10 Most Famous Inmates From San Quentin Prison

Published April 1, 2022
San Quentin State Prison is a well-known correctional facility located in the San Francisco Bay Area. With famous past and present inmates and a huge facility capable of housing up to 5,000 inmates.
San Quentin is home to California’s death row and gas chamber. With an estimated worth of more than $100 million, it has developed a reputation as one of the most respected and feared state prisons on the West Coast. Below are the San Quentin famous inmates.
10 San Quentin Famous Inmates
A big portion of San Quentin Prison’s popularity comes from its inmates with notable, if not controversial reputations. Here are ten San Quentin famous inmates who became household names in the US:
1. Harvey Murray Glatman (12/10/1927 – 9/18/1959)
Harvey Glatman was a late 1950s American serial killer. He used many aliases and pretended to be a professional photographer in order to entice his victims, promising them a modeling career.
2. Mack Ray Edwards (10/17/1918 – 10/30/1971)
Edwards was a serial killer in the United States. Between 1953 and 1970, he was responsible for the murders of at least six children in L.A. County, California. Sentenced to death, Edwards hanged himself in his cell.
3. Richard Trenton Chase (5/23/1950 – 12/26/1980)
Richard Chase was a serial killer in the United States who murdered six people in Sacramento, California, over the course of a month. He was dubbed “The Vampire of Sacramento” since he drank the blood of his victims and cannibalized their bodies.
4. Scott Lee Peterson (10/24/1972 – Present)
Scott Peterson is a convicted American murderer who is currently serving a life sentence on death row at San Quentin State Prison. In 2004, he was convicted in Modesto, California, of the first-degree murder of his pregnant wife and second-degree murder of their unborn son. In 2005 he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. His case is currently pending an automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court.
5. Richard Allen Davis (06/02/1954 – Present)
Richard Allen Davis is a convicted murderer in the United States whose criminal record inspired support of the “three-strikes law.” He is currently incarcerated at the San Quentin State Prison’s Adjustment Center on death row. In 1996, he was convicted of the first-degree murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas.

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6. Merle Ronald Haggard (04/06/1937 – 04/06/2016)
His childhood was difficult following his father’s death, and he was arrested multiple times during his youth. However, he turned his life around following his release from San Quentin Prison in 1960, launching a successful music career.
7. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (03/19/1994)
Sirhan is a Palestinian holding Jordanian citizenship who mortally wounded US Senator Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968; Kennedy died the next day. Sirhan was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder.
8. Wallace Fard Muhammad (02/26/1877 – circa 1934)
Wallace Fard was the Nation of Islam’s founder. He arrived in Detroit in 1930 under an alias and preached an idiosyncratic brand of Islam to the city’s black population. Then, in 1934, he vanished from public view, and Elijah Muhammad became the Nation of Islam’s leader.
9. Stanley Tookie Williams III (12/29/1953 – 12/13/2005)
Stanley Williams was a gangster in the United States, well known as one of the Crip gang’s founders and leaders in Los Angeles, California. Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in 1979 for the murder of four individuals during two robberies.
10. Charles Milles Manson (11/12/1934 – 11/19/2017)
Last on the San Quentin famous inmates list, Charles Manson was a convicted criminal and cult leader in the United States. He founded the Manson Family in mid-1967. In July and August 1969, Manson’s followers conducted a sequence of nine murders in four locations. He was convicted in 1971 of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the deaths of seven people. Manson was initially sentenced to death but was reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1972. He died in late 2017 at the age of 83 after serving his life sentence.
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About The Author
Krizzia Paolyn is an SEO Specialist with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. It has always been her passion to share her voice, and at the same time, to encourage other people to speak up.