Albert C. Mar was a man who had dedicated his life to a difficult and dangerous profession. At 58 years old, the veteran corrections officer was just a few years away from a well-earned retirement. His long career was a testament to his resilience and commitment. But on Friday, October 21, 1983, his life was violently cut short inside the walls of the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (USMCFP) in Springfield, Missouri, a facility designed to handle inmates with serious health issues. The man who ended his life was not just another inmate, but one of the most violent and notorious serial killers in the federal prison system.
His killer was Clayton Anthony Fountain, a man whose life was a litany of brutal acts. Fountain’s capacity for violence had been evident long before he crossed paths with Officer Mar. Born in Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1955, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. His military career ended in 1974 when he was stationed in the Philippines.
After a minor reprimand from his platoon leader, Staff Sgt. Tomas Aguon Gali, a 27-year-old career Marine and father of two, Fountain’s reaction was shockingly disproportionate. He stole a pistol, robbed a guard to obtain a shotgun, and then murdered Sgt. Gali with a single blast to the chest. For this, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Incarceration did not temper Fountain’s violent nature; it escalated it. While imprisoned, he became a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and continued his killing spree, murdering multiple fellow inmates. His methods were brutal, often involving bludgeoning, stabbing with homemade knives, or shooting. Fountain’s reputation for violence grew so extreme that he was labeled the "Most Dangerous Prisoner" in the federal system. By the time he was transferred to the facility in Springfield, he was already serving several life sentences for the murders he had committed behind bars.
The events of October 1983 were particularly bloody and highlighted a period of extreme violence within the federal prison system. Officer Mar’s murder was part of a killing spree by Fountain and his associate, Thomas Silverstein. Just two days before Officer Mar was killed, Fountain’s first victim, Staff Sgt. Gali, had been murdered nine years prior on October 19, 1974. The day after Officer Mar was stabbed to death in Missouri, the violence continued. On October 22, 1983, at the high-security penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, Fountain murdered another corrections officer, 53-year-old Robert Lee Hoffman. That same day, Fountain's friend Silverstein also murdered a corrections officer, Merle Clutts, at the same facility.
The brazen murders of three federal officers in such a short span sent shockwaves through the Bureau of Prisons and the nation. The killings at USP Marion, in particular, led to an unprecedented 23-year lockdown and were a major catalyst for the creation of the first federal "supermax" prison, ADX Florence, designed to house the most dangerous and uncontrollable inmates in isolation. The wave of violence demonstrated the profound danger that men like Fountain posed, even within the most secure environments.
For the murder of Albert C. Mar and his other crimes, Clayton Fountain received multiple convictions, including five counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder, resulting in four life sentences. He would never again be a free man. After the 1983 killings, Fountain was moved to the USMCFP in Springfield, where he was housed in a specially constructed high-security unit, effectively in solitary confinement for the remainder of his life. He spent his final two decades in virtual isolation, eventually converting to Catholicism and earning several degrees.
Clayton Anthony Fountain died of a heart attack in his cell at the Springfield facility on July 12, 2004, at the age of 48. He was posthumously accepted as a lay brother by a Trappist monastery he had corresponded with. While Fountain’s story ended in a prison cell, the legacy of his violence lives on in the memory of his many victims. Among them was Albert C. Mar, a dedicated public servant who was tragically deprived of his retirement and his future by an act of remorseless brutality.
