This year marks the 55th anniversary of the worst riot in Eastern State Penitentiary’s 142-year history.

Mayhem ensued within the walls of the Philadelphia prison, located just blocks from City Hall on Fairmont Avenue, after a handful of inmates tried to find a way to freedom.

A late Summit Hill resident, William Derau Jr., the grandfather of reporter Amy Miller, was a newbie prison guard at the penitentiary at the time, and was one of the men forced by riot leaders to free several from their cells.

A transcript of Derau’s testimony was found following the death of his wife in 2007 among a number of his belongings, including his service revolver and shanks that had been confiscated.

Step back in history as we look at the night when guards became prisoners and prisoners became guards in this two-part series.

 “We mean business,” prison guard William Derau Jr. told state investigators inmates said as they held a zip gun to his head hours earlier. 

Derau, a Summit Hill native, was one of dozens of guards inside the walls of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia on the night of Jan. 8 1961, when 32 inmates attempted to overtake the stone fortress.

The almost four-hour riot left two guards injured, an inmate with a skull fracture and effectively signed the death warrant of the penitentiary, which closed for good in 1971 after a three-year investigation.

The 44-year-old Derau had served as a guard at the facility only seven months when the riot occurred. Before that he was employed with the coal mines in the Panther Valley, but always had the desire to be a police officer.

When the job at Eastern State arose, the decision was difficult and the commute long, but Derau felt taking the job would best help support his wife, Josephine, and their five children.

He knew there would be risks, especially working on cellblock 15, nicknamed “Death Row” because it housed the worst of the worst, but he never expected what happened that night.

Calm before the storm

The day began like any other at the penitentiary.

The air within the 131-year-old prison was stale and cold, mixed with the stench of inmates living in very confined spaces, and hid any clue of what was being planned by a handful with evil intentions.

Inmate chatter filled the empty voids as guards patrolled, the clicks of their shoes echoing along the long, gray stone corridors. Officers, like Derau, carried no weapons within the cellblocks as a safety measure in case they were overtaken by prisoners, the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site data states.

Nine-hundred and fifty inmates called the penitentiary home in January 1961, but no one was prepared for what would come once night fell.

Lighting the fuse

The riot began just before 8 p.m. in cellblock 9, nearly three hours after inmates were supposed to be locked down for the night.

According to the penitentiary’s historic records, inmate John Klausenberg, who was returning from his job in the prison’s mess hall, tricked newbie guard Donald Carr into opening another cell to return a guitar. Once unlocked, he and prisoner Harry Shank ambushed Carr, stabbing him in the shoulder.

Klausenberg and Shank fled to find accomplice Anthony Scoleri overtaking Lt. William Righter in the center, a circular room that provided access to the seven original cellblocks, before taking him as the first hostage.

Face-to-face with evil

“I was on duty at 15 block,” Derau wrote in his official testimony following the riot.

“At that time, I had charge of 11 inmates. About 8:25 p.m., I received a call from Lt. Righter from center. He said, ‘I’m sending over an inmate.’ ”

Derau testified to the acting Philadelphia District Attorney Paul Chaflin, Warden W.J. Banmiller and other state agencies, that at 8:30 p.m. he heard a knock at the cellblock door.

“I walked over to the door. Looking out the small glass, I saw officer Hayes and a small inmate in front of him,” he wrote. “Hayes said, ‘Here is your inmate.’ Looking to my right toward #1 tower, I saw another officer with his back toward me. Looking to my left toward #3 tower, I couldn’t see anything.

“Bending down I grasped the door handle in my right hand. I inserted the front door key with my left hand. As soon as the lock ‘clicked,’ I was pulled outward ... an inmate stuck a ‘zip gun’ to my head and said ‘this is it’ and ordered me inside.

“One guy had a Bowie knife and another had barber scissors.”

‘Push the buttons’

Once inside, Klausenberg and Shank, as well as two other inmates, one dressed in an officer’s uniform, ordered Derau to begin opening the cells via the centralized electronic locking system.

Death row, the last of the 15 cellblocks constructed at the growing prison, was the only block with this type of locking system.

Those released included 22-year-old Richard Mayberry, who would later sustain a skull fracture at the hands of state police, as well as Fred Hunter, Ben Porta, Tennessee Smith, Joe Mealey and William Rice, Derau’s testimony reported.

The inmates then stripped Derau and ordered him into the now empty cell 4.

“I pulled the cell door shut enough to make believe it was locked,” he wrote.

“Joe Mealey came looking for me and pushed the cell door locked.

“He said, ‘You can have my medicine tonight, Derau.’ ”

After leaving Derau in cellblock 15, the rioters continued their mayhem, collecting guards’ uniforms along the way to help them move more freely within the blocks.

They then released Eddie and Anthony Scoleri and headed to the records room, where they started a fire in the hopes of wiping out their criminal records.

Over the next two hours, 800 inmate cells were opened, but only 32 chose to actively participate in the riot.

Next week: Part II looks at the police response and restoring peace at Eastern State.