Keith LaMar + The Lucasville Prison Riot Part 2

Summary

Podcast Summary: Truer Crime – “Keith LaMar + The Lucasville Prison Riot Part 2”

Host: Celisia Stanton
Date: September 8, 2025

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Episode Overview

This powerful episode continues the exploration of the 1993 Lucasville Prison Riot through the story of Keith LaMar, an inmate swept up in the chaos. Host Celisia Stanton seeks to bring humanity and nuance to the narrative, uncovering not only the broad strokes of the riot but the deeper currents of trauma, community, and justice that shaped the lives of those involved. The episode weaves together firsthand accounts, historical context, and difficult questions about the criminal justice system, focusing on the aftermath for LaMar as well as the violence and decisions made during those tense eleven days.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Outbreak and Escalation of the Riot

• Recap of events: On April 12, 1993, the Lucasville prison in Ohio was overtaken by hundreds of inmates. Eight correctional officers were taken hostage; authorities including the National Guard amassed outside (05:06).
• Inmates in K and L blocks responded differently: Keith LaMar and other men from the yard were moved to K block, seemingly for safety, but “what Keith was about to witness would be horror all its own” (05:25).
• L block prisoners kept leverage by holding hostages, leading to tense negotiations with authorities (06:00).

Communication, Negotiations, and Media

• Authorities shared little with journalists. According to reporter Michaelson Giacomo, “With this one, there was a lot of just wait and see... They could have been a lot more forthcoming and still maintained enough secrecy to get the job done” (07:06).
• Prisoners communicated their demands by writing on bedsheets and hanging them out of windows—demands which Giacomo described as “reasonable,” such as overcrowding relief and religious accommodations (07:44-08:37).

  “The overcrowding was probably the biggest thing. They said, you're jamming us in together. It's not healthy, and it's dangerous.”
  — Michaelson Giacomo (07:44)

Hostage Crisis and Tragedy

• A tense negotiation call airs, where a hostage claims, “These inmates that gave me their word that nothing's going to happen to us, and by God, they keep it” (09:35–10:37).
• Authorities escalate by shutting off water and electricity—“Prisoners responded… turn on the water and electricity or we’ll kill one of the eight hostages” (10:50).
• Prison spokesperson Tess Unwin downplays the threat, leading to horror among reporters and prisoners alike:

  “She was dismissive, very dismissive. Like, you know, she wasn't terribly worried about what their threats were. We were all horrified, frankly.”
  — Michaelson Giacomo (12:04)

• Hostage Officer Robert VanLandingham is murdered and his body is thrown out, a devastating outcome many viewed as preventable (13:07–13:25).

Surrender and Temporary Reform

• A breakthrough: Authorities agree to air prisoners’ demands in exchange for a hostage release (13:52–14:31).
• The 21-point agreement after the riot promised “no retaliation against the prisoners,” policy reform, and meaningful changes (31:44–32:01).

Violence and Dehumanization in K Block

• Keith LaMar and hundreds are stripped naked and held for hours in degrading conditions (16:45–17:59).
• In the chaos and neglect, Dennis Weaver—one of the prisoners—tries to calm others, but is murdered by fellow inmates (19:06–19:19).

  “And then, you know, we sat on the gymnasium floor for about three, four hours or whatever... They started picking us in random groups of 10 and escorting us to these holding cells. 10 naked prisoners in each of these cells, mind you.”
  — Keith Lamar (17:10, 17:59)

• The group is then put in a “strip cell” with no amenities:

  “It’s like little torture chambers that you put in to literally sweat you out.”
  — Prisoner / Narrator (20:33)

Keith LaMar’s Personal Story: Trauma and Upbringing

• Keith shares poignant memories of his childhood in a close-knit community, shaped by “love, not material things” (23:38).
• He also recounts trauma: his mother being raped while he was a child, the loss of his brother to leukemia, and moving away from his supportive grandmother to a home marked by abuse and poverty (24:07–26:53).
• The turning point: age 13, after being involved in joyriding, a judge gives his parents the option of taking him home or sending him to juvenile detention. His stepfather chooses the latter, an event that Keith marks as “the pivotal experience in my life” (27:17–28:58).

  “You become a criminal when the condition of your heart is changed, when you no longer see the people in your surrounding, literally as neighbors... So that's what makes you or turns you into a criminal. So I came away from that situation really, really converted.”
  — Keith Lamar (29:22)

After the Riot: Investigations, Pressure, and "Snitch Academy"

• Despite being locked in K block for almost the entire riot, Keith is subjected to investigation and ultimately faces a murder indictment (33:20–41:09).
• The state, lacking physical evidence, offers incentives for witness testimony:

  “You’re not allowed to pay for people’s testimony. And this is, you know, amounted to a payment... gave them ice cream and cookies. You’re not allowed to do that if you then asking guys to testify and ultimately put people on death row.”
  — Prisoner / Narrator (39:09)

• Division grows between informants (transferred to Allen Oakwood, derisively dubbed “Snitch Academy”) and prisoners who refuse to testify.
• The result is resentment and ongoing hunger and work strikes as forms of resistance within the prison (39:39–40:16).

