How Convicts Dial M for Murder

July 19, 2009— -- Last week 24-year-old Patrick Byers was sentenced to life in prison for ordering the 2007 murder of a single father named Carl Lackl, who was supposed to testify against Byers at a murder trial.

What is more disturbing is that Byers called in the hit from behind bars, using a contraband cell phone. The Byers case is one of dozens Maryland authorities are dealing with in which prison inmates smuggle in cell phones and use them to keep their criminal syndicates up and running. The crimes range from credit card fraud, to drug deals, to murder.

"We think that when people go to prison, if they were involved in gangs on the streets, that stops," says Gary Maynard, the head of corrections for the state of Maryland. "But it doesn't if you have cell phones."

Maynard is one of several state leaders pushing for federal legislation that would permit jamming technology that could block cell phone signals inside prisons. It's a matter of life and death, he says. "Just one call that we weren't aware of could result in somebody getting killed."

Cell phones are smuggled into prisons the same way other contraband gets in -- either with the help of a corruptable prison guard or someone on the outside. Sometimes the outside contact simply throws the phone over the prison wall in a lower security prison or more elaborate schemes that involve planting a phone at a location where a particular inmate is expected to be out in the community on a work detail team. The inmate can pick up the phone and smuggle back in with him into prison. From there it's up to prison officials to track them down using different techniques.

Maryland was the first state in the country to train its own cell phone-sniffing dogs. "Everything, including electronics, has a scent signature," says Major Peter Anderson, the head of Maryland's K-9 unit. The dogs are used in random sweeps through the prison to check for contraband phones that could be hidden in drains or cut into bed mattresses. Inmates are also known to hide cell phones in body orfices. At Maryland's medium-security Jessup prison, any inmate with contact to the outside world is supposed to be scanned using a new high-tech metal detector.

On a recent cell phone sweep inside Jessup prison, Major Anderson searches one inmate's tiny concrete cell looking for contraband. After the dog has checked it, he does a visual scan checking in the mattress, behind drawers and in loose vents. "It's a constant battle of them finding new locations to hide things and us trying to identify those," he says. "It never ends."

It's a problem facing prisons around the country. In California last year, officials confiscated more than 2,800 cell phones from inmates. At a Congressional hearing last week, Texas State Sen. John Whitmire recounted how he was threatened by an inmate who called him from a cell phone. "When I asked him how he got his phone he said, '$2,100 paid to a guard.'"

There are pay phones available in prisons where inmates can call friends and family for a fee and with little privacy. But providing a cell phone to an inmate or possessing a cell phone in prison are crimes in several states including Texas and Maryland. California is considering a similar law. But many state officials insist that the most effective way to crack down on cell phone usage in prisons and the related crime, is to use jamming technology.

Both Gary Maynard of Maryland and John Whitmire testifed to that effect before the Senate hearing on the issue last week. But the wireless industry and emergency responders say allowing cell phone signals in prisons to be jammed would put legitimate cell phone users in the area at risk, especially during an emergency. Maryland Secretary of Corrections Gary Maynard says there's movement towards a compromise.

"There is common ground where their needs can be met as well as allowing us the opportunity to utilize the technology to keep people safe."

Until then, prison guards in Maryland and around the country will keep combing cells for contraband communication devices -- hoping that each phone found on the inside, is a crime prevented on the outside.