He Served Time For Murder, This TV Star Now The Most Famous Hunstville Prison Inmate

The infamous Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, did you know that the Huntsville Unit was where country music superstar, Cody Johnson, was a prison guard? But even CoJo is probably not the most famous person to walk the halls of "Walls Unit."

It's the massive Texas state prison that's located in Huntsville, Texas. The facility is approximately 54.36-acre located near downtown Huntsville. It's operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

TV Star The Most Famous Hunstville Prison Inmate

There's no denying that Cody Johnson is now one of the hottest acts in all of country music, but a couple of decades ago he was a correctional officer at the unit -- about 25 years after the prison's most famous inmate had gotten out.

The prison opened 175 years ago, in 1849. One of its most notable features is that it "houses an execution chamber that operates all the executions within the state of Texas. The prison is famous for its execution chamber." There have been nearly 600 executions there, the most of any U.S. prison.

Reality TV star Duane 'DOG' Chapman, the prison's most famous inmate.

Being a prison that has housed some of the most notorious criminals in Texas history, there have been many notable prisoners locked up in Huntsville. But reality TV star Duane 'DOG' Chapman will probably go down as the prison's most famous inmate ever. In the '70s the bounty hunter was sentenced to five years there for his involvement in a murder. He wound up serving 18 months.

On July 22, 1977, a grand jury of seven men and five women found Chapman, Kuykendall, and Garza guilty of murder. Though Chapman was outside when Kuykendall shot Oliver, he had brought his own weapon and supplied Kuykendall with shotgun cartridges and for that, the jury found him culpable. 

Read more about the Murder of Jerry Bowers Oliver and Chapman's involvement here.