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Prison officials implement special protocols. Smith is never allowed alone with male staff. Transportation always requires two guards, preferably male and female. Even behind bars, she can’t be trusted. Between 2010 and 2017, her disciplinary record gets darker. March 2010, unauthorized drugs, mutilation. She’s hurting herself.
More drug violations follow. A former cellmate describes watching Smith snort drugs, swallow them, inject them. This isn’t recreational. This is someone desperately trying to escape the mental prison inside the physical one. Alfred Row, the same guard who slept with her, later claims her drug use got worse after the transfers.
She couldn’t get male attention anymore, so she turned to substances instead. Smith gets moved repeatedly for undisclosed medical treatment back to Graham in 2004, 2013 and 2021 to Kirkland Correctional Institution in 2008, multiple times in 2017 and 2018. Once in 2019, again in 2024. The records don’t say why, but they suggest someone whose body and mind are breaking down across decades.
Then August 2024, 3 months before her first parole hearing, Smith gets caught communicating with a documentary filmmaker. Discussing interviews, [music] filming, compensation for her story. Inmates can’t profit from their crimes. She loses phone, tablet, and canteen privileges for 90 days. Think about the timing.