It quickly became apparent that Supermax is unlike any other prison. There was no dining room to tour because inmates receive their meals on trays passed through slots in their green metal doors. They are typically allowed out of their cells for only one hour each day.
Supermax is the only institution in the state to house death row inmates, and five of the 160 prisoners are awaiting execution. The visitors were taken to death row. John Booth-El, one of two men who killed Bricker's parents, is there, though he and the other inmates could not be seen.
The only time the group saw inmates was when they milled about an enclosed outdoor recreation area, which has a basketball court. Across a courtyard, two men in orange jumpsuits were being held in another fenced area. Inmates who could peek out of small, narrow slotted windows in their cell doors saw the group and started yelling.
Over the noise, Phyllis Bricker, 77, and her husband, Bill, 85, once again told the story of how her parents died. Rose and Irvin Bronstein were in their own home when it was robbed on May 18, 1983. The couple were bound and stabbed.
Phyllis Bricker brought a yellowed photo of her parents to Supermax and railed against a criminal justice system that sentenced their killer to death but, 25 years later, still hadn't carried out the sentence because of a lengthy appeals process. There is now a de facto moratorium.
"It just kind of brings me back," Bricker said while walking through the prison, knowing her parents' killer was close by. "I don't know what it is. ... "
Lisa Spicknall, who is now a victim advocate with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, came with her mother, Peggy Fields.
Her husband, Richard Spicknall, had never been held at Supermax. But the man who killed him inside a Jessup prison in 2006 is there. Lawrence Joseph Lannin had previously been convicted twice of first-degree murder and given a sentence of life without parole.
He pleaded guilty last year to strangling Richard Spicknall in December 2006 and was given a third life-without-parole sentence. "I want to shake his hand," Fields said.
At the end of the tour, the group got a chance to talk with prison officials. Sharon Thompson told of her experience confronting her brother's killer as part of the Victim-Offender Dialogue Program.
"I showed him autopsy pictures, the gravesite," said Thompson, 43. "I let him know the path of destruction he left behind. ... He apologized to me for all the pain.
"I highly recommend this program," she said. "I don't cry as much anymore. I don't have nightmares."
gus.sentementes@baltsun.com
