By William Petroski
Des Moines Register
FORT MADISON, IA. — For most of the past 43 years, Lacy Kelley’s home has been a one-man cell tucked inside the towering limestone walls of the Iowa State Penitentiary, the state’s toughest prison.
Kelley, 62, serving a life sentence for the 1970 slaying of a Cedar Rapids gas station attendant, will soon be moving to a new address, along with hundreds of his fellow maximum-security inmates.
Construction is nearly finished here on a $132 million high-tech penitentiary that will replace the existing correctional facility. Established in 1839, the prison is the oldest west of the Mississippi River.
The new 800-bed facility, about two miles north of the old penitentiary, is tentatively set to open in March after many of the state’s most dangerous convicts are transferred in a tightly orchestrated operation involving scores of state, county and city law enforcement officers.
Full story: $132M high-tech prison nears finish