A razor in his shoe. A makeshift ice pick. Nashville criminal 'learned his trade in jail'

Editor's note from The Tennessean, part of the Paste BN Network: This story has been updated to correct the name of “The Row,” the work that received a PEN award.

This is the second of a four-part series detailing the chase to catch the man who infiltrated a jail under construction in Nashville.

Einstein stole baseball cards from the Kroger supermarket on Gallatin Road.

Obviously, the beginning of the trading card heist didn't reflect anything that would suggest "evil genius," words the Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall later would use to describe him.

Einstein, a nickname he had been given in jail, liked collectibles: comic books, Legos, coins, baseball cards, stuff like that.

Einstein was 22 on the day he tried to steal baseball cards, almost three decades before he would pose as a painter to steal keys from Nashville's new Downtown Detention Center.

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It was May 24, 1991, just before 7 p.m. He was still on probation for the Coin Purse shoot out, in which he had tried to rob the place, which sold collectible coins.

Einstein was in the process of taking cartons of baseball cards from Kroger when he was confronted by a store employee, according to a Metro Nashville Police Department report. When he was caught, Einstein cooperated (at first) as the store manager guided him to the store's security office. 

Then, Einstein reached his hand behind his back and pulled out a small caliber handgun. He told the store manager he was going to leave the store before the cops got there, "And you are going with me," Einstein said, according to the report.

The store manager told him he would help him get out of the store, but he refused to go with him.

But that, also, wasn't the evil genius part.

Brandishing the gun, Einstein made it out of the store and ran for his car. A group of Kroger employees hopped in their cars and followed him.

Police officers Kenneth Elkins and Marsha Brown joined the chase. 

The pursuit ended when Einstein's car crashed on Murfreesboro Road near the I-65 and I-24 split.

This is where the evil genius part starts.

When Elkins and Brown searched the car, they found what looked like a cassette player. But this contraption didn't play music. The device had been hollowed out and was holding a small, .22 caliber handgun that was loaded with teflon bullets (designed to pierce body armor). 

When they searched Einstein, they found one razor in his shoe and another in his pocket. He also was carrying two types of handcuff keys. They found a third handcuff key taped to the back of his belt, presumably to be within reach if his hands were cuffed behind him.

In his wallet, he was carrying what looked like business cards. But upon closer inspection, police found one of the cards was taped to a flat metal piece with razor edges.

In the sole of his shoe, police found another handcuff key, and a key that would unlock the shotgun rack inside a police car.

The officers also found what looked like an ink pen. It was an ice pick.

"He knew the ropes. He knew the tricks," Elkins told The Tennessean, part of the Paste BN Network, after the arrest. "He told me he had learned his trade in jail. He had learned well."

Einstein wrote out his thoughts for investigators: "After being caught, motivated by fear and guilt ... one of the hardest things for me to try to explain is my continued criminal actions, which are contrary to my nature, which recognizes them as wrong and the way I think. I feel that I have deep compulsive problems that I do not understand, and have never been open to professional therapy. I see the need for such therapy during my incarceration to resolve my problems and improve my insight ..."

Einstein indeed.

Since this was a probation violation, Einstein was sent back to jail.

This time, he wouldn't get out for nine years.

An excellent writer

Einstein spent most of his stretch (1991-1999) at the Corrections Corporation of America-run South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton. The for-profit prison operator's name would later be changed to CoreCivic. And if anything is for sure about Einstein (from his published writing in the Prison Legal News while incarcerated) it is that he hates CoreCivic.

In 1996, he sued CoreCivic for violating his civil rights.

He won.

He would eventually write about the conditions he encountered in a CoreCivic facility − everything from the price of prison phone calls to prisoners' access to nutritious food to prisoners' rights to public records about the facilities in which they were being held.

In 1999, he won a PEN Award (for Poets, Essayists and Novelists) for a prison drama he wrote called "The Row."

Einstein was released in November 1999.

Youngest Sheriff in Davidson County history

During Einstein's prison time, Daron Hall was rising up the corrections ladder.

