Biography
Black Panther Party member known as 'Joe-Dell,' who The Black Panther Vol. 18 no.29 (1978) says was serving a 25–30 year sentence on trumped-up armed-robbery charges when he died in custody at Central Prison in Raleigh on June 13, 1972 — his death ruled a 'heart attack' but attributed by the paper to prison officials.
An unsigned letter from Central Prison in Raleigh, published in the September 1972 Liberated Guardian, calls the deceased prisoner Joe Dell. This corresponds to the separately documented Joseph Waddell alias Joe-Dell and the same prison and heart-attack explanation. The writer alleges repeated beatings, mace, high-pressure hoses, forced medication and a fatal injection as retaliation for his resistance. These are the incarcerated correspondent’s allegations, not independently established medical findings. The letter itself is uncertain whether he was twenty-one or twenty-two; neither age is adopted as a birth date, and its relative death timing does not replace the independently recorded June 13, 1972 date. Source: https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC510_scans/Attica/510.liberated.guardian.September1972.pdf#page=8
Already incarcerated by September1970
The Black Panther Summer1991 memorial, printed page15, says Joseph Waddell joined the Party in September1970 while already in the High Point city jail. He was later transferred to Central Prison and died June13,1972. September1970 is evidence that he was already confined, not an exact initial admission date; no first-day counter is inferred.
Safiya Bukhari records that Joseph “Joe-Dell” Waddell was already confined in High Point city jail when he joined the Black Panther Party in September 1970 and was later transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh. September 1970 is an observation during confinement, not an admission date. No new custody endpoint is established by this account.
Waddell joined the Black Panther Party in September 1970 while imprisoned in High Point, North Carolina. He was later transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh, where the Party’s memorial reported that guards repeatedly beat him before his death on June 13, 1972. The official explanation was a heart attack; fellow prisoners disputed it and suspected poisoning. The source reports death in custody, not release.
The Black Panther, volume XVII number 1, June 18, 1977, PDF page 3.