Accusations and Consequences

• Keith is indicted for multiple murders, including those he witnessed but did not commit; authorities allege not that he killed, but that he “ordered deaths” (41:02–41:09).
• He maintains his innocence, declaring the evidence and accusations baseless, yet the machinery of justice grinds onward (41:16–41:19).

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Memorable Quotes

• "What Keith was about to witness would be a horror all its own."
  — Celisia Stanton (05:25)
• "She was dismissive. ...We were all horrified, frankly. ...oh, my God, did she just say that?"
  — Michaelson Giacomo (12:04)
• "That's one of my fondest childhoods, growing up in this place of community… it was primarily about love, not material things..."
  — Keith Lamar (23:38)
• "You become a criminal when the condition of your heart is changed... That’s what makes you or turns you into a criminal."
  — Keith Lamar (29:22)
• "The group called out for a guard, and after about 30 minutes, they finally came to remove the body. The group of prisoners was then moved to what's called a strip cell..."
  — Celisia Stanton (19:41)
• "We're not saying you killed anybody, we're saying that you ordered deaths."
  — Keith Lamar quoting authorities (41:02)

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• 05:06 — Authorities storm the yard; chaos in L and K blocks diverges
• 07:44 — Reporters decipher inmate demands via bedsheet banners
• 09:35 — Hostage confirms humane treatment by inmates, presses for negotiations
• 10:50 — Prisoners threaten to kill hostages as utilities are cut
• 13:07 — Officer VanLandingham’s body is thrown from the prison
• 16:45–19:19 — K block: prisoners are stripped, held, witness Dennis Weaver’s murder
• 22:12–29:22 — Keith Lamar narrates formative childhood memories, trauma, and his “conversion”
• 31:44–32:01 — Standoff ends; 21-point agreement and promises of reform
• 33:20–41:16 — Investigation aftermath: incentivized witness testimony, “Snitch Academy,” accusations against Keith
• 41:02–41:19 — Keith is indicted for ordering deaths, protests innocence

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Tone & Style

Celisia Stanton’s approach is empathetic, probing, and unafraid of complexity. She maintains the voices of those directly involved, offering both narrative distance and deeply personal engagement—particularly in her conversations with Keith Lamar.

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Notable Takeaways

• Institutional failure and dehumanization: The state’s disregard for inmate safety and the psychological impact of dehumanizing conditions are central.
• Unreliable witness testimony: The prosecution’s reliance on incentivized informants raises questions about justice and due process.
• Transformation and trauma: Keith’s journey highlights how structural violence, community loss, and childhood trauma intersect on the path to incarceration.
• Resistance and humanity: Even in the face of brutality, prisoners’ efforts to assert their demands and maintain their dignity form a powerful counter-narrative.

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Next episode: The legal aftermath for Keith LaMar, the credibility of state evidence, and the broader implications for the justice system.

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For further reading and ways to support incarcerated writers, Stanton highlights The Prison Journalism Project.

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This thorough and nuanced episode is essential listening for anyone interested in true crime, prison reform, or the profound human costs of institutional violence and injustice.

Transcript

[Celicia Stanton]

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[Michaelson Giacomo]

My name is Ed. Everyone say hello Ed.

[Keith Lamar]

I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin. So like, it's not like what do.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

You get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

I just normally do straight stand up.

[Keith Lamar]

But this is a bit different.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

On 22 July 2015, a 23 year old man had killed his family.

[Keith Lamar]

And.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

Then he came to my house.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack where stand up comedy and murder take center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Celicia Stanton]

Hi friends, I am so excited to share this new episode of True Crime with you. If you want to listen ad free and get early access to all the episodes for this month's case, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts. It's also one of the best ways to support the show. Foreign hey friends, quick note before we start, I really wanted to find a way to say thank you for being a part of this community. So I decided that we had to do a little True or Crime merch giveaway. If you didn't know already. We actually have three different shirts now. Very exciting. Last season we only had one, but folks loved it so much that we had to make more. We really just had to. And honestly I love how they turned out. I think that the kind of shirts that you'll actually want to wear out in the real world, I do. So I want to give some away. Here's the deal. If you sign up for our newsletter by the end of the month, you'll be entered to Win. It's an email newsletter. We'll pick a few folks who signed up at random and we're going to mail out the shirts. Simple as that. You can sign [e-mail] or you can use the link in our description. It's there for you, nice and handy. Right now our newsletter list in full transparency is really small, which honestly I think kind of makes it a little bit more of an inner circle. You're going to get reminders if you sign up of when new episodes drop and we're also going to throw in extra sometimes like case photos or behind the scenes bits. And as the newsletter grows, we'd love to try out even more ways to connect. Maybe we'll do some exclusive Q and A is, or we've even thrown around the idea of doing live video calls with subscribers where we can dig into cases with you in real time. So if you want to make sure you never miss an episode and maybe snag a shirt, now is the time to sign up again. That's truercrime.substack.com alright, let's get into today's episode. Please be aware that today's episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Please take care while listening in the early hours of April 12, 1993, Lucasfil, a maximum security prison in southern Ohio, was in crisis. The day before, hundreds of inmates had taken control of the prison. Eight correctional officers were being held hostage. A few prisoners were already dead, their bodies dumped on the wreck yard. Outside, law enforcement had gathered in force. The Ohio State Highway Patrol, local sheriffs, the national guard, over 1,000 of them activated and waiting. But inside the prison the chaos was still spreading until finally, just after 3am Authorities stormed the rec yard.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

