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The Man Who Served 70 Years Without Dying | Birmingham News
Francis Clifford Smith, who spent over 70 years behind bars in Connecticut — the longest incarceration in U.S. history — died at 101, his death sentence never carried out after decades of legal delays and commutations. Convicted of murdering a night watchman in 1949 at age 25, Smith’s case became one of America’s most bizarre capital punishment stories. His execution was repeatedly halted, including a last-minute reprieve in 1954 that spared him the gallows. Known as the “Birdman of Osborn” for feeding birds in prison, he even escaped briefly in 1967 before being recaptured. In 2020, he was…
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