Corrections Employee Bernard Fancher

Bernard Fancher

Corrections Employee Barney Fancher, an assistant athletic director at the State Prison of Southern Michigan, was stabbed to death by a prisoner described as having a long grudge against him.

According to witnesses, Barney Fancher was sitting at his desk when a prisoner approached him swinging a baseball bat. Barney Fancher and another employee ran from the office, but Barney Fancher fell over a wheelbarrow. The prisoner immediately fell upon Fancher and stabbed him 13 times.

The prisoner, 25, who was serