Frank Smith is very likely the longest-serving prisoner, ever, in the United States. He spent around 85 years in the justice system. He was in prison for the Battle of Stalingrad, and the liberation of Auschwitz. He was in custody during Elvis’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, the opening of the first McDonald’s franchise, the wars in both Korea and Vietnam, and the moon landing. He missed the introduction of credit cards and the September 11th attacks and the invention of the Internet, a development he regards with some suspicion. Almost everyone he knew before he went away is dead.

This is his story.

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