SAN FRANCISCO – In early 2020, Albert Jones sat in a cell in San Quentin’s death row, as it had been every day for nearly 30 years when reports of mystical respiratory disease began to circulate.
Over the next few months, hundreds of death row inmates fell ill. Covid-19 swept the East Block of San Quentin prisons, stacking five-storey five-storey buildings over decades that were housed by many of California’s most infamous criminals. By the end of August 2020, more than 2,200 prisoners and 270 staff at San Quentin had become ill. One officer and 28 prisoners died of illness, including at least 12 accused men.
Through it, Jones maintained a detailed journal documenting his fears about catching the “killer virus.” And when he signed Covid, he spoke of his painful recovery.
“I Survided Covid-19” is one of the books that prisoner Albert Jones self-published in the year of death row.
(Commentary of Albert Jones)
“The world is in lockdown. This condition is completely locked down,” Jones wrote at the start of the pandemic. (The entries cited in this article are shown with punctuation and spelling used in the journal.)
“Scott was my next-door neighbor for 12 years,” Jones wrote that summer, referring to rapist and murderer Scott Thomas Erskine, who died in July 2020 after signing with the virus. “We were just in the shower, so the nurse handed him the medicine. And they saw how pale his skin was and how he lost weight, so they took his oxygen levels and because he was 62, they took him out of his cells and rolled him up by putting him in oxygen. Three days later he died.”
In 2023, Jones published a memoir entitled “I Survive of Covid-19.” One of the ten books (a collection of two of them) is what he wrote behind the bar.
Jones, now 60, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the brutal double murder of an elderly couple while robbing a house in Mead Valley. He has lost his appeal of conviction, but he maintains his innocence and continues to work with his lawyers for appeal.
Nevertheless, Jones embraces a sense of purpose in prison, documenting the community life of San Quentin’s death row inmates through writing and art. He was endured as a model prisoner and met the government’s Gavin Newsom last summer while the governor was on the scene to showcase his efforts to rebuild prisons in San Quentin and other states with a focus on rehabilitation.
Jones’ serious meditation is ready to find an unexpected spotlight and a much wider audience. Sonoma County bookstores watching Jones’ collections believe they can get a rare glimpse into one of America’s most infamous cell blocks. The archive will be exhibited at the New York International Antique Arian Book Fair from Thursday to Sunday. This is an event where curators are expected to be drawn from museums, research institutions and private collectors. The asking price is $80,000.
“There’s no other archive like this,” said Ben Kinmont, Sevastopol’s bookstore, representing Jones at the sale.
Criticized inmate Albert Jones writes two cookbooks featuring recipes that can be made in prison-sanctioned electric kettles.
(Commentary of Albert Jones)
Jones’ book – documenting his gang life at Compton, his spiritual journey as a condemned man and viable recipes in a prison-sanctioned electric kettle – constitutes a large part of the collection. However, the archive also includes personal items such as old reading glasses, a broken wristwatch, and his “Prison Eyes.” The prison is part of reflective plastic attached to the end where the prisoner sticks to the bar of the cell to see if security guards are coming.
In an interview from the prison, Jones said the collection stems from his efforts to record his incarceration and his hope that his daughter and grandchild may remember him as more than a prisoner.
“First of all, I want to remember it as someone who made a mistake,” Jones said. “I didn’t understand what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
“I have value,” he said.
California has not executed prisoners since 2006, and Newsom issued a moratorium on practices in 2019. Last year, Jones was moved from San Quentin after ordering prison staff to dismantle death row inmates and consolidate the accused prisoners into the general population of other state agencies. Jones is currently in the California State Jail in Sacramento.
The fact that Saint Quentin’s death row is virtually extinct makes Jones’ work historically related, Kinmont said.
Bookstore Ben Kinmont says he was surprised by the recipes collected from the men in the death row, as well as instructions on how to enjoy a meal “together.”
(Hanna Wiley/Los Angeles Times)
As a bookstore specializing in works on food and wine written from the 15th and early 19th centuries, Kinmont was not looking for Deathrow’s clients several years ago when he wrote him for help selling his first cookbook, “Our Last Meal?” But the pitch came at the right moment.
Kinmont explored the value of people living in poverty living in food and coming together for food. Working with Jones seemed like an interesting way to explore the subject.
Kinmont was surprised at how Jones’ cookbook includes not only recipes collected from death row men, but also directions for how to enjoy a meal “together.” For example, his gumbo recipes are looking for two pouches: smoked clams, oysters and mackerel, and white rice, oregano, cumin and chili peppers. Mix the diced onions and peppers and throw the mixture into the electric kettle with the sausage link. Once the dishes are ready, Jones transfers individual servings into plastic bags. The prisoner on the phone above will send the fishing line to Jones, who will tie his bag and come back.
