Welcome ladies and gentlemen to our fine Texas Death Row Hotel!

You will be staying in a 5 ft. by 9 ft. concrete and steel room with bars and wire mesh across the front of your room. On your door we have cut a place to shove your food to you. You have a small sink and a toilet and a five-foot sheet of metal welded to the wall so you can lay your thin mattress on it, along with one thin pillow. You will get one set of sheets a week and one small face towel a week. You have cold running water in your room. Sometimes it’s brown. Sometimes it’s black. Our motto is, "if it’s brown, drink it down. If it’s black throw it back. We have a color TV mounted to the wall about 10 or 20 feet across from our room. It is controlled by the security staff and is turned on at 7 p.m. and we have a shower at the end of the runway which has hot and cold running water with fungus and stink and roaches all over the walls. We have a recreational area that is fenced in like a dog’s kennel. We have razor wire all around it.

You are allowed to have two hours of recreational time per day Monday through Friday only. During the weekend you are to stay in your room 24 hours a day.

We allow you to have visitors one time a week for a two-hour period. But you will be locked inside a wire mask cage covered with plastic. There will be a glass and wire window and brick between you and your visitors. No contact is allowed ever!

The temperature in your room during the summer months will vary from 100 degrees to 115 degrees depending on the temperature outdoors. During the winter months it will vary as well anywhere from 30 to 25 degrees, again depending on the temperature outdoors.

Anytime you leave your room, you are to be strip searched, sometimes by the opposite sex, and you are to be handcuffed behind your back and marched down the runway by two security officers. If you catch one of them in a bad mood, they might grab you and slam you on the floor and beat on you for a while. Sometimes it is just to break the boredom.

You will be served three meals a day. The first being served at 2.30 a.m. you must be awake and have your light on or you will be refused your meal. The second being served at 9.30 a.m. and the third being served at 3.30 p.m. The meals will vary from meal to meal, but mostly meals are served cold and with little extras like human hair, roaches, worms and with roach and rat droppings along with sweat and dirt. If for some reason you don’t like what we serve and you throw it out on the runway a little to hard or if you break any of our rules or if one of the security officers say you have, we will serve you what is called Food Loaf. It is made from all the leftovers from the day before all mixed together with a little cornmeal added to keep it all together and you will get that and nothing else for 14 days.

While you stay at our Fine Hotel you are allowed to have in your room: one small fan, one small radio, writing materials from our commissary but you are not allowed to earn any money in here. If you have friends or family that will send money to the inmate trust fund for you then you can buy the items from our commissary. If not, you will just have to do without.

Our staff members are allowed to come to your room and handcuff you and put you in the shower while they go through all your personal property, taking what they feel you to do not need and what they feel you shouldn’t have and destroying your property during their search.

If you have mail it will be thrown under your door.

If you become ill while you are here you will need to fill out a request to see one of the staff doctors. The request will be picked up and you might see the doctor or one of their nurses within a week. We feel all diseases can be cured with water and a few Tylenol.

And while you are here you have no rights. You follow all our rules and we take away all your property and privileges. And you will stay in your room 24 hours a day with nothing but your bible, a pen and some writing material. Our staff members are always right. If they say you did something or didn’t do something, they are right, and you will be punished.

I must also let you know that most people that leave this Hotel, leave only with a toe tag on!!…

So…If you are lucky to be here, now that you know what we have to offer here at our Fine Texas Death Row Hotel here in Huntsville, Texas, how many of you have packed your bags and headed this way to check into our wonderful Hotel? AHHHHH! Not anybody jumping at this offer? Why am I not surprised?

……READERS…..I have written this article because of all the people I have heard on radio and TV stations, and read in the papers about now sick and tired and disgusted they are that all those death row inmates are saying around in their luxury Hotel Rooms, eating like kings, playing golf and tennis all day, and swimming in their great big swimming pools, and watching their big TVs. I have no idea where this has come from. I assure you there is no truth to this al all. If your idea of luxury is being treated like I have just written you about, then I’m afraid my and your understanding of the word luxury are totally different.

I have been here over 11 years and i have yet to see a big screen TV, swimming pool, pool tables, tennis courts, or golf courses. I assure you that the politicians have misinformed the public of how they use their tax dollars to pay for prison expenses. One must wonder, just how many pockets your tax dollars are lining?!

For all you who say and feel we have so good here and live so luxuriously just feel free to join us anytime. It doesn’t take much to get a free ride to our front doors-step. Just be at the wrong place at the wrong time. You do not have to commit a murder to get here. You can be innocent and earn a free stay in this Hotel. Our judicial system is not infallible. They do and have and will continue to make mistakes. Just ask Randall Dale Adams or Clarence Brandley, both who were innocent and served their hell on earth at our Fine Texas Death Row Hotel. Both were convicted of capital crimes, sentenced to death, and spent 11 plus years here before they were released. Many are not that lucky. Many do not find the love and support from family and friends it took to finally win them their freedom. Many are murdered in the name of all USA citizens whether they are innocent of guilty!!

I have a question for all those who say death row prisoners live in luxury hotels and are treated like kings. How can you speak about something you know nothing about? Of which there is no proof? This is the very reason our prisons all around the world are so full…because of people who speak about something they know nothing about, who have listened to the politicians who tell you what you want to hear and promise you what they know you want. Only to get from you the two things they are after…your note and your money. And to get it they will and have and will continue to tell you what you want to hear and promise the things you want. And as always you never see it. I would like to leave you with this thought…

If this is a luxury hotel, send me to prison.

Note: Any questions or comments? Please feel free to address them to me

At the following address:

Richard Wayne Jones, Sr. # 000882

Death Row

Ellis I

Huntsville, Texas, 77343-0001

USA