As inmates are transported to America’s most secure prison, they are treated to one final, awe-inspiring sight.

“As they approach, they are greeted by the majestic view of the Rocky Mountains. It’s truly stunning,” remarked Bob Hood, who once served as the warden of the Supermax facility near Florence, Colorado. “That marks the last moment of freedom they’ll ever experience.”

During his tenure from 2002 to 2005, Hood patrolled the prison’s halls and checked on every prisoner daily. Among those under his watch were notorious figures like the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid, and World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, along with various serial killers.

These individuals were considered “the worst of the worst,” and with no hope of release, many found themselves in despair.

“I would estimate that 97 to 98 percent of all inmates at the Supermax show signs of the impact,” Hood observed. “I’ve seen men break down in tears, especially during Christmas, speaking about their children, even as they serve multiple life sentences.”

One prisoner who seemed to cope with the isolation better than others was Kaczynski. Initially silent for months, he eventually began to open up and communicate.

‘He was able to handle the Supermax almost to a point of surprising the staff,’ said Hood. ‘He beat the system in one sense because it never seemed like it ever got to him.

Ted Kaczynski (pictured), the Unabomber, ran circles in his cage

‘He would always have books and in various languages, I think it was six or seven different languages he knew.’

Following Kaczynski’s initial silence, Hood decided to use similar tactics to the TV detective Columbo to get him to open up. 

‘I said, Kaczynski, over the weekend, I was reading some stuff, and again very distant, he said, that’s good, what was it? I said, the manifesto that you wrote. And that’s the first time, after like six months or seven months, that he finally really connected with me. I could tell that I hit a nerve.

‘He goes, you read my manifesto? I just simply said, I read it, and then I played the Columbo guy. I said, You know what, Kaczynski, it’s almost like Shelley, the lady that wrote Frankenstein. That was almost like the manifesto, where there’s a monster, Frankenstein, but it’s technology. Technology could be for the good. In this case, you’re seeing the negative part of the technology.’

As the conversation progressed, Kaczynski went on to brag that everybody in the world knew who the Unabomber was, but the warden told him time had that wasn’t the case anymore.

‘I said the average person now, the average kid growing up, no one knows about the manifesto,’ Hood said. ‘They’re not reading your manifesto. I told him that. I said, you know, you killed several people, couldn’t you just have put the damn thing in a book?

‘He goes, no, I had to kill somebody to get the attention. I said, Well, you have to look at that, you’re sitting in the Supermax for the rest of your life, you die here, and he did. So, we had those kind of conversations.’

The Rocky Mountains loom over the Supermax facility outside Florence, Colorado

A Daily Mail graphic of a Supermax cell. The cell has been specially designed to minimize the chances of an inmate being able to die by suicide

Bob Hood (pictured) was warden of the Supermax between 2002 and 2005

One of Kaczynski’s stranger habits was to run in circles in the dog cage where he was sometimes put, calculating in his head how far he would have gone in a straight line.

Once, when then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was touring the Supermax, Hood took the top law enforcement official to see him.

Kaczynski was running in circles in the cage and each time he passed them said: ‘Hey, warden, I just want you to know I’m in Walla Walla, Washington, right now.’

Mueller was confused. The warden knew Kaczynski was mentally clocking up the distance from the Supermax to where his brother lived on the West Coast, by doing laps in his cage. The Unabomber didn’t say anything to Mueller and kept on going.

By contrast, Richard Reid, the so-called ‘shoe bomber,’ was a ‘street punk,’ Hood said.

Recalling his first meeting with Reid in his cell, Hood said: ‘I walk up to him. He’s in the cell. The door opens up. The officers are standing there with batons left and right of me, and he stands up from his bed, and I say, Good morning, and he’s a punk type of guy.

Richard Reid, the British terrorist known as the ‘shoe bomber,’ earned his high school diploma in the Supermax

A cell at the Supermax in which inmates spend 23 hours a day

The Supermax in Florence, Colorado is a state of the art isolation prison

‘He goes, Oh, who are you? He doesn’t know. I said, Well, I’m the warden. And I said, so who are you? And he says I’m Richard Reid. And, I go, oh yeah, you’re the guy who couldn’t even blow up his shoe.

‘He wasn’t very happy with the judge. He wasn’t very happy with administrative types like me. So I said, let me ask you a question, do you love your mother? I said, Well, you’re never going to see her again unless I allow it.’

The warden then made Reid promise to work on getting his GED high school diploma, and to keep his cell clean, including lining up his shoes neatly.

‘He goes, Why would I want to get a GED? I said, well you’re not getting out of here, you’re going to basically die here. Sometimes you do it for others, do it for your mother in England.

‘He takes the GED, he knocks it out, his cell was kept clean, and when I went by there, you know, he wasn’t Mr Happy with me, but he’d say a good morning warden, and we’d not get any incident reports, any problems with the staff.’

Eventually, his mother was allowed to visit for a short and heavily surveilled meeting, with Hood listening in, at which Reid told her about getting his GED.

Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is in the Supermax

Serial killer Michael Swango refused to come out of his cell at all for the daily one hour of recreation

Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center bomber, was less talkative. 

‘Yusuf was looking at getting up on the hour, praying,’ said Hood. ‘He hardly ever talked to me. He was just like, Good morning, warden.’

Another inmate who kept quiet was serial killer Michael Swango, a former Marine and doctor, who poisoned patients.

In another jail he had been attacked and slashed across the face with a knife, so was moved to the Supermax.

‘In the years that I was there he never came out for recreation,’ said Hood.

‘Here’s a medical doctor who can come out one hour a day and see the sunshine above you. You can’t see the mountains, you can’t see the beauty, it’s all intentionally built so you don’t see all that beautiful stuff, but you can see the sky.

‘He stays in 24 hours a day. He’s the only one I’ve ever met that it’s in the Supermax and said, No, I don’t want to come out.’