John Frie

''Taken from the records of a local new station that planned to do a story on the John Frie case. This is the transcript of an interview with prison guard Jordan McMillan. The news story was cancelled when the prison refused to allow Frie to be interviewed, citing the camera lens as a danger.''

John Frie entered Jackson State Penitentiary on May 31st of 2013. The charge was armed robbery, for which he pleaded guilty. I haven't really reviewed the details of the case, I guess I'm too scared to, but I imagine he wanted to be caught. He wanted a stage for his little show where he would be watched.

His first cellmate was Charlie Shay. Frie was a little guy, maybe 90 pounds at a stretch. We picked Shay because he was pushing 70, and was in for three-strikes. We figured the two of them really couldn't mess with each other much.

I remember the first thing Frie did was go over to the mirror at the cell sink, and examine it. He ran his hand over his face, like he was trying to decide if he needed a shave. But he didn't shave, he just walked over, and laid down in his cot.

The next morning Shay was dead of a heart attack. We didn't think much of it, but it left us with a half-empty cell, so we had to move someone in. Somehow, Willie Hidle got picked. Don't ask me how, the guy was built like a wall, and had a temper. When we put him in we all whispered a prayer that Frie knew to keep his mouth shut.

The next morning, Hidle was dead of an embolism.

We didn't really think anything of it at first. I mean, yeah, we were all saying “this shit is weird,” but we weren't blaming Frie. I mean, what the fuck did he have to do with it, except being in the goddamned cell? But, ya know, in jail rumors get spread. It's a place where a guy sleeps with his girlfriend the night before her eighteenth birthday, and everyone hears he raped a twelve-year-old.

So, during lunch Frie was confronted by Mickey Hives. All Mickey knew was that Frie had two roommates die in two nights, he didn't know the details, but he already thinks Frie did it. He only gets one punch in before Donny Cass pulls him away. Good thing for Frie, at least. One more punch, I don't think he would have survived.

So, we get him down to the medical unit, and he's asking for a mirror to see how he looks. He says he feels fine, and would just like to rest, so they give him a once-over, clean up the blood, and schedule him for an appointment with the dentist. Then, they give him his mirror.

This is where we first started noticing things getting weird. John, he just holds the mirror up to his face, and he stares at it. He stares at it for a good twenty minutes. All the time, the nurses just leave him alone, but they're all looking at him, just starring at that mirror.

...well, they look at him until Mickey gets there. Now, the first two, they were nothing personal, so Frie killed them in their sleep. But, he wasn't nice to Mickey. His throat swole up, and he basically choked on it. He didn't have allergies or anything like that, it just happened. So, he gets pulled in, clawing at his own throat. They give him all the stuff you give people with peanut allergies and shit, but it didn't help. He didn't have any allergies. He just had John Frie after him.

We left Frie in the Medical Wing for a while after that, while we decided what to do. I mean, we couldn't prove he was killing people. And he's still being real polite. When he gets his baked potato he's still saying “thank you,” like he's just so grateful.

But, eventually, we decide we have to put him in solitary, just to be sure. He doesn't complain.

The next morning, when I brought him his breakfast I heard him whisper “Anything bad happen to Lautenberg?”

Then, he reaches out real gentle, and lays this little tiny piece of tin foil in the food slot, maybe an inch square, that he got off the baked potato.

That was the morning of June 4th. June 3rd Senator Frank Lautenberg died of pneumonia.

Yeah, Lautenberg was old, but you want to test it? Could all be coincidence, but since then no mirrors, and nothing shiny. No we don't know what the mirrors had to do with it, but he hasn't killed again without them.

He hasn't left solitary since, but he hasn't asked to. Every morning when I bring him his food he just stares at me, smiling, wondering when he gets to put on the next act of his little show.