REPORT: PRISON STORY
FILE #: 112

Jarod works as a prison guard Jarod Bradley in the Oakfield Penitentiary to prove the innocence of Carl Will, a man on the death row, who is accused of killing an inmate. Will, however, insists on being innocent.

Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots, are lead into a small motel by Jarod. There, they are to wait for a cowboy, who is going to make a phone call in the phone booth that can be observed from the motel. Miss Parker is extremely tense.

Jarod has little time, only a few days, because the execution is scheduled for the coming Saturday. He talks to an old inmate, who tells him that this prison had always been a rough place. Carl Will, however, had never been aggressive and was going to be released on parole only one week after the murder.

In the motel room, Broots finds a Monopoly game and spends some time with it while waiting. Miss Parker, in the meantime, is doing worse and worse. Finally, she breaks down in pain, so that Sydney and Broots have to call a doctor. The latter diagnoses Miss Parker a stomach ulcer and advises her to live a less stressful life and quit smoking. Sydney tells her she also needs to get her feelings concerning Jarod under control, to which she simply replies that it’s already too late for that (whatever that means…).

Will’s daughter, who has become a lawyer to help her father, tells Jarod that Carl already had a job outside prison and that there’s no way he would have done this to her. When he brings him his food, Jarod learns Will’s side of the story: He had heard that someone was going to get killed. When he arrived at the scene, he was knocked out and later blamed for the murder. Jarod also asks him if he feels like the walls are moving in on him when he stares at them long enough. Will replies that this can only come from a man who’s been on the other side of the bars.

When Jarod continues his investigation, he finds out that there had been several deaths in the penitentiary during the last couple of years. All the victims had previously been transferred from the Joliet penitentiary to Oakfield. Jarod now suspects that corrupt prison guards had been trying to eliminate “loose ends” – convicts with Mafia ties- by killing them and thus silencing them. Carl Will had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the phone booth, the cowboy finally shows up. Miss Parker forces him with a gun to give her Jarod’s message. It’s a Monopoly card: Go directly to prison, do not pass go, do not collect $ 200…that’s when it suddenly dawns on Miss Parker what Jarod is up to.

In the meantime, Jarod finds the corrupt guard, a man named Morris Clancy. On the day of the execution, he pretends that something isn’t working in the gas chamber and thus lures Clancy to enter the chamber. The door closes and the guard is trapped. Jarod confronts Clancy with his deeds and gets him to confess. The whole conversation is transmitted to the speakers and heard by the entire staff as well as all the prisoners. Before leaving, Jarod finally pushes the button that releases the gas, letting Clancy feel the fear of death. Obviously, Jarod had replaced the substance with a harmless one before.

When Jarod passes Carl Will’s cell, the latter asks him if he doesn’t think it’s cruel not to tell Morris Clancy that the gas is actually harmless. Jarod replies no.

Outside, Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots are just rushing into the prison, in front of which a crowd of demonstrators had gathered. Among them, Jarod finds perfect cover.