“It was pretty ragged,” he recalled recently, “a tear down.” It was still wintery in April, and his state-issued jacket was poor protection against the drafts coming through the broken windows, shattered by men who had passed through before. The town of 11,000 residents, which sits in the remote center of the state, houses five prisons, and over the years, it has earned the nickname “I Own Ya.” John, who was 17, had already gotten over the initial fear of going to an adult prison-he had spent several months at a county jail near Detroit and an intake facility in Jackson-but he also knew he would be spending longer at this lonely outpost, a minimum of three years for a couple of home invasions. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan.

Three years ago, the young man who would later be known as John Doe 1 shuffled into the Richard A. This piece was reported through The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S.