Frank Smith, Who Served 70 Years for Murder, Dies at 101
New York Times · LC · trust 24/100
One of the longest-serving prisoners in American history, he was sent to death row in 1950 before his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
One of the longest-serving prisoners in American history, he was sent to death row in 1950 before his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Frank Smith in 2023. He was convicted of fatally shooting a Connecticut yacht club’s night watchman during a robbery in 1949 but always insisted on his innocence. Credit... Jared Charney for The Boston Globe
Frank Smith, who served 70 years in prison — one of the longest known terms of incarceration in American history — for fatally shooting a Connecticut yacht club’s night watchman during a robbery in 1949, died on June 25 in Rocky Hill, Conn. He was 101.
His death, at a nursing home to which he had been paroled, was confirmed by the Connecticut Department of Correction and was previously reported by The Boston Globe and Greenwich Time.
In 1950, Mr. Smith was convicted of the first-degree murder of the watchman, 68-year-old Grover Hart, and sentenced to death. Mr. Smith, who insisted on his innocence, eventually received eight reprieves from the electric chair in Wethersfield, Conn.
His case attracted the attention of Aaron Cohen, a realtor in West Hartford and a member of the American League to Abolish the Death Penalty. Mr. Cohen visited Mr. Smith and orchestrated a telegram- and letter-writing campaign to stop the execution.
“I did not believe all Smith told me at first, and it took me time to believe him,” Mr. Cohen told The Hartford Courant in 1951, adding: “I am convinced that an innocent man is going to his death. He has already died too many times in his cell.”
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