The El Dorado Correctional Facility (abbreviated EDCF), is a
maximum security prison located in
Prospect Township, Butler County, Kansas east of
El Dorado, United States.
EDCF is the location of the
Kansas Department of Corrections
The Kansas Department of Corrections is a cabinet-level agency of Kansas that operates the state's correctional facilities, both juvenile and adult; the state's parole system; and the state's Prisoner Review Board. It is headquartered in Topeka ...
(KDOC) Reception and Diagnostic Unit (RDU), which processes every male inmate when they are received into custody. RDU helps determine the inmate's custody level, mental health classification, and educational program needs before he is assigned to a facility.
EDCF has two general population cellhouses and one medium security dormitory. EDCF is administratively linked to two
minimum security
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...
units, formerly "honor camps", one in El Dorado and one in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
, Kansas. In 2009, the announcement was made that the state would be closing both minimum security units, due to budget constraints. As of 2015, medium and minimum security units in
Oswego were administratively part of EDCF.
EDCF is also the location of the state's ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
''
death row. Inmates sentenced to death are housed in
administrative segregation
Administration may refer to:
Management of organizations
* Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal
** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, adminis ...
("AdSeg"). The state currently has
nine inmates on death row.
Executions
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, however, take place at the
Lansing Correctional Facility
Lansing Correctional Facility (LCF) is a state prison operated by the Kansas Department of Corrections. LCF is located in Lansing, Kansas, in Leavenworth County. LCF, along with the Federal Bureau of Prison's United States Penitentiary, Leave ...
(LCF) in
Lansing
Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, makin ...
. The state has not had an execution since June 22, 1965, when
spree killer
A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders or homicides in a short time, in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations ...
s
George York and James Latham were
hanged
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...
there.
History
The El Dorado Correctional Facility was established in 1991. It was built in response to a federal mandate to ease over-crowding at the state's other two maximum security prisons. Expansion in 2001 brought two new general population cellhouses. The facility is expected to expand in the future.
The first escape in facility history occurred on October 28, 2007. Inmates Jesse Bell and Steven Ford escaped with the assistance of former corrections officer, Amber Goff. The three were apprehended in Grants, New Mexico, less than three days later. Bell and Ford were arrested in an apartment complex parking lot. Goff was found asleep in the driver's seat of a car parked in the driveway of a nearby vacant Grants home; a stolen handgun was found under a newspaper next to her.
In recent years, the state has considered relocating executions from the Lansing Correctional Facility to the El Dorado Correctional Facility.
Notable inmates
*
Reginald and Jonathan Carr – brothers were convicted of killing five people in a December 2000 crime spree dubbed the "
Wichita Massacre" and
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. Their death sentences have been overturned and reinstated again.
*
Richard Grissom - a convicted serial killer who murdered three women in 1989. Their bodies have never been found.
*
Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. – white supremacist terrorist who
killed three people in 2014. Sentenced to death. Died of natural causes in 2021.
*
Martin Priest – a convicted murderer and possible serial killer.
*
Dennis Rader
Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945) is an American serial killer known as BTK (an abbreviation he gave himself, for "bind, torture, kill"), the BTK Strangler or the BTK Killer. Between 1974 and 1991, he killed ten people in Wichita and Par ...
– a convicted
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
also known as BTK, who murdered ten people from 1974 to 1991. He eluded capture until 2005. Rader pled
guilty
Guilty or The Guilty may refer to:
* Guilt (emotion), an experience that occurs when a person believes they have violated a moral standard
Law
*Culpability, the degree to which an agent can be held responsible for action or inaction
*Guilt (law) ...
and was
sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences. Rader nicknamed himself "BTK", an initialism reflecting his ''
modus operandi'' of binding, torturing, and killing his victims.
*
John Robinson – a convicted serial killer,
con man
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have def ...
,
embezzler
Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...
,
kidnapper
In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...
, and
forger
Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...
. He was found guilty in 2003 of three murders and was sentenced to death for two of them. He subsequently admitted responsibility for five additional homicides, and investigators fear that there might be other, undiscovered victims. Because he made contact with most of his post-1993 victims via online chat rooms, he is sometimes referred to as "the
Internet's first serial killer".
References
External links
Official websiteKansas Prison Inmate Database- Kansas Department of Corrections
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures in Butler County, Kansas
Prisons in Kansas
Capital punishment in Kansas
1991 establishments in Kansas