A juvenile lifer spent 50 years in prison. Now that he’s out, he may have nowhere to go.

February 5, 2019 | Philadelphia Daily News | Samantha Melamed

Freddie Nole was a teenager last time he walked free back in 1969, when Richard Nixon was president and City Hall was still the tallest building in Philadelphia.

In January 2019, at age 68, Nole was released on parole. He’s trying to catch up on nearly half a century of lost time: going to church with his wife of 34 years, Susan Beard-Nole, and sharing home-cooked meals for the first time in decades. But everything still seems strange and overwhelming: the expansive restaurant menus (he asks Beard-Nole, 72, to order for him); the complicated new iPhone (he kept hanging up midcall); the confusing power locks on his wife’s car.

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'I felt like a caged animal.' Pa. woman claims jail illegally shackled her during labor

May 10, 2018 | Philadelphia Daily News | Samantha Melamed

Athena Remlinger was supposed to go to court on Oct. 17, 2017. She expected to be sentenced to time served on charges that she participated in a robbery. It was a relief: She was pushing nine months pregnant, and wanted to be home from jail in time to give birth.

Instead, her public defender told her the court date was canceled. The Lebanon County Correctional Facility had decided to induce labor two weeks early — for staffing reasons, she claims she was told.

Though Remlinger pleaded with correctional, and then medical, officials to let her carry her baby to term, they took her to Hershey Medical Center, shackled her to a rocking chair, and gave her Pitocin, a drug that induces labor, she claims in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Middle District.

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Was Graterford inmate on suicide watch when he took his life? Superintendent is out, but answers scarce

March 15, 2018 | Samantha Melamed | Philadelphia Daily News

Bobbie London wants answers.

The Parkesburg resident has been trying for a month to find out the truth about what happened to her son, Christopher Gilchrist, who died at Graterford Prison on Feb. 14. London says a coroner informed her that Gilchrist was on 24-hour suicide watch at the time, though the Department of Corrections (DOC) has not confirmed it. Gilchrist, who was 31, used a sheet and towel to hang himself, according to the Montgomery County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“I don’t understand how someone on suicide watch has the time to get that much done,” London said.

Gilchrist’s death was one of four suicides at Graterford in a span of five weeks, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. By comparison, the entire DOC has counted seven suicides per year on average since 2000.

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As city jail deaths rise, will reforms help?

November 3, 2015 | Dana DiFilippo | Philadelphia Daily News

Jamella Parks had been hooked on drugs for nearly three decades before she tried to sneak $68.52 worth of toiletries out of a Logan Rite Aid in January. It was far from her first arrest: Her record is riddled with crimes, mostly misdemeanors like prostitution and shoplifting, she committed to feed an addiction she couldn't shake.

This time, though, the arrest would be her death sentence.

Although she could have been freed on just $300 cash bail, the 43-year-old North Philly woman instead spent nearly six months behind bars before dying, in custody, of cancer.

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