Today, I have for you the stories of William Lee and Stephen Shock, one-time inmates of Nebraska State Penitentiary, and both of whom managed to redeem themselves quite nicely!

William Lee

William Lee was picked up in December 1919 for bootlegging. Nebraska passed prohibition laws 2 years earlier, and William was sentenced to between 6 months and 2 years, and made to serve nearly all of it. However, at one point, William learned his wife was terminally ill and he was granted a furlough to see her before she died. He visited her, he returned to complete his sentence and was fittingly released on Independence Day 1921.

Stephen Shock

Stephen Shock, inmate 6970, was sentenced to two years at the Nebraska State Prison for grand larceny in November 1916. He was released early, in February 1918, and decided to put his old ways behind him for good. Shock enlisted in the US Army shortly after his release to serve in World War I. He seems much better suited to be a handsome Army sergeant than an inmate at the penitentiary.

Mugshot March comes to an end this Thursday! If you haven’t entered the contest to win a signed copy of my new book, Has it Come to This?, be sure to enter here today!