One of the Most Horrifying Things Imaginable Just Happened in My Prison. Why Is Nobody Talking About It?

Jurisprudence

Aug 11, 20261:10 PM

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos via the Alcaraz family and Acroterion/CC BY-SA 4.0.

“Help me!” shouted Marcos “Bori” Alcaraz. “I’m on fire!”

Thirty-five-year-old Alcaraz, a slim kid from the Bronx serving time for manslaughter, stood pressed against the steel bars inside South Hall—an infamous cellblock at Eastern NY Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison tucked away in Napanoch, New York. It was around 1:40 a.m. on a summer Saturday last month when Alcaraz’s cell ignited into an inferno.