The United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, was the nation's highest-security federal prison in the early 1980s, a volatile dumping ground for the most violent and disruptive inmates in the system. It was within this lethal world of warring prison gangs that Robert M. Chappelle, a Male inmate, lost his life. On the evening of November 22, 1981, Chappelle, a member of the D.C. Blacks prison gang, was found dead in his locked cell in the prison's most secure area, the Control Unit.
He had been strangled with a cord by two people while he was lying on his bed with his head against the cell bars.
The investigation by the FBI quickly focused on two other inmates housed in the same cellblock: Thomas Edward Silverstein, known as "Terrible Tom," and Clayton Fountain. Both were members of the Aryan Brotherhood, a notorious white supremacist prison gang and a bitter rival of the D.C. Blacks. The murder of Chappelle was not a random act of violence but a calculated hit rooted in the brutal politics of prison life. Court records revealed the motive stemmed from a chance encounter in a county jail where Silverstein learned that Chappelle had "disrespected" a member of the Mexican Mafia gang. To curry favor with the other gang and in accordance with the Aryan Brotherhood's violent creed, Silverstein agreed to carry out the killing.
Silverstein and Fountain were let out for recreation on the tier shortly before Chappelle was found. During this time, they were able to approach his cell and carry out the strangulation. In the aftermath, both men reportedly boasted about the murder to other inmates. Silverstein allegedly told one prisoner that he and Fountain had "yoked the nigger," and told another, "I am just sorry I had to kill him through the bars and couldn't get next to him." Fountain was also heard saying, "I am glad we killed him."
Based on the testimony of these inmate informants, both Silverstein and Fountain were charged with Robert Chappelle's murder. Following a trial that offered a horrifying glimpse into the world of prison gangs, a jury convicted both men. They were each sentenced to life imprisonment, to be served consecutively with the sentences they were already serving. Despite the conviction, Thomas Silverstein always maintained his innocence in the killing of Chappelle. Another inmate, Norman Matthews, even confessed to the murder in open court during the trial, though his confession was deemed not credible.
The murder of Robert Chappelle ignited a full-blown race war within the federal prison system between the Aryan Brotherhood and the D.C. Blacks. The violence escalated when prison officials, in a move Silverstein later claimed was a setup, transferred the national leader of the D.C. Blacks, Raymond “Cadillac” Smith, into the same unit as Silverstein while he was on trial for Chappelle's murder. Believing Silverstein was responsible for his friend's death, Smith vowed revenge. This led to another brutal killing less than a year later, when Silverstein and Fountain preemptively attacked and stabbed Smith to death 67 times.
Thomas Silverstein would go on to commit another, even more infamous murder, killing corrections officer Merle Clutts at USP Marion in 1983. This act led to an indefinite lockdown of the prison and cemented Silverstein's reputation as one of the most dangerous prisoners in the federal system. He was ultimately convicted of three murders behind bars and spent the last 36 years of his life in solitary confinement, the longest-held prisoner in isolation within the Bureau of Prisons until his death in 2019. For Robert Chappelle, his death stands as a grim testament to the power and brutality of the gangs that ruled America's most secure prison.
