Replica of deadly cell in court
By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published April 15, 2008 at 11 p.m.
Updated April 16, 2008 at 11:32 a.m.
Inside a prison cell.
Joshua Duplechian / Special To The Rocky
Set designer Jen Orf talks with Charles Packard, theatrical set designer and executive producer at the Aurora Fox arts center. Packard's team worked for months in an Aurora warehouse to replicate the cell where inmate Joey Estrella was eviscerated in 1999.
Packard is scheduled to testify about his $15,000 design.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified the prison where the killing occurred. It was the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence.
Charles Packard spent the better part of the winter inside a prison cell.
For pay.
Even so, the theatrical set designer and executive producer at the Aurora Fox arts center called it the most disturbing project of his career.
Packard and a team of nine contractors worked for months in an Aurora warehouse to build an exact replica of a cell at the U.S. Penitentiary at Florence. It's the cell where Rudy Sablan lived with his cousin, William, and Joey Estrella.
Rudy Sablan is now charged with first-degree murder in the 1999 death of Estrella, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Opening statements in his trial are today at the federal courthouse in Denver. William Sablan was tried last year and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Rudy Sablan was in Florence after stabbing another inmate at a federal prison in Georgia in 1996. He is accused of strangling Estrella with a headphone cord. Prosecutors say that his cousin slashed Estrella's neck repeatedly with a razor. The cousins allegedly eviscerated their victim, hanging his organs around the cell.
A key part of the defense case is the cell they occupied, and that's where Packard comes in. Defense attorneys Forrest W. Lewis and Donald Knight wanted to draw attention to conditions at the prison. The 7-by-14-foot cell the three men shared was intended for a single man. To convey the emotional reality, Packard was hired to build a cell accurate to within a quarter of an inch.
"To me, when you're living in a space this size, a quarter inch makes a difference," Packard said.
Attorneys and investigators were allowed to photograph and measure the cell, which contained two bunks, a shower and a toilet. A single lamp at eye level provides particularly dim light, which Packard sized up with a dramatist's eye.
"Their lighting source is harsh, to make it hard to ever feel good about the person you are talking to," Packard said. "It doesn't create shadow. There's no dimension to it at all. The tendency is to hide their emotion and open their eyes too much."
He estimated the light as two 15-watt bulbs. Within the cell, sound bounces off the solid surfaces.
"You can't even talk full voice in here without going nuts," Packard said recently, standing inside his replica. "When we're designing and decorating a set, we think a lot about the characters. We found ourselves in here thinking about that guy. He's probably a wicked bad guy, but you start to feel different about it when you're hangin' out in here."
Not all of the materials are authentic. Styrofoam was painted to look like concrete.
"I researched most of those pieces in an attempt to buy the actual things, and I could always get close, but I couldn't get perfect on any of them," Packard said. "I could get almost perfect on the toilet, but it was $2,000 (an industrial steel piece) and it just wasn't right for our budget."
The cell was built in Aurora, then moved into the Opera Shop, a local design construction company, where Packard and his team were practicing folding it up for reassembly in the courtroom. He said the entire process should take seven minutes.
Packard is scheduled to be called as an expert witness to testify about his design, which cost about $15,000.
"I'm a little baffled by it, because our whole business (theater) is about lying, so I'm wondering if that's going to come up under cross-examination," he said.
bornsteinl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5101
This story previously contained an incorrect reference to "Supermax," the maximum security prison in Florence. The killing described above occurred at the nearby U.S. Penitentiary.
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April 16, 2008
1:58 a.m.
Suggest removal
casualobserver writes:
Who's paying for this?
April 16, 2008
5:59 a.m.
Suggest removal
Oh_Wise_One writes:
I'm sure that we, the taxpayers or those among us that have jobs, are paying for this clustermuck. "we think a lot about the characters" ...... This isn't Hollyweird Charlie, this is SuperMax and these animals are there to keep the rest of us safer.
April 16, 2008
6:20 a.m.
Suggest removal
holekeeper writes:
oh boy a criminal who had already killed another criminal in another jail, they are right he should have been sent to a minimum security prison, with big screen TV's and bear skin rugs. Get a life people.
April 16, 2008
6:32 a.m.
Suggest removal
El_Mariachi writes:
A waste of time and money...
Three guys in a cell...one is dead.
Eviscerated!
Gee...I wonder who did it?
April 16, 2008
6:33 a.m.
