Richard James Burke was a 48-year-old correctional officer at the Florida State Prison in Starke, Florida, when he was killed on October 12, 1980. Burke had been working at the facility for four months and was escorting death row inmates from their cells to the showers when he was attacked and fatally stabbed with a makeshift weapon described as a shank.

The assailant was Thomas Knight, later known as Askari Abdullah Muhammad, an inmate already serving a death sentence for the 1974 kidnapping and murders of Sydney and Lillian Gans. Knight was convicted of Burke’s murder and again sentenced to death; his appeals and legal proceedings stretched over decades. Burke was a U.S. Navy veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars and was survived by his wife and two children.

Are there readers who knew Burke or worked at the prison then who can shed light on conditions or safety measures for officers at that time?