Murder of David Knapps

The murder of David Knapps (December 8, 1950 — December 28, 1999), a corrections officer, occurred on December 28, 1999, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. On that date, a group of six inmates, who were all convicted murderers serving life imprisonment at the facility itself, orchestrated a prison escape attempt and took three correction officers hostage, and during the siege itself, Corrections Captain David Knapps, then 49 years old, was murdered by the group before they were surrounded by armed guards. One of the six perpetrators, Joel Durham, was killed by the guards before the remaining members were subdued and arrested.

The surviving five inmates, known as the Angola 5, were all charged with the murder of Captain Knapps. Out of the five, two members, Jeffrey Clark and David Brown, were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, while the rest – David Mathis, Barry Edge and Robert Carley – were all sentenced to life without parole for their respective roles in the murder. Provided by Wikipedia