Suggest removal
vudumom writes:
SuperMax has reservations only for the worst of the worst. When people come along and try to show that these monsters are human people start feeling sympathy for the scmmiest of the scum. pretty soon there getting petitions together to get these people out.
Why not do a play on what it like to be a small child raped by your mother's boyfriend and then have the creep let go as long as he registers as a sex offender and gets to do it all over again until he kills her or someone in Human Services comes to rescue them and puts them in a series of abusive foster homes with abusive foster parents who are in it for the money?
Stop showing victimizers as victims.
April 16, 2008
6:43 a.m.
Suggest removal
DisplacedColoradoan writes:
casualobserver...
It's likely the defense who's paying for this because they'll argue somehow "the cell made our client do it." They'll argue the overcrowding of a cell made to hold barely one person created conditions which lead directly to the insanity of at least two cellmates and the murder of the third. They'll probably also bring in the prison medical staff to testify about the prevalence of psychological disorders in Supermax facilities and the psychological deterioration of inmates after their arrival in Florence.
I'm sure they're bankrolled by an organization that opposes Supermax-like facilities.
April 16, 2008
7:18 a.m.
Suggest removal
holekeeper writes:
Im am sorry, I cant feel bad for these people. I worked in a MAX level Prison for a little over 2 years and I just cant do it. I dont agree with the death penility for the case as I beleive that this should only be used for when the murder is of an innocent, like a child, or the killings of police officers. I dont want to use my tax money for a trial, then all of the appeals. give the man life and forget about him. he is worthless.
April 16, 2008
7:51 a.m.
Suggest removal
Mtnsjohn writes:
"ah....the system made me do it. I had no choice - Cruel and unusual punishment cause I didn't have a 100 watt bulb."
blah blah blah.
And no doubt defense attorneys are behind this. Poor lighting often leads to disembowelment.
April 16, 2008
8:57 a.m.
Suggest removal
johnnybgood91 writes:
why not give both of these poor excuses for human beings life in that same cell, and see who kills who next. that way the last one standing can have the cell all to himself.
April 16, 2008
11:50 a.m.
Suggest removal
Ztliano writes:
I don't get it. *chewing gum at the same time*
April 16, 2008
11:56 a.m.
Suggest removal
kalonblake writes:
Just because they are "poor excuses for human beings" doesn't mean we should be. When we lock someone away, we are obligated to be humane. What did the warden think would happen if he packed three men like these into one cell? Did anyone see Frontline last night about 5 Colorado juveniles sentenced to life without parole? It is pretty sad that we have become a culture with a "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mentality. We seem to be more focused on vengance than justice these days. It is a sad thing.
April 16, 2008
12:48 p.m.
Suggest removal
DenverTea writes:
Why was the guy who had already killed another prisoner allowed to be with other prisoners? Ohhh, right - because our prisons are so full, there is no room. Why are our prisons so full? Because our society is broken... full to overflowing prisons are Not a sign of a healthy society. I heard a lady on a bus say that "the prisons are getting full, it means the government is doing a good job." I was in disbelief. I had to laugh, because it was too ridiculous. We need to find alternative means for those who do not need to be locked up, or hey, work on the root cause of the problem instead of the symptoms.
April 16, 2008
1:08 p.m.
Suggest removal
kmeissner writes:
DenverTea- it never said he KILLED another inmate. They said he STABBED another inmate at another jail. That's why they moved him to Supermax.
I agree that he should get the death penalty. If you kill someone you shouldn't have the right to keep walking the Earth.
But I also think they were packed into a cell that was way too small for even 2 people.
kalonblake is right in that regard.
April 16, 2008
1:35 p.m.
Suggest removal
holekeeper writes:
Do I have to do all of the research....yes kmeissner he killed the other inmate while in prison for felon in possesion of a handgun. check it out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...
April 16, 2008
1:38 p.m.
Suggest removal
holekeeper writes:
William Sablan serving a 252-month sentence for hostage taking, I want these people back out. I think they can be helped and changed....right!
April 17, 2008
1:05 a.m.
Suggest removal
rdamurphy writes:
Hmmm, I guess liberals would say the guy was driven to become a murderous lunatic by being put in a cell... Conservatives would say the guy was a murderous lunatic which is why he was put into a cell! I'm kind of unclear why they would need to build this thing, after all, the cell still exists, and it's only a couple of hours away...