Texas Inmate Kills Another Member

AMARILLO, TEXAS

On Jan. 29, Stanley A. Wiley, Local 3848 (Council 7), was murdered in the Clements Unit. Inmate Travis Trevino Runnels allegedly took a knife from the prison's shoe factory and slashed Wiley's throat. Funeral services were held Feb. 1.

Wiley, 38, an Industrial Specialist III, supervised inmates as they made shoes for other convicts. In 1994, he joined the Texas Department of Criminal Justice as a corrections officer, and was later promoted to supervisor.

Prison spokesman Larry Todd says about 50 inmates were in the factory when the murder took place. Runnels, a janitor in the factory for only eight days, was angry at Wiley over previous disagreements. Said Runnels — serving a 70-year term for aggravated robbery — in a written statement: "I started boiling inside. It seems like my mind went on overload and I blanked out and started walking toward him. The next thing I know he was turning around looking at me with his hand on his throat with blood running down. I looked down at my hand and a knife was in it."

Wiley is the second Texas CO and AFSCME member to recently lose his life in a prison. In 1999, Daniel Nagle, president of Council 7's Local 3890, was killed in the McConnell Unit near Beeville. Robert Lynn Pruett stabbed Nagle, apparently over a dispute involving regulations covering inmate use of the recreation yard. Last May, Pruett was sent to death row.