A convicted murderer believed to be the longest-serving inmate in US history has died just months before his 102nd birthday — after escaping the death penalty eight times while maintaining his innocence.
Francis Clifford Smith was just 25 when he was first sentenced to death for gunning down night watchman Grover Hart, a 68-year-old married father, during an attempted robbery on July 23, 1949.
Over the next 76 years, he was supposed to have his last meal on eight different occasions — but was spared from the electric chair each time, according to the Boston Globe.
He was believed to be the oldest inmate in the US when he died in his sleep in late June at 60 West, a secured Connecticut nursing facility that cares for older people in the justice system, the facility revealed. The 101-year-old convict was cremated without a funeral.
“Essentially, he died of old age,” 60 West spokesman David Skoczulek told the BBC. “He had very limited family involvement around his passing but we assured it was appropriate, met his wishes and was dignified.”
Smith died while still maintaining his innocence, friends confirmed to the BBC.
“I’m in here on no evidence at all,” he had also told the Globe in 2023.
His claims — and doubts from key witnesses — ultimately led to repeated plans to execute him being scrapped, often at the last moment.
Most dramatically, before his eighth planned execution, the officer who arrested Smith burst into a meeting of the Board of Pardons and declared that he believed Smith did not kill Hart.
“I’m not even sure he was present at the murder,” Major Leo Carroll announced to the Board of Pardons, according to the Boston Globe.
A key witness who connected Smith to the crime had done so in exchange for a plea deal, according to the Globe.
Witnesses later recanted their testimony later — and another man serving time for a different crime came forward and confessed to killing Hart.
Smith’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1954.
Still, he served 76 years in jail, save for three short stints of freedom, including 12 days on the run when he escaped in 1967.
He was also granted parole in 1975 — but only lasted 10 months before he was hauled back inside for a parole violation after being busted for petty larceny with a weapon.
He rejected several attempts to go back on parole, until 2020, when he agreed to go to the care home where he would finally die.
“He was 101 and a half,” Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut’s Department of Correction, told the BBC. “He did pretty well as far as longevity is concerned.”
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