6 killers who were murdered in prison
There’s a grim little hierarchy inside prison, and some names sink straight to the bottom. Child killers. Serial killers. Informants. Men whose crimes are so notorious and ethically wrong that other inmates decide the courts didn’t quite finish the job.
That doesn’t make what happens next lawful. Nor does it make the men who commit murder behind bars noble or redeemed in any way. It just means prison has its own deadly logic. Here are some of the most notable killers who were murdered in prison. No doubt names like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ian Huntley will be instantly recognisable to Crime+Investigation buffs.
1. Ian Huntley
Ian Huntley (aka the Soham murderer) died after being attacked in a workshop at high-security prison HMP Frankland in 2026.
It wasn’t the first time Huntley was attacked either. He’d already been scalded with boiling water by spree killer Mark Hobson in 2005 (Hobson got three months of solitary confinement for the attack), then had his throat slashed in 2010 by Damien Fowkes, a convicted armed robber.
So when he was attacked again in 2026, it was shocking, but hardly out of the blue. Convicted at the Old Bailey for the murder of two 10-year-old schoolgirls, Huntley sat in that category of prisoner many inmates despise most.
2. Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer was only two years into his sentence when fellow inmate Christopher Scarver beat him to death with a metal bar at Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.
As one of America’s most detested serial killers and sex offenders, it’s not hard to see why Dahmer was a target.
At the time of his death on 28th November 1994, Dahmer was serving multiple life terms for the murders of 15 men in Wisconsin and one in Ohio. He was on cleaning duty when the attack unfolded.
3. Jesse Anderson
Jesse Anderson is often remembered as the other man killed in the Dahmer attack. He was behind bars for killing his wife, then trying to pin it on a pair of Black strangers. Scarver attacked him with the same metal bar he used on Dahmer, resulting in catastrophic injuries. Anderson was taken to hospital but died two days later after being taken off life support.
4. James “Whitey” Bulger
Whitey Bulger’s death had that especially ugly prison speed to it. The Boston mobster (convicted over 11 killings and other crimes) was transferred to USP Hazelton in West Virginia in October 2018. Within hours, he was dead. Prosecutors said American mobster Fotios “Freddy” Geas went into Bulger’s cell and beat the 89-year-old to death, while fellow inmates Paul DeCologero and Sean McKinnon acted as lookouts.
The motive wasn’t exactly subtle. Prosecutors said inmates openly referred to Bulger as a snitch (that’s prison shorthand for the sort of reputation that can get you killed).
5. Subhan Anwar
Subhan Anwar’s crimes were horrific to say the least. He was serving life for the torture and murder of his partner’s two-year-old daughter in Huddersfield, when he was killed at HMP Long Lartin in February 2013. Two inmates, Gary Smith and Lee Newell, followed him into his cell, bound him and strangled him with his own tracksuit bottoms. Then, in one of those details that makes the whole thing even more chilling, Smith made Newell a hot chocolate before they let officers in.
Neither man really gave a clean explanation, but the court heard plenty about the prison moral code that targets offenders against children.
6. Colin Hatch
Convicted child killer and sex offender Colin Hatch was serving a whole-life tariff for the murder of seven-year-old Sean Williams when he died at Full Sutton prison in 2011. It wasn’t from natural causes. Fellow prisoner Damien Fowkes (who also attempted to murder Ian Huntley) strangled him with shreds of torn bed sheets. Fowkes was open about his hatred of child killers so the motive here is relatively easy to deduce.
What do all these cases have in common? Some prisoners carry a notoriety that follows them everywhere and prison doesn’t erase that reputation. If anything, it hardens it. And for inmates already serving life, or something close to it, the threat of one more sentence isn’t enough to prevent more violence.
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