Biography
Harold H. Thompson was a Vietnam War veteran, anarchist and anti-war activist with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In 1978. the mother of his children was murdered by a man named Walter Douglas Crawley. Crawley was convicted of her murder but released in October 1979 after becoming a police informant. On the same day as his release Crawley was overheard threatening to murder Harold's son and another child who had testified against him during his trial. Crawley was shot to death whilst drinking in a bar by a masked assailant who was never caught or identified 4 days later. Police assumed Thompson to be the killer and put out a bulletin for his arrest. Ten days later, after a large scale manhunt for Harold he was arrested and charged with the murder of Crawley. Harold was sentenced to life in prison.
Frankie Dee’s obituary on behalf of Friends of Harold H. Thompson reports his death in a Tennessee prison on November 11, 2008, aged 66, while serving life without parole. It describes an earlier life sentence and additional years after an armed escape attempt, without establishing the additional term or an exact completed duration. It attributes serious injuries to an attack by a white supremacist prison gang and alleges staff collusion, with litigation still pending at his death. These are the obituary’s claims. His writing, painting, peer support and challenges to restrictions on anarchist literature are also described. The source identifies no particular Tennessee institution; the unrelated Minnesota institution is removed. Death is recorded as death in custody, without inventing a release date.