Go.

[Keith Lamar]

The Iowa State Patrol intervened about three o' clock that morning, give or take, and they came in with guns drawn, long guns, automatic weapons, and announced to us if we were to enter into the K side gymnasium.

[Celicia Stanton]

The prison was divided into three blocks, the two largest being K and L. Keith and dozens of others who'd been on the yard were forced into K Block. And at first, it seemed like they'd been moved away from the violence. But what Keith was about to witness would be a horror all its own. Because while the men from the Yard were being marched inside, the chaos back on El Block was just beginning.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

We are not going to bow down. We are not going to give up. We are going to remain, no matter what they put on us. If we die, we die.

[Celicia Stanton]

The authorities may have retaken the Yard, but inside L Block, the prisoners still had control. And they had hostages to make sure of it.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

I want you people to understand this ain't no fucking joke, boys. It got eight lives in there, and we're all concerned about them. Let's get something rolling here.

[Celicia Stanton]

And in so many ways, they would. This is the story of Keith Lamar in the Lucasfilm Riot, Part 2. I'm Celicia Stanton, and you're listening to Truer Crime. So what started this riot? Why did inmates take over the prison anyway? And what were they planning to do with these hostages? At first, reporters right outside prison walls didn't even know Michaelson Giacomo was one of those reporters. He'd been selected to talk to the prisoners. But as you'll remember from the last episode, that conversation didn't make it past hello. And from that point forward, he told me information was hard to come by.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

I go back to the Greaterford riot in Philadelphia decades earlier, and they gave us a lot more information. They would have regular interviews at regular press conferences, and they tell us where they were. With this one, there was a lot of just wait and see. I mean, they would say, you know, we'll meet again at 1 o'.

[Keith Lamar]

Clock.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

And then we get there, 1 o', clock, and there wouldn't be a meeting, wouldn't be a press conference. They could have been a lot more forthcoming and still maintained enough secrecy to get the job done.

[Celicia Stanton]

So, unable to rely on authorities to get their message out, the prisoners got creative.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

So they took bedsheets and they wrote with paint. I don't know where they got the paint, bedsheets, their demands, and hung them out the window. So that's how we started to figure out what the demands were, because we could see them right there. And if I could digress, a lot of the demands, it turned out, were reasonable. The overcrowding was probably the biggest thing. They said, you're jamming us in together. It's not healthy, and it's dangerous. It was kind of like, it's not a bad idea, you know, I mean, reduce the prison population, make it safer. You know, honor, honor their religious demands because religion is very important in prison. It gives these guys something to hang on to. And if you take that away from them, they have nothing to replace it. So when we saw those demands, I remember that there was a feeling, well, they should be able to do this.

[Celicia Stanton]

And while reporters deciphered banners on bedsheets, prison officials communicated directly with the leaders of the riot.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

Okay, what is it you want again? A federal one.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

He want somebody to negotiate with sympathetic to our police.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

Somebody that will listen to what we want.

[Celicia Stanton]

Those negotiations were soon underway. Prisoners laid out demands, officials pushed back. And the standoff dragged on. But during one phone exchange, and it was a prisoner who tried to keep the talks alive.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

I got a seal sitting here. Uh huh.

[Keith Lamar]

I'm gonna let you talk to him.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

Who am I gonna speak with? This is Officer Clark. This is a sign of good faith on our part.

[Celicia Stanton]

On the other end of the line, the hostage's voice cut in.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

This is Darrell Clark Jr. What these guys are doing now, listen to me.

