received two life sentences for the killings of Ms Barringer and Mr
Pyron, plus the 10,000 years for murdering his wife.
Friends of Kyzer, now 74, say he has become a born-again Christian in prison and
feels remorse. He was denied parole - for the 10th time - last month.
Albert Woodfox, US - 43 years in solitary confinement
In terms of suffering while inside, it might be hard to find worse than that of Albert
Woodfox, who was released from a Louisiana jail in February after spending 43 years
in solitary confinement - despite professing his innocence.
Mr Woodfox is thought to have endured the longest stretch in solitary of any US
prisoner, spending 23 hours a day in a six-by-nine-foot cell for 43 years, and being
allowed only one hour's daily exercise in a fenced concrete yard where he was kept
shackled and alone.
He was serving time for another offence when he and two others - who became
known as the Angola Three - were convicted of the 1972 murder of a prison guard.
Mr Woodfox and his supporters claim that all three men were wrongly convicted in
retaliation for leading hunger strikes against "inhumane prison conditions" and for
being members of the jail's Black Panthers chapter.

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In 1992 Mr Woodfox's conviction was quashed on the grounds that he had not had
effective assistance of counsel, but he was convicted at a second trial in 1998. That
conviction was itself overturned in 2013 because of discrimination in the selection of
the grand jury foreman.
His release came after the state of Louisiana agreed to drop its threat to subject him
to a third trial in return for him pleading no contest to lesser charges of
manslaughter and aggravated burglary.
Mr Woodfox emphasised that his no contest plea was not an admission of guilt,
issuing a statement explaining: "Although I was looking forward to proving my
innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to
resolve this case now and obtain my release."
In 2014, he told a blogger what he was suffering in solitary: "I'm afraid I'm going to
turn into a baby and curl up in a foetal position and lay there like that day after day
for the rest of my life. I'm afraid I'm going to attack my own body, maybe cut off my
balls and throw them through the bars the way I've seen others do when they
couldn't take any more."
Paul Geidel Junior, US - 68 years and 245 days
As for the longest time anyone has spent in jail before being released to tell the tale
instead of dying of old age behind bars, that dubious honour falls to Paul Geidel
Junior.
In 1911 Geidel was a 17-year-old bellhop working in a New York hotel when he
sneaked into the room of guest William H Jackson. The wealthy 73-year-old woke up
and in the ensuing struggle, Geidel accidentally killed him by suffocating him with a
rag filled with chloroform.
Geidel's crime earned him only a few dollars. He was arrested two days later, before
being convicted of second-degree murder and sent to prison in 1911 for 20 years to
life.
A total of 68 years and 245 days later, Geidel, now aged 86, was released. By a
margin of a few months, he had beaten the record Johnson VanDyke Grigsby, who
had served 68 years and three months by the time he left Indiana State Prison in
1976.

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Geidel, who had endured bouts of insanity inside, had been granted parole in 1974,
but having been in prison all his adult life and fearing how he would cope on the
outside, he chose to stay in jail for a further six years.
He enjoyed seven years of freedom before dying in a nursing home, aged 93.