“These people assert their humanity through trying to prepare the best food they can through the care packaging system they have access to,” Kinmont said.
Kinmont eventually sold the Cookbook to UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library for $20,000.
Jones used his time in prison as an opportunity to grow and earned his college degree behind the bar.
(Commentary of Albert Jones)
Jones said he made about $14,000 from the sale. This is far from the occasional revenue from one of his self-published books he offers on Amazon for $15. Jones sent some of the money to his daughter and grandson in Georgia and bought new prison clothes for himself and friends. For Christmas, he put together hygiene products and gift bags for dozens of men who live in his unit.
If a new archive is for sale in New York, he wants to use the cut to open a trust fund for his four grandchildren and help his daughter buy a home.
“I know I’ve been blessed,” he said. “Now is the time to start blessing other people.”
Still, the arrangement raises ethical questions about who should benefit from what workplace prisoners do behind bars.
Jones was found guilty of pig keeping and stabbing wounds between 82-year-old James Furuville and his wife Madalyn Furuville, 72, during the 1993 home invasion. California previously prohibited prisoners from benefiting financially from selling crime stories, but in 2002 the state Supreme Court broke the law.
Still, after the Times contacted her to comment on the article, Terry Hardy, a spokesman for the Department of Amendments and Rehabilitation, said he was not informed of the contract to sell Jones’ books and would warn Fullville’s family as a precaution. She cited a provision in the state criminal law that requires the prison system to “notify registered victims or their families when incarcerated to enter into a contract to sell the crime story.”
In a phone interview with The Times, members of the Florville family expressed their anger at the notion that Jones is profiting from his prison writing.
“Why does he get the right to write a book?” The couple’s stepdaughter, Mary Moore, said they reached out at their home in Southern California. “My children, my grandchildren, lost their grandparents. They were very loving people. My stepfather would have given you a shirt from his back.
“I believe I’m looking,” said Moore’s daughter, Lena McNeill. “This is something that’s going on every day. I’m sitting down and thinking about my grandparents and what they’ve been going on.”
Jones said his intention was not to enter into details of his beliefs, but to provide his family with written records of his life and to support them financially.
“If they feel I’m doing the wrong thing for my grandchild, that’s right,” Jones said. “I know there are those critics. There are people who say you shouldn’t receive this, or you shouldn’t get this. That’s fine because that’s their opinion.”
Jones’ prison writings recount his childhood at Compton, his spiritual journey as a condemned man and death row inmate.
(Commentary of Albert Jones)
Jones could have possibly saved more pain in the Florville family, putting his books in a box and shipping them to his family for private consumption. But by making them available to research institutions, the public may better understand California death row inmates, such as how inmates build communities, practice religion and grieve.
In an entry in one journal, Jones recalls the news that one of his friends died of suicide after a stint in solitary confinement. “I don’t know if you kill yourself you can go to heaven, but I pray that he will make it and that his family is resting. God’s blessing.”
Diego Godoy, an associate curator of California and Hispanic collections at the Huntington Library in San Marino, said the archives could be useful for academics for many reasons, including a better understanding of prison culture.
“It’s part of history. It’s part of human experience,” Godoy said. “And I think it’s worth saving something like this and making it available for people to consult with.”
In preparation for his New York trip, Kinmont packed Jones’ work on a recent afternoon. This material appeared to be a violent violation at Kinmont’s office. There, hundreds of antique books lined up on towering shelves.
Three years ago, Kinmont helped coordinate the $2 million sale of its historic wine book collection to a wine company run by Prince Robert of Luxembourg. He once obtained a cookbook manuscript written by a woman who survived the Holocaust while living in a concentration camp and collected recipes. Still, working with Jones on his archives, Kinmont said it was “the deepest experience of my professional life.”
“I’m not saying Albert is a saint,” says Ben Kinmont, a bookstore auctioning off Jones’ prison archives. “But I’d say he’s accomplished something that has a very few people.”
(Hanna Wiley/Los Angeles Times)
His hope is that Jones’ archives may show the world what artistry and human connections are possible in places designed to shatter creativity and ultimately execute people.
“I’m not saying Albert is a saint. I’m not in a position to say that,” Kinmont said. “But I’d say he’s accomplished something that has a very few people.”
As for Jones, he’s already jumping into his next project. This is a book about his prison transfer from Saint Quentin. He plans to give it a title: “Finally free, finally free. But I am still being blamed.”
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