[Keith Lamar]

I'm listening.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

Every fucking word. I'm telling you guys. I'm listening to you. I'm listening to you, okay? Now these guys has risked their lives to protect us. You understand? I hear you. They've been giving us food, they've been giving us clothing. They've been making damn short. No one comes near us. We have not been touched in no way that you're thinking of. That's good, we appreciate that. We want you to listen, okay? Up to the news and had that broadcasted and it's over. Okay, Officer Clark, we're going to try to get that. We want to get that. I turned you guys to say it standard and you never have come through that. I want your word, man. These inmates that gave me their word that nothing's going to happen to us, and by God, they keep it. I'm going to give you my word, Cart, that I'm going to do my best to get this worked out and work with these people. If you care for any of these hostages, me, myself included, that is our main goal and objective. To get every single person out there safe. They're not asking for nothing but the. That's all they want. And we're working on it. Right now the powers that be are discussing it.

[Celicia Stanton]

But as the news media reported, those discussions soon took a different turn.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

Prison officials have shut off water and electricity to sell block l and have reportedly had limited contact with the inmates holed up inside.

[Celicia Stanton]

Prisoners responded to that escalation with an escalation of their own turn on the water and electricity or. Or will kill one of the eight hostages. All eyes and all ears turned back to officials. What was their next move? Would they agree to this demand, giving in to the prisoners? Or would they stand firm, even if it meant risking the lives of the corrections officers trapped inside? And whatever the play, how would they message their choice to the public, to everyone watching on TV or listening on the radio? A group that VR radio inside included the inmates themselves. That last task would normally fall to Sharon Kornegay, a corrections spokesperson. But at that moment, she wasn't on duty.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

Sharon was amazing. Sharon was good. She was quality. And when she wasn't there, it showed.

[Celicia Stanton]

It showed, he thinks, in the careless response of the spokesperson who was on duty, Tess Unwin. It's a standard threat. It's nothing new. We're going to kill a hostage. To the press, her message was clear. This wasn't something to take seriously. Just more noise, more prison talk.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

She was dismissive, very dismissive. Like, you know, she wasn't terribly worried about what their threats were. We were all horrified, frankly. We were horrified when she said it. I mean, I remember we were just standing there going, oh, my God, did she just say that?

[Celicia Stanton]

She did. And the prisoners listening to her on the radio, the same riot leaders who still held eight guards hostage, they heard her say it too.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

One of the banners that is hanging out the window here in L7 says that one of the hostages has died. We want to stress that this has not been confirmed. There is nothing a body outside. In the past, when there has been a death, the inmates in Block L have thrown a body out the door. That has not happened. And it could be that this is just some kind of tactic from these prisoners to try and make negotiations go the way they want. We are just reporting what one of these banners says because this could be a very major break in this long ordeal.

[Celicia Stanton]

But it wouldn't be long before clarity came.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

The body of correctional officers, Officer Robert R. Bllandingham was recovered from the yard of the Southern Ohio correctional facility at 12:20 this afternoon. His family has been notified.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

You know, and then when poor Mr. Landingham was. Was thrown out, it was like, you know, we. We felt like, okay, this. This should be proof that, you know, you're doing it wrong. But we all felt that that should teach them something. I mean, what a lesson to learn. You gotta be careful what you say, yeah, that was a sad, sad time.

[Celicia Stanton]

For all of us.

[Michaelson Giacomo]

I mean we were just horrified.

[Celicia Stanton]

But that horror gave way to hope when prison spokesperson Sharon Kornegay announced a breakthrough in negotiations. Prison officials had agreed to air the prisoner's demands on tv. In exchange, the prisoners would release a hostage. That hostage, a CO named James Demons, soon shared what he thought about officials negotiation efforts.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

The institution has done everybody just wrong by keeping everybody in there so long. Now I knew Van Bellingham, he was.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

A good friend of mine. The only reason that man is dead.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

Cause he stayed in there so long because they want to cut off water.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

And turn off electricity which had me scared for my life in there.

[Celicia Stanton]

But James Demon's friend, the murdered officer Vladingham, and the eight inmates murdered during the riot, each with their own names and friends and families, they weren't the only people killed.

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[Celicia Stanton]

The ones that simply make you feel.

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[Celicia Stanton]

As events unfolded, reporters and officials and negotiators and soldiers were focused on the epicenter of the riot, the L block. This left the other side of the prison, the K block, just out of view. It was here that prison officials still had control. And it was here that they marched Keith, Lamar and the dozens of other men who had been on the prison's wreck yard the night the riot started. And it was here, soon after the start of the riot, that another life was lost.

[Keith Lamar]

They ushered her into the case I gymnasium, 10 at a time, random groups of 10, and forced all of us to get naked. All of us, I don't know, 5, 600 people, we had to stiff down naked and sitting on a cold gymnasium floor, which was another kind of dehumanizing experience. And then, you know, we sat on the gymnasium floor for about three, four hours or whatever.

