Former prison guard shares near-death memory
Former prison guard almost killed by one of state’s most violent felons 30 years ago
Retired state prison guard Earl Porter is nearing an anniversary he’d like to forget, but can’t and never will.
Thirty years ago, on April 16, 1988, one of New York’s most notorious inmates plunged a 10inch shank into Porter’s chest, narrowly missing his heart.
However, his life still hung in the balance as paramedics worked frantically to counteract a collapsed lung filling with blood, as Porter was rushed to a hospital for emergency surgery.
“I remember them saying, ‘We’ve barely got a pulse,” the 62-year-old Greenfield resident said. “We don’t think he’s going to make it.”
The incident occurred at maximum-security Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill, where Porter worked a year after beginning his career as a state corrections officer. His assailant was Willie Bosket, Jr., then 25, whose extremely violent criminal record had prompted a change in state law, enabling juveniles as young as 13 to face the same murder charges and penalties as adults.
Bosket, now serving an 82 years-to-life sentence at Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, Seneca County, has been in prison or reformatories for all but 18 months since 1971, and has spent all but 100 days of his adult life in custody.
Forty years ago, on March 19, 1978, a then 15-year-old Bosket shot and killed a New York City subway passenger, and murdered another in similar fashion eight days later, during attempted robberies. As a youthful offender, he was sentenced to five years, the maximum allowed at the time.
Gov. Hugh Carey, running for re-election, had opposed efforts to have juveniles tried as adults for some crimes. But public outcry was so great over Bosket’s short sentence that Carey called the Legislature into special session to approve the Juvenile Offender Act of 1978.
Bosket escaped from a youth detention facility, was captured and over the next several years committed a long series of violent assaults, some against corrections officers, after being sent to state prison.
Porter wasn’t specifically targeted when Bosket stabbed him in a prison visiting room area. He was simply the latest victim of the inmate’s rage against authority and society-at-large.
“Wrong place, wrong time,” said Porter’s daughter, Kristy Roberts, who was 6 years old at the time.
Earl, a 1974 Ballston Spa High School graduate, and his wife, Marlene, were living in Greenfield, but he stayed with a sister, who lived near Wallkill, during the week and would travel home on weekends.
When the incident occurred, state troopers and prison officials from Mount McGregor Correctional Facility, in Wilton, were sent to locate Marlene and tell her what happened. She was just up the road, visiting her mother, with Kristy.
Prison officials stopped at Mom & Pop’s Store in Porter Corners, hoping to find Marlene. Being the small close-knit community it is, the store’s owners knew where she likely was.
“A corrections vehicle pulled up and the man said, ‘There’s been an accident and your husband’s in the hospital. It’s not looking good,’” Marlene said. “I was stunned. I just threw clothes in a bag, took my daughter and off we went.”
Porter had been taken to St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh, where he was in intensive care following surgery.
“It’s etched in my mind,” said
Roberts, now 36. “I remember seeing him in his room with the chest tube pumping blood out of his lungs.”
Porter was released several days later, relatively quickly, considering how close he’d come to dying.
After recovering at home, Porter was reassigned to medium-security Mount McGregor where he worked for 25 years before retiring on Sept. 30, 2013, less than a year before the site closed under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s statewide prison scaledown program.
“I really didn’t want him to go back,” Marlene said.
During his 1989 trial for stabbing Porter, Bosket described himself as a “monster” and according to Porter said, “The only thing I regret is that I didn’t kill him.” Bosket’s father was serving a life sentence for murder, and when he was still a youthful offender Bosket said that he would some day kill someone, too.
For attacking Porter, who testified during the trial, Bosket was convicted of first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree promotion of prison contraband.
He was given a life sentence and based upon his extremely violent conduct he’s been in “the box,” solitary confinement, since 1989 — allowed to leave his cell one hour per day for exercise.
Originally, Bosket was expected to stay in solitary until 2046 when he would be 84 years old. But this was reduced recently based on improved behavior. Prison officials review his status regularly, to determine if he should be allowed to join the general inmate population.
Looking back, Porter believes another inmate put the weapon Bosket used in an overhead bathroom light fixture. Bosket retrieved it after being interviewed by a journalist and managed to slip by an officer stationed at a frisk area before attacking Porter, who was seated at a desk.
“He was in solitary back then, too,” Porter said. “He shouldn’t have been in a regular visiting room area.”
It was by far the most severe altercation Porter suffered during his career, but not the only one. At Mount McGregor, an inmate once head-butted him.
Porter will never know why fate linked him to one of America’s most violent felons, prompting a case that generated nationwide media attention.
New York was the firstever state to adopt a law such as the Juvenile Offender Act of 1978. Since then, every other state has followed suit.
These days, at 62, Porter spends his time “just catching up on projects, doing things I didn’t have time to do when I was working. I miss the people that I worked with, but I don’t miss the job.”
The upcoming 30th anniversary of his brush with death is bittersweet. He’s glad to be alive, that he and Marlene had another child — their son, Justin — along with countless other blessings. But in some respects he’s also a prisoner of horrific memories, which like victims of all violent crimes, he’ll never escape from.
“I try not to think about it, but it never goes away,” Porter said. “It’s just planted there.”