The Riverbend Maximum Security Institution (RMSI) is a prison in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

, operated by the

Tennessee Department of Correction The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) is a Cabinet-level agency within the Tennessee state government responsible for the oversight of more than 20,000 convicted offenders in Tennessee's fourteen prisons, three of which are privately man ...

. The prison opened in 1989 and replaced its 100-year-old neighbor, the

Tennessee State Penitentiary Tennessee State Prison is a former correctional facility located six miles west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee on Cockrill Bend. It opened in 1898 and has been closed since 1992 because of overcrowding concerns. The mothballed facility was seve ...

. RMSI, which is made up by 20 different buildings, sits on located off Cockrill Bend Boulevard in Nashville, TN. Riverbend's designated capacity is 714 offenders. Of that number, 480 are classified as high risk. The prison's overall mission is to ensure the safety of the public, departmental employees and inmates by managing high-risk male offenders. Warden Mays oversees a staff of nearly 400 people, including administrative workers, correctional officers, unit managers and medical personnel. Education programs at the prison include GED and Adult Basic Education. There are also vocational classes available for printing, commercial cleaning, industrial maintenance, cabinet making/

millwork Millwork is historically any wood mill produced decorative materials used in building construction. Stock profiled and patterned millwork building components fabricated by milling at a planing mill can usually be installed with minimal alter ...

and computer information systems. TRICOR, the prison industry, also manages a data entry plant and print shop at the prison. Inmates not involved in academic vocation, or industry programs are required to work in support service roles throughout the facility. Male death row prisoners live at Riverbend.Death Row Facts
"

. Retrieved on December 30, 2020. The State's

electric chair An electric chair is a device used to execute an individual by electrocution. When used, the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, ...

and

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...

gurney are located at Riverbend.

Notable prisoners

* Sedley Alley – rapist and murderer; executed by lethal injection June 28, 2006 * Cory Lamont Batey – rapist in

Vanderbilt rape case The Vanderbilt rape case is a criminal case of sexual assault that occurred on June 23, 2013, in Nashville, Tennessee, in which four Vanderbilt University football players carried an unconscious 21-year-old female student into a dorm room, gang-r ...

* Letalvis Cobbins – convicted of the 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom *

Robert Glen Coe Robert Glen Coe (April 15, 1956 – April 19, 2000) was an American murderer who was convicted of the 1979 rape and murder of eight-year-old Cary Ann Medlin in Greenfield, Tennessee. He was executed for the crime in 2000, becoming the first perso ...

– child rapist and murderer; executed by lethal injection April 19, 2000 * Lemaricus Davidson – sentenced to death October 30, 2009 for the 2007 kidnapping, rape, torture and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom *

Daryl Holton Daryl Keith Holton (November 23, 1961 – September 12, 2007) was an American Gulf War veteran and convicted child murderer who was executed by electrocution by the state of Tennessee on September 12, 2007, in Riverbend Maximum Security Instituti ...

– child murderer; executed by electrocution September 12, 2007 * Billy Ray Irick – child rapist and murderer; executed by lethal injection August 9, 2018 * Bruce Mendenhall – murderer and suspected serial killer * Emanuel Kidega Samson – Burnette Chapel shooter *

Paul Dennis Reid Paul Dennis Reid, Jr. (November 12, 1957 – November 1, 2013), known as The Fast Food Killer, was an American serial killer, convicted and sentenced to death for seven murders during three fast-food restaurant robberies in Metropolitan Nashville ...

– murderer *

Nicholas Todd Sutton Nicholas Todd Sutton (July 15, 1961 – February 20, 2020) was an American serial killer who was responsible for murdering two acquaintances and his own grandmother in North Carolina and Tennessee from August to December 1979. Convicted and sente ...

– serial killer; executed by electrocution February 20, 2020 *

Philip Workman Philip Ray Workman (June 1, 1953 – May 9, 2007) was a death row inmate executed in Tennessee on May 9, 2007. He was convicted in 1982 for the murder of a police officer following a robbery of a Wendy's restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, and sent ...

– murderer executed May 9, 2007 *

Edmund Zagorski Edmund George Zagorski (December 27, 1954 – November 1, 2018) was an American convicted murderer from Michigan who was executed by the state of Tennessee for the 1983 murders of John Dotson and Jimmy Porter in Robertson County. Zagorski lured ...

– murderer executed by electrocution November 1, 2018 * Gerald Lee Powers - murderer of Shannon Sanderson

References

External links

Riverbend Maximum Security Institution
Tennessee Dept. of Corrections
Death Row Offenders
Tennessee Dept. of Corrections {{Execution sites in the United States Prisons in Tennessee Capital punishment in Tennessee Buildings and structures in Nashville, Tennessee Execution sites in the United States 1989 establishments in Tennessee