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9781574412642 Academic Inspection Copy

Eleven Days in Hell

The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas
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The longest civilian hostage-taking siege in the history of the United States penal system took place in Texas' Huntsville State Prison in the summer of 1974. Federico Carrasco, a former drug boss, and two other inmates used smuggled guns to take eleven civilian prison workers hostage in the prison library. They planned to escape using the hostages as shields in a moving barricade, but W. J. Estelle, Jr., Director of the Texas Department of Corrections, had his team blast the barricade with water hoses. In a violent end to the standoff, Carrasco committed suicide, one of his two accomplices was killed (the other later executed), and two female hostages were murdered by their captors.
William T. Harper spent fourteen years with the Philadelphia Inquirer as reporter, writer, and editor. He has written numerous articles for American Heritage and Focus. For this story he utilized eighty-eight real-time audio tapes of negotiations and interviewed the surviving participants. He lives in Bryan, Texas.
"[Harper] has assembled the best account written of the 11-day hostage siege.... His riveting narrative leaves the reader with a 'you-were-there' feeling that brings goose bump-producing memories from those of us who were there." - Alan L. Bailey, San Antonio Express-News"
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