7. Haunting Conditions
Echols described the conditions of the prison complex and the exercise yard of the prison in an article for The Guardian newspaper in 2013, and he described it as a “filthy concrete stall, much like a miniature grain silo.” There, prisoners walked in shackled silence, breathing in the fumes from rotting animal cadavers and feces. “When you first enter you have to fight against your gag reflex,” he wrote. “It’s a filthy business, trying to get some exercise.”
The dirty conditions of the prison yards were just the beginning of the nightmare Echol called reality.