The magazine of the photo-essay
December 2016 issue
by Danny Lyon
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
James Ray Renton (thief, counterfeiter, and bank robber) became one of America’s
Ten Most Wanted Men when he was charged with murdering a young Arkansas
policeman in 1976. After a daring escape from the Tucker Maximum Security Unit in
the 1980s, Renton made the FBI’s Fifteen Most Wanted List before eventually being
recaptured. Then, while in solitary confinement, Renton wrote a 60-page account of
his escape and adventures, sent in a series of letters to Danny Lyon, a close friend
of Renton’s since they had met in the Texas prison system in 1967.
After Renton’s death in 1995, Lyon visited the Arkansas town where Renton had
been convicted. Following an incredible paper trail left behind by the crime and 1978
trial (in which Lyon had testified), Lyon located Dinker Cassel, who was sentenced to
life along with Renton for the murder. Like a Thief’s Dream is Lyon’s gripping story of
two men, one alive, the other dead, and an unparalleled portrayal of prison life in
the 1980s and 1990s. A tale of murder and betrayal, romance and robbery, Like a
Thief’s Dream is Lyon’s first work of non-fiction in text form, a work of realism based
almost entirely on documents including police and FBI records, prison and police
mug shots, tape recordings made by the FBI and the author, Renton’s own written
account of his escape, letters from other prisoners to the author and to each other,
and photographs made by Lyon and anonymous police photographers.
Dinker Cassell, early mug shot.
Jimmy Renton's Texas mug shot.
In the Walls 1969, By Robert Frank.
Jones, Renton, Robert Frank, Walls 1969.
Officer Hussey.
Post card from Lyon to Renton.
Renton in shades.
Renton in the walls.
Renton with Kathy, Houston 1973.
Renton, Dinker, Pollack, ADC.
Renton, Houston,1973.
Renton in Fayetteville, 1978.
Renton's capture, Austin Texas 1988.
Renton's last picture, Sante Fe prison.
Rita.
Dinker, Pinky, Mojo, ACD today.