American prison librarian who was taken hostage and killed in the ‘1974 Huntsville Prison siege,’ an eleven-day prison uprising that took place from 24 July to 3 August 1974 at the Huntsville Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, Texas. The standoff was one of the longest hostage-taking sieges in United States history.
Federico “Fred” Gomez Carrasco and two other inmates laid siege to the education/library building of the Walls Unit. “Fred” Carrasco, the most powerful heroin kingpin in South Texas, was serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of a police officer. He was also suspected in the murder of dozens of people in Mexico and Texas. Having smuggled pistols and ammunition into the prison, he and two other convicts took eleven prison workers and four inmates hostage.
After a gruelling eleven-day standoff, the convicts finally made their desperate escape attempt just before 10 PM on 3 August 1974. They moved out of the library toward the waiting vehicle in a makeshift shield consisting of legal books taped to mobile blackboards that was later dubbed by the press the “Trojan Taco”. Inside the shield were the three convicts and four hostages, while eight other hostages ringed the exterior of the “taco”.
Acting on a prearranged plan, prison guards and Texas Rangers blasted the group with fire hoses. However, a rupture in the hose gave the convicts time to fatally shoot the two women hostages who had volunteered to join the convicts in the armoured car. When prison officials returned fire, Carrasco committed suicide and one of his two accomplices was killed.
The two female hostages who were killed during the incident were Yvonne ‘Von’ Beseda and Julia Standley.
Link to 1974 Huntsville Prison siege