Hall, who is tall and athletic with short, slicked, white hair, worked in government prisons and private prisons. He went to Australia to learn how they operated their prisons Down Under.

Hall was energized by working in private prisons because they lacked the same levels of bureaucracy.

"In the government (prisons) it's very hard to make change," Hall said. For example, he said, "It takes too long to get funding to implement an alcohol and drug treatment program."

In 2002, he became the ultimate government employee when he ran and was elected Davidson County sheriff. He was 38 years old, and the youngest sheriff in Davidson County history.

Chasing Einstein: Explore the series

Part 1: Two keys to an under-construction jail in Nashville went missing. Would it lead to havoc?

Part 2: A razor in his shoe. A makeshift ice pick. Nashville criminal 'learned his trade in jail'

Part 3: Could Einstein be captured in the jail without knowing it was a trap? What happened next

Part 4: Einstein gives shocking explanation for breaking into new downtown Nashville jail

Old jail was falling apart

Davidson County, however, had a history that concerned Hall.

The Criminal Justice Center, for which he was the warden, was built in 1982.

As the intake hub for Davidson County and the maximum security facility, it housed the most notorious of Nashville's criminals, including Paul Reid, known as the Fast Food Killer, Bruce Mendenhall, who was convicted of three murders (and he's suspected in at least three unsolved cases), Perry March, who was convicted of murdering his wife Janet after a long whodunnit search and Tom Steeples, who was suspected in three murder cases, but never went to trial because he was killed after his wife, Tillie, provided him with enough drugs in the CJC for him to overdose and die.

But the CJC was falling apart.

It was known, through the years, for flooding and sewage. The toilets backed up like they had recurring stomach flu, and sewage regularly ran down the walls of the multi-story building. The fire protection sprinklers stopped working. The elevators often got stuck between floors.

"The food was horrendous," Hall said, piling on.

And then there was the overcrowding. Built for 780, the CJC population stretched beyond 1,100 in the late 1980s. The federal court had to take over the operation of the system, making changes to get the overcrowding more under control.

Hall said jails age almost as fast as dogs. Especially overcrowded jails. In 2012, the CJC was 30 years old, or 90 in prison years," Hall said.

Hall wanted to replace the CJC with an upgraded building on Harding Place.

"Jails aren't sexy to build," Hall said, signaling how difficult he knew the process would be.

He got the Metro Council to agree to study his proposed project. They spent $1 million and got a recommendation to build the new jail on Harding Place in Antioch. After an effort by residents and councilmembers from the Antioch area, the council refused the recommendation and insisted the new jail be built downtown.

The council won. And the decision was made to tear down the CJC and build the new Downtown Detention Center in the same spot.

The cost? Between $100 and $200 million.

Finally, as the CJC turned 33 years old (99 in jail years), the new construction was approved in April 2015.

Einstein need to learn how to manipulate concrete

Just after the announcement that a new jail was coming, Einstein began plotting, according to FBI records.

His post-jail life was going well. He owned four rental units in a condominium complex on Tampa Drive in Nashville. For a time, he drove a black Kia with tinted windows. He got involved in the dating scene, and eventually met the woman who would become his wife.

In August 2015, Einstein hired a contractor named Greg Hall (no relation to Sheriff Daron Hall) to build him a 200-square foot storage unit in a basement at the complex. Einstein had two requirements 1) it had to be constructed with concrete blocks, and 2) it had to be fireproof.

Einstein wrote a check to Greg Hall for $500. It's dated Aug. 15, 2015. Investigators have a copy of the check. The note at the bottom is difficult to read, but it looks like it says "part payment to build storage area."

Investigators believe that's the day Einstein launched his plan. And that date would become very important as the story of Einstein's plan unfolded.

During the construction of the storage area, Hall showed Einstein how to use an electric concrete grinder, and how to drill and cut concrete. Einstein also asked Hall to show him how to drill through metal without melting the bit.

When the unit was finished, Einstein told Hall he planned to store personal papers inside. He hauled in 15 black plastic crates with yellow lids marked "LEGAL FILES."