[Celicia Stanton]

There's a photo of this moment, a black and white snapshot of the K gymnasium. And when I look at it, what feels discordant, important to me is how familiar the setting is. Two basketball hoops frame the edges of the image. And it really could be any gym in any high school in America, except for the rows of naked men, arms cuffed behind their backs, seated in uncomfortable looking positions on the linoleum. And for hours, on that first night of the riot, they waited on the gym floor, stripped of their clothes, their privacy, their dignity, until they were moved into holding cells, still naked, still hungry, still in the dark about what would happen next.

[Keith Lamar]

And then they started picking us in random groups of 10 and escorting us to these holding cells. 10 naked prisoners in each of these cells, mind you. We hadn't eaten in hours, probably a day. Now they started throwing bag lunches into the cell at some point, and as you might imagine, you just started scuffling over to set these bags like animals. The authorities were focused on what was going on on the outside. So after they put us in these cells, they just left us. So there was no one there to supervise or oversee the situation.

[Celicia Stanton]

This was not the L block, where the riot was in full swing and prison administrators had lost all control. This was the K block, where officials were supposed to still be running things. But inside the cell, tensions ran high. One man, a prisoner named Dennis Weaver, tried to calm the group down. He reminded them that they were still human, that they couldn't allow themselves to turn on one another. But his words didn't sit right with everyone.

[Keith Lamar]

This guy Bolling didn't like that, and they got him to it. Bolling put his arms around this guy's neck and he was flopping around, and two other guys held him down. And that's how he died.

[Celicia Stanton]

Dennis Weaver was murdered right there on the cell floor. And there was no one coming to stop it.

[Keith Lamar]

So now I'M in a situation where a guy dies, and after that happens, an hour or so go by me sitting in the cell with this dead person. It was a fucked up situation. It was just surreal.

[Celicia Stanton]

Years later, Keith wrote a memoir. In it, he described the horror of that moment, how eventually the smell of Dennis evacuated bowels filled the cell. The group called out for a guard, and after about 30 minutes, they finally came to remove the body. The group of prisoners was then moved to what's called a strip cell. A small room, well, a box really, with nothing in it. Everything you'd expect in a normal cell does not exist in a strip cell. No bed, no sink, no toilet. In the middle of the floor, though, there's a hole. That's where you go to the bathroom. And in case you're wondering, it's not flushable. No. In a strip cell, you have to wait for the guards to do that.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

So if you can imagine eight guys being in a strip cell in one of these places and our food being smashed and shoved under the door and where someone at some point had to use the restroom, had to defecate, that they would have to squat down in the middle of a floor while the other guys turn their back, as we did, and this room, no windows, no ventilation, becomes filled with somebody else excrement. That's what a strip cell is. It's like little torture chambers that you put in to literally sweat you out.

[Celicia Stanton]

What Keith told me about that strip cell, the filth, the dehumanization, it stuck with me. What was it like to be in this moment, beyond the facts, the events, the descriptions? What was it really like? What was the experience, the human experience, of standing in the cell with a riot raging the next block over, just hours after witnessing a man be strangled to death as the scent of human waste overtook the room? It makes me reflect and wonder. As people, we almost all start life in much the same way. As a tiny baby in loving arms. How does someone, anyone, start there and end up here? It's something I talked about very directly with Keith.

[Keith Lamar]

I grew up in this place called the Village. It was a suburb on the east side of Cleveland. It was founded by people who were a part of the great migration, who came up north in search of freedom, in search of gain for employment, which, you know, basically meant working in the mills and factories.

[Celicia Stanton]

The great migration, which brought Keith's grandfather to Ohio, refers to the mass exodus of 6 million black Americans from the south between 1916 and 1970. They came in search of safety, opportunity, and a better future. For their families. For Keith's grandfather, that meant building something stable, A home in a tight knit neighborhood where no one went hungry and where community wasn't just an idea, but it was the way you lived. Gardens thrived on every block and neighbors looked out for one another.

[Keith Lamar]

They wanted this community to be self sustaining. And so one of the things that they did to make that possible is plant fruit trees. So theoretically, no one would go hungry because there would always be fruit. You know, on every corner there were gardens, community gardens. It was a real community.

[Celicia Stanton]

Keith told me that in the village you were never far from the watchful eye of a neighbor or a cousin or an auntie. That it was a place where love looked like accountability and survival looked like sticking together.

[Keith Lamar]

That's one of my fondest childhoods, growing up in this place of community, this place where it was primarily about love, not material things, not what you had, but it was more about who you were and who you belong to.

[Celicia Stanton]

But not everything from Keith's childhood was warm. Some memories were darker, more disorienting. And for Keith, those moments would leave a mark.

[Keith Lamar]

Well, I remember being, when I was around four years old, we were living in the projects. I guess my mom wanted to strike out on her own, to live on her own. And living in the projects at that time was an affordable place in which she could do that with kids. And I remember hearing a knock at the door, like two or three o'.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

Clock in the morning.

