Correctional Officer Trainee, Cecil H. Harbison, 30, couldn’t wait for an inmate to decide whether he wanted to go to the recreation yard on the morning of November 30, 1984. Cecil took the remaining inmates to the recreation yard and that inmate remained locked in his cell until the other inmates returned later that morning. When they returned, as Cecil turned the crank to let the other inmates back into their cells, the inmate charged him and stabbed him a dozen times with a shank.

The inmate was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He later committed suicide in his cell at the condemned unit at Pontiac.

Cecil had been employed at Menard Correctional Center since May and would have become certified as a Correctional Officer within a few weeks. “Cecil Harbison was just beginning his career with Corrections and had a bright future tragically cut short,” Director Michael P. Lane said. A resident of Chester, Illinois, Harbison was survived by his wife and a daughter.