Dead run

In June, 1983, Dennis Stockton entered death row in Virginia's state penitentiary, convicted of a murder he insisted he had not committed. For the next twelve years he remained there, during which time he helped plan the only successful mass escape from death row in U.S. history (though he ultimately decided not to join the escapees), developed a career as a writer through a diary and newspaper columns, and continually proclaimed his innocence. His explosive diary entries -- published in the (Norfolk) Virginian Pilot -- about life on death row made him a marked man among prisoners and guards alike; this calumny only strengthened his resolve to clear his name. However, despite strong evidence of his innocence, Stockton was executed on September 27, 1995.