Inmates Who Didn’t Make it Home

The Bureau of Justice Statistics says that approximately 68% of released prisoners in the U.S. are re-arrested within three years and 83% within nine years. Some inmates reoffend before they make it back into the free world.

Christian Knighten

Christian Knighten appeared on an episode of Lockup: Raw. He calmly told the show producers about his brutal crimes as if he were discussing the latest horror flick he’d watched. The occasional smile he broadcast worsened the eeriness of the interview. He later told Stories Written By A Current Prisoner that MSNBC created a narrative of his crimes.

In 1998, Knighten, of Los Angeles, was charged with murder and sent to Los Angeles Men’s Central Jail to await trial.

Knighten grew up idolizing the gang culture and lifestyle. He was heavily associated with the Sorenos, but dreamed of becoming part of the La Em, aka the Mexican Mafia, while behind bars. He was confident a judge would convict him of the murder; he wanted to go to prison as a feared man.

At Central Jail, Knighten, along with inmates Dennis Ray Morris and Frankie Lujan, brutally stabbed inmate Robert Tiernan 19 times. Correctional officers found his body bound and beaten inside a shower stall.

Knighten was found not guilty of the murder that landed him in jail. He was shocked. A judge convicted him of the murder of Tiernan. He was sentenced to 79 years and sent to Corcoran State Prison. He has since debriefed from the Mexican Mafia. He now serves his time at Salinas Valley State Prison. He will be eligible for parole in January 2031.

Tyrone Brown

Tyrone Brown received a life sentence after testing positive for marijuana.

Initially, he had been sentenced to probation.

It was 1990 when the 17-year-old robbed a man of his wallet, which contained $2 in cash. No one was hurt, and Brown returned the wallet after the adrenaline rush faded and he realized what he had done. He was arrested, but the judge gave him a second chance, sentencing him to 10 years’ probation.

Each month, Brown was required to meet with his probation officer. The P.O. had the discretion to drug test him for illicit substances. At one meeting, Baldwin failed a drug test when he tested positive for marijuana. The probation officer revoked Brown’s probation, and the presiding judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Brown served 17 years before Texas Governor Rick Perry issued him a conditional parole. He was released on March 16, 2007.

Daniel Baldwin

I’m one of those people who has had the unfortunate encounter of meeting several pedophiles in my line of work, and learning more than one person should know during my research for true crime stories. One thing I frequently notice is that, whether or not they ever act on it again, abhorrent thoughts never leave the minds of most pedophiles.

New Jersey man Daniel Baldwin is similar to those horrible creatures I’ve encountered. In 2008, he was sentenced to a 10-year federal sentence on child pornography charges. While incarcerated at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey, correctional officers found him in possession of a phone that someone had smuggled into the prison. On the phone, officers found more child pornography materials. A judge added 10 years to his original sentence. Good job, judge.

Taylor Sanchez

In June 2025, Taylor Sanchez, a 29-year-old inmate at Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, WI, pleaded no contest to the July 2023 murder of her cellmate, 68-year-old Cindy Schultz-Juedes.

Police arrested Sanchez after she called her mother from prison phones and confessed that she killed her cellmate because she was off her schizophrenia medication, heard voices, and thought that Cindy was using her toothbrush to clean the toilet.

Sanchez had been serving a two-year prison sentence when the attack occurred. She now faces up to life in prison without parole when sentenced.