Prison gang leader Barry Byron Mills, 70, died on July 8 in his cell at ADX Florence
Barry Byron Mills, the murderous leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, has died in federal lockup. He was 70 and serving multiple life sentences.
Mills, also known by the nickname ‘Baron,’ was found dead on July 8 in his single-person cell at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, according to a report on Sunday by the San Jose Mercury News.
Authorities said Mills’ death does not appear suspicious. The results of an autopsy could take weeks.
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Mills joined the Aryan Brotherhood during a stint at San Quentin prison in the 1970s.
Mills first caught authorities’ attention by planning and ordering a California bank robbery from his cell.
Mills had been incarcerated at ADX Florence (above) since a 2006 murder conviction
He later became the prison gang’s leader, aggressively recruiting throughout the state. His grip on the gang stretched nationwide but was strongest in Northern California, where many of its highest-ranking members came from.
‘There’s no doubt of his influence in the Bay Area. It’s fact, not debatable,’ retired federal prison warden Robert Hood told the newspaper.
‘I’m not trying to glorify him, but I can tell you this: He had the admiration of a lot of inmates, but he was also feared.’
Mills was known for committing brazen, brutal killings – including a savage attempted decapitation while in federal custody in Georgia.
Using couriers, Mills distributed orders from coast to coast, leading to a race war between the Aryan Brotherhood and rival prison gang the DC Blacks.
Prosecutors said the gang boss used hidden messages written in urine or coded language to distribute the orders.
A typical cell (left) and corridor (right) at ADX Florence are seen in file photos. Inmates at the supermax prison are confined to the seven-foot by 12-foot cells for 23 hours a day
Mills also struck a notorious protection deal with New York mobster John Gotti, forcing the Gambino crime boss to pay large sums of money for the Aryan Brotherhood’s protection services while in federal prison in Illinois.
‘Wiseguys on the street like the Teflon Don and all that stuff – it doesn’t equate in prison,’ one Aryan Brotherhood snitch told investigators in the case.
Mills had been incarcerated continuously since 1969. Following a 2006 federal murder conviction and life sentence, he was transferred to ADX Florence, where inmates spend 23 hours a day locked in a seven-foot by 12-foot concrete cell.
After his death, Mills’ top gang lieutenant Coby Phillips recalled him as ‘the gold standard for gangsterism all over the USA’.
‘His word was the law,’ Phillips said. ‘Whether he was crocheting blankets for the kids or chopping someone’s head off, there wasn’t nobody better.’