Biography
Gary Watson (inmate #098990) is the last still-imprisoned member of the "Smyrna Five" (S-5) — a group of radical Black prisoners who rose up against the administration of Delaware's maximum-security prison at Smyrna (the Delaware Correctional Center, today the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center) amid the wave of prison rebellion that followed the August 1971 killing of George Jackson at San Quentin. The five were convicted in 1973 of rioting and assault. Watson has remained imprisoned ever since — held in the prison's Security Housing Unit (SHU 17) — making him one of the longest-held prisoners of that era's prison-radical movement.
The Smyrna Seven defense committee named Gary Watson among the four defendants it reported had been forced to plead guilty in the 1976 escape prosecution after being denied their defense. This episode is distinct from the earlier 1973 Smyrna Five rioting-and-assault case.
The Black Panther, October 30, 1976, volume XV no.29, PDF page 24.