[Keith Lamar]

My siblings would sleep. We were all shared in the bedroom. And I heard this knocking on the door. Went to lease check and see who it was. I had to move a chair up to the door and climb on top of the chair to look through the peephole. So that's how small I was. And there was somebody that I knew lived down the hallway named Jimmy. He bribed me awesomely to open up the door and pushed me out into the hallway and he ended up raping my mom. Somebody brought me back into the apartment and my mama's police officers, officers were there and all the lights were on and she kind of screamed this, you know, a real gut wrenching scream, you know, you know, scream my name. So I think on some level she understood that I was a kid. I think that experience kind of stood between us ever being close.

[Celicia Stanton]

The memories from that night and the days that followed would continue to haunt Keith well into adulthood. Scenes playing out in recurring nightmares he'd spend decades processing. But other painful events would continue to shape the person he was becoming. At five, his eight year Old brother Blair passed away from leukemia. And not long after that, more changes for the family when his mother married Larry, a man who would take them out of the village and into a different kind of instability.

[Keith Lamar]

My grandmother Matriarchala family, she was a dominating figure in our lives. She, the one who organized the dinners, the holiday celebrations, was really the one who, you know, kept us together. And she interfered a lot. He didn't like that. And so he moved us out and away from the village. Larry did, you know, because we were now outside of this circle of love, circle of support, we really started to feel the ravages of being poor. And that's when the hardships in my life became noticeable, that I became conscious of the different struggles that came along with living in poverty because I was now outside of the fold of this loving community. And of course, the abuse, because we were no longer under my grandmother's watchful eye, the abuse, the verbal abuse, the physical abuse. And I didn't find out till years later that also the sexual abuse some of my siblings were subjected to happen in this house that we moved to shortly after moving away from this kind of idyllic place.

[Celicia Stanton]

Keith described this new home as a place of rupture, not just from his community, but from a version of childhood that once had felt whole. What Keith had lived through, poverty, abuse, instability, was already more than most kids could carry. But it wasn't the end of his TROUBLES, because at 13 years old, Keith made a decision that would change everything.

[Keith Lamar]

When I was around 13, I fell in with a group of older individuals. We were joyriding in the stolen vehicle. One day we was involved in this real high speed chase by the police. You know, we were called, brought before this real notorious judge in the juvenile justice system in Cleveland, guy named Leotis Harris.

[Celicia Stanton]

Judge Harris was known for being no nonsense. Keith said that that day in court, he went down the line handing out months of detention like candy. Most of the kids had been in trouble before. But when he got to Keith, the youngest and a first time offender, he paused.

[Keith Lamar]

He got to me and he said, you know, Keith Lamar, so, you know, this your first time in front. He said, what are you doing with these bad boys? You know, I kind of tightly hunched my shoulders, trying to seem, you know, remorseful, which I was. And he, for whatever reason, said, you know, parents, I'm gonna give y' all an option. Y' all can either take him home or I'll deal with them myself. And my stepfather, he chose to send me away to turn my life over.

[Celicia Stanton]

To the Sister Keith was sent to a juvenile detention facility. He was just 13 years old. And he says that that day, that moment was the inflection point, the precise moment his entire life split in two.

[Keith Lamar]

And so having heard the judge give my parents that option and then to find myself sitting in the cell 15 minutes later, I wasn't able, obviously, to articulate that to myself at the time. But I in NYSI can mark this experience as the pivotal experience in my life.

[Celicia Stanton]

For Keith, who was still just a kid, the emotional pain felt vast and overwhelming.

[Keith Lamar]

I was really, really traumatized by the thought that my parents gave me away. That kind of haunted me.

[Celicia Stanton]

He was locked up for six months in a facility, hours from home, and when he returned, he wasn't the same.

[Keith Lamar]

I came home from that experience really, really changed fundamentally, because people think that what makes you a criminal, quote, unquote, is the behavior that you exhibit. You know, you're stealing, you selling drugs, you causing mayhem or whatever the case may be. But you become a criminal when the condition of your heart is changed, when you no longer see the people in your surrounding, literally as neighbors. You don't see the environment in which you live in as a neighborhood, you know, it's a hood now, you know, and these people are not really related to you. They are now prey. It's just something that happens to the condition of your heart that really is connected to your perception. And once you change the way you look at things, the things you look at also change. So this is no longer your environment. It's no longer your obligation to care about. Because when you come out of a situation like that and your conclusion is that no one cares about you, and so you then extend that you aren't going to care about anybody. So that's what makes you or turns you into a criminal. So I came away from that situation really, really converted.

[Celicia Stanton]

That shift Keith described. When the conditions of your heart change, it didn't happen overnight. But decades later, sitting in a strip cell in the middle of a prison uprising, you can imagine how the foundation was laid. By the time the riot ended, Keith had already witnessed a man die. He'd barely eaten, barely slept, and he'd been locked for days in a cell without a bed, a sink, or a toilet.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

And of course, the reason why they were treating us in this real barbaric way is because one of their own had been murdered. I think around four or five days into the riot, a guard was killed. And so shortly thereafter, the guards started treating those of us who were under their charge very, very Unjustly.

