Page 14 - James Slagle News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Of years it's been since i've been in prison. ♪ it's been 18 long years ♪ in this old cold prison sometimes i feel so all alone ♪ sweet mountain of home ♪ ♪ so far away ♪ i'm lonesome and blue ♪ that's all i can say >> one of the oldest inmates in brushy mountain's permanent population is james slagle. slagle is serving a 318-year sentence for murder and has been here longer than any other inmate. >> i've been in the tennessee prison system without getting out, i started my 39th year three weeks ago today. and i spent 24 years of that time here at brushy mountain. i decided, jim,...

Of years it's been since i've been in prison. ♪ it's been 18 long years ♪ in this old cold prison sometimes i feel so all alone ♪ sweet mountain of home ♪ ♪ so far away ♪ i'm lonesome and blue ♪ that's all i can say >> one of the oldest inmates in brushy mountain's permanent population is james slagle. slagle is serving a 318-year sentence for murder and has been here longer than any other inmate. >> i've been in the tennessee prison system without getting out, i started my 39th year three weeks ago today. and i spent 24 years of that time here at brushy mountain.

And so i looked into me and saw the ugliness. i saw the hatred, the violence, the misery. and i said i'm going to be something else. i am going to become a thinking man. by the way, that's hard to do. but i spent years reading, studying, looking within myself. i'm one of the most fortunate men that ever lived. >> slagle runs the library and provides legal help to other inmates. >> where they made the error on your time, your two sentences are running concurrently, which means they run together. however, when they give you your jail credit, they only put the jail credit on the one sentence and ...

Ends at brushy mountain. and there's -- there's nowhere else to go. >> but that didn't stop the prison's most notorious inmate from attempting to escape. in 1977, nine years after he killed civil rights leader martin luther king jr., james earl ray went over the wall. during our shoot at brushy mountain, we met an inmate who was not only there, but tried to talk ray out of it. >> i told him, i said, james, you've got no pickup, no car, i said as soon as your foot touches down they know it's you, there will be a million cops in the valley and no one's going to get away. it's just a futile effor...

♪ it's been 18 long years ♪ in this old cold prison sometimes i feel so all alone ♪ sweet mountain of home ♪ ♪ so far away ♪ i'm lonesome and blue ♪ that's all i can say >> one of the oldest inmates in brushy mountain's permanent population is james slagle. slagle is serving a 318-year sentence for murder and has been here longer than any other inmate. >> i've been in the tennessee prison system without getting out, i started my 39th year three weeks ago today. and i spent 24 years of that time here at brushy mountain. i decided, jim, you've got to become something else. and so i...