What he didn't tell Hall was that in those crates, Einstein hid two shotguns, 14 pistols, five assault rifles and a rocket launcher.

All-star working group on jail contracts

While the DDC was being built, Sheriff Daron Hall convened a panel of stakeholders to discuss and debate every inch of the contract for another jail − the Metro Detention Facility in Antioch.

The panel included Metro Council member Freddie O'Connell (who would later become the Nashville mayor), Alex Friedmann (who had consulted for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign) and Jeannie Alexander (an attorney, faith leader and rabble rousing activist for prison reform) and members of Hall's staff.

"We had a lot of meetings and conversations with the sheriff," said Jeannie Alexander, who was not afraid to get arrested in protest over prison issues she believed in. "I think the conversation was entered into with the hope we could collaborate, work together."

The committee met every few weeks before and during the construction of the new jail.

Friedmann, who Alexander said was "arrest averse," became the committee's de facto spokesperson.

Friedmann and Alexander became friends. She officiated Friedmann's wedding in 2019 to Alice Burke.

"It was at a friend's house, overlooking the river and it was lovely," Alexander said.

Friedmann and Alexander worked hard on that committee to be the voices of unheard prisoners.

At the end of the committee's meetings, Friedmann turned in a document with 20 recommendations. The committee's list included things like not allowing ICE prisoners into the jail, placing a price-cap for commissary items, creating an "ombudsman" position to give voice to prisoners and their families and allowing eight hours per weekday for attorney visits.

Friedmann also had a question about the new downtown jail's footprint. In the prison reform community, Friedmann was an influential voice.

He was an editor at Prison Legal News, and was a very persuasive prison reform advocate. His uncle, Ben Bernanke, is the former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Friedmann's father, Victor, has a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In an email to Hall's Chief of Staff Karla West, Friedmann wrote: "In regard to the new jail being built, will it have a library and/or law library that prisoners can visit to check out books or do research?"

The answer on the library was no.

One more question Friedmann asked before coming to his first meeting.

"Just checking on where we should park -- thanks!" he wrote.

In the end, the Downtown Detention Center passed through the approval process. The final cost was about $200 million.

The new building included a 64-bed unit for a mental health diversion program.

Construction began in May of 2017.

The fake painter's work is discovered

Unbeknownst to Hall and the jail staff, the fake painter in the white mask, the guy known as Einstein, had entered the DDC as many as 20 times during construction.

The first time captured on camera was Aug. 9, 2019. The only way they eventually found out about him was that Aug. 9 was the date the security cameras began operation. He may have been in the jail before Aug. 9, but no one will ever know.

The second to last time was Dec. 28, 2019, when he entered the key control room and then walked around the jail facility checking locks. He was in the jail for 1 hour and 16 minutes.

Two days later, one little piece of Einstein's work was discovered.

It was just after 7 a.m. on Dec. 30 when jail Lt. Thomas Conrad walked into the key control room. While the rest of the jail was usually bustling, the key control room was the opposite. It was usually empty.

Conrad went in there to store some screwdrivers and hammers when he noticed something strange.

Among the 40 or so horse-shoe-shaped, black key rings hanging on the wall, one of them was the wrong shape and the wrong color.

"It was a stainless steel looking color," Conrad said. "And it was round." 

He pulled the round key ring off the wall to examine it. He knew each ring was supposed to hold 11 keys.

On this ring, "I counted nine," Conrad said. "I probably counted it 30 or 40 times."

He checked the inventory list of keys and found the "K" (kitchen) key was missing. The other missing key was marked "GM" (general movement).

Conrad knew he had a big problem.

Read part 3: Could Einstein be captured in the jail without knowing it was a trap? What happened next

Chasing Einstein: Explore the series

Part 1: Two keys to an under-construction jail in Nashville went missing. Would it lead to havoc?

Part 2: A razor in his shoe. A makeshift ice pick. Nashville criminal 'learned his trade in jail'

Part 3: Could Einstein be captured in the jail without knowing it was a trap? What happened next

Part 4: Einstein gives shocking explanation for breaking into new downtown Nashville jail