[Celicia Stanton]

Eventually, Keith would be let out of that strip cell. When the riot ended, 11 days after it had begun, 10 people had lost their lives. One corrections officer and nine prisoners, including Dennis Weaver, the man who died in the cell with Keith. But the riot did end at mid afternoon.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

The community watched what appeared to be the beginning of a peaceful surrender.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

This came after inmates and prison authorities agreed to a 21 point agreement on the inmate demands. They mostly had to do with prison policy and procedures and an agreement that there will be no retaliation against the prisoners and after their surrender.

[Celicia Stanton]

For the inmates who had taken over Elblock, this agreement was a major victory. It meant meaningful reforms, yes. But officials also promised to not retaliate against anyone who'd led the riot.

[Prisoner Negotiator / Hostage Voice]

I want the inmates to know, expressly to know, that we plan to follow the terms as set forth.

[Celicia Stanton]

But many people in the community were furious. The riot was just a total breakdown in the prison administration's control. And that breakdown had led to the execution of a corrections officer.

[Keith Lamar]

I want them to convict these men.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

I want them to go to the electric chair.

[Keith Lamar]

I want a message sent to the rest of the convicts.

[Celicia Stanton]

You can't keep doing this. So authorities knew what they had to do.

[Keith Lamar]

There was a notion you'd never convict anybody of a murder inside of a prison. Just won't happen because you can't get evidence. Well, that's not true. You lay your hands on a corrections officer in the state of Ohio is going to bring to bear upon you.

[Mint Mobile Advertiser]

All of their resources.

[Celicia Stanton]

And they did. Despite the fact that Keith had been locked up in K block for all but the first few hours of the riot, he would feel the full weight of that pressure firsthand.

[Keith Lamar]

They ultimately finally came and took us out of the cell, and now they want answers.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

Buying a car in Carvana was so easy. I was able to finance it through them. I just. Whoa, wait, you mean finance? Yeah, Finance got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget. That's cool. But financing through Carvana was so easy. Financed, done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed, right? That's what they said.

[Celicia Stanton]

You can spend time trying to pronounce.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

Financing, or you can actually finance and buy your car. Today on Carvana financing, subject to credit approval. Additional terms and conditions may apply.

[Podcast Narrator for Invisible Choir]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal information and if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. Lifelock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first [e-mail] podcast terms apply.

[True Crime Producer / Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this, adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future. Today with a risk free [e-mail] Spotify greenlight.com Spotify.

[Keith Lamar]

I for one I wasn't going to participate in any questioning, anything that would now transform me into the snitch because my snitches gets killed in prison.

[Celicia Stanton]

For many of us, hearing that feels deeply uncomfortable. Because even if Keith knew nothing about the murders on Owl block, he did witness a killing on K block. And that idea that you could witness a murder, know who did it and say nothing, it feels cowardly, unjust, morally reprehensible. And also, what if there's more to it than that?

[Keith Lamar]

A lot of people don't understand it because you know about the criminal justice system from watching Law and Order or cop shows on television. There's a lot of those shows that dramatize what goes on in these places. It's not really like that. You have a vested interest to keep your mouth closed. And even though the authorities have the power to charge or not charge you, the people prisoners have the power to kill or not kill you. So again, now you choosing the lesser of two evils. Again. Always.

[Celicia Stanton]

And now, with the tragedy making national headlines, the pressure was on. People were demanding that the state of Ohio identify those responsible and hold them accountable in a court of law. But there was a problem. They had no real evidence. The prison was in ruins. And nothing they recovered could tie the killings to any specific person. So without DNA, fingerprints or physical proof, officials turned to the next best witness testimony. For months following the riot, they urged prisoners to come forward with any information they might have. But imprisoned. This was a dangerous game.

[Keith Lamar]

As you might imagine, the prison being what it is, was the worst place really to look for witnesses who had credibility. Because everybody wanted to get their senses reduced, wanted to receive a more Lenient placement facility. This was the worst witness pool for the state.

[Celicia Stanton]

These men were already caged some for decades. And post riot, their treatment had grown more brutal.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

After the riot was over with, the guys who were responsible for the riot, who had in some way participated in the guards, they were transferred to other prisons because of their safety. So those prisoners weren't there to receive the retribution of what they had caused. So that retribution was transferred over to those of us who were still there. And there was beatings. It was adverse conditions all the way around the board. And that, I think, was the thing that recruited us over to having animosity against administration. From that, the attitude, the sentiment grew that we shouldn't help them or volunteer. No one should volunteer to help the people who were now oppressing us and beating us and starving us and destroying our property, so on and so forth.

[Celicia Stanton]

But for others, the offer to inform was enticing. When every day feels like a punishment, the smallest bit of comfort can become currency. Prisoners who agreed to talk were transferred out, sent to a different facility called Allen Oakwood. But Keith and others called it something else. Snitch academy.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

How they were being treated at Oakwood was exact opposite of how we were being treated. I mean, it's documented that those guys were watching movies, had their free run of the commissary, smoking cigarettes, so on and so forth. And it was also documented they had eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the prosecution. Just to give you a sense of the juxtaposition of how we were being treated Compared to guys who had elected.

[Celicia Stanton]

To become informants, the contrast couldn't have been sharper. And to Keith, that wasn't just manipulative, it was illegal.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

You're not allowed to pay for people's testimony. And this is, you know, amounted to a payment. They created these very harsh conditions and lured guys to this real pleasant place, comparatively speaking, and gave them ice cream and cookies. You're not allowed to do that if you then asking guys to testify and ultimately put people on death row. I mean, it's just against the law to do that.

[Celicia Stanton]

Back at Lucasville, Keith was one of many prisoners who stood in solidarity, acting out in the face of their mistreatment.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

I recall going on the hunger strike, food strike, just causing disturbances. As I say, the guards who, because of the death of one of their own, were really, really vindictive. It was guards and prisoners constantly going at each other. You know, we were flooding the range, trashing the range, throwing food and garbage onto the range with the expectation that they would have to clean it up that no prisoner would come out and clean up the garbage and whatnot.

[Celicia Stanton]

It wasn't organized, it wasn't particularly strategic, but it was anger. It was defiance and frustration bubbled over.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

One day about nine guys dressed in military gear and shields and sticks, they came to my cell and I thought I was being moved, about to be placed in another part of the prison.

[Celicia Stanton]

But this wasn't a transfer, it was a performance. They weren't there to move him, they were there to indict him.

[Prisoner / Narrator]

It was this nine count murder indictment which was really shocking.

[Celicia Stanton]

Nine counts and five murders including the man who died in front of him.

[Keith Lamar]

They said that we're not saying you killed anybody, we're saying that you ordered deaths.

[Celicia Stanton]

We're saying that you ordered deaths. I asked Keith what he thought of that.

[Keith Lamar]

Abu said our bullshit.

[Celicia Stanton]

The evidence shaky, the witnesses possibly incentivized the motive. Easy. Keith had been convicted of murder before, but this time he wouldn't plead guilty because this time he said he was innocent. That's next episode on Truer Crime. Before you go and dive into your next True Crime binge, I want to leave you with one last thing to think about. At the heart of today's episode are incarcerated people fighting to be heard. And in a system that often silences them, storytelling can become a form of resistance. And that's why today I wanted to highlight the Prison Journalism Project. They're an organization that trains and publishes incarcerated writers, giving them the tools to report on what's happening behind bars. Their weekly newsletter, the Inside Story, features first person accounts from people living the realities of prison life every day. It's powerful, eye opening and deeply human work. You can subscribe, read past pieces or support the [e-mail] as always, you can find a full list of today's sources and action [e-mail] and if you want to keep in touch between episodes, Truer Crime is on Instagram and xreocrerchrimepod. You can also find me on Instagram and TikTok laceystanton and through my weekly newsletter Since Sincerely Celicia at sincerelycelesia.substack.com true crime is created, hosted and written by me, Celisia Stanton, and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Additional writing, research and production by Olivia Heusinkfeld and Jamie Albright. Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Editing by Liam Luxon, artwork by Station 16, original music by Jay Ragsdale and makeup and vanity set mix by Dayton Cole. Thank you to Orin Rosenbaum and the team at uta, the Nord Group, and the team at Odyssey. For more podcasts like Truer Crime, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us@Tenderfoot TV. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of True Or Crime. If you want an ad free version of the show, plus early access to every episode for this month's case and tons of other great Tenderfoot podcasts, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts. It's a small way to support the work, and it makes a big difference.

[Podcast Narrator for Invisible Choir]

It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home, a mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name? David Minor iv, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Celicia Stanton]

Listen. If you love true crime but you find yourself wanting more than just the surface, like those little details you normally end up googling the angles that don't make the headlines, then you should check out Seriously with Annie Elise. Annie covers everything from big updates and cases you've been following like the Idaho Four now that the gag order's been lifted, to deep dives into cases you might not have even heard of yet. She unpacks the timelines, the connections, the wait, what moments, and even dives into topics like cults and breaking news, including the recent Tennessee Quadruple homicide where a baby was found abandoned on a stranger's lawn. With over a million weekly downloads across 11 countries, Annie has a way of telling these stories like a friend who's already gone down every rabbit hole so you can just hit play and follow along. So if you've been looking for someone to talk true crime with and a community just as into it as you are, this is where you need to be. New episodes of Seriously Drop every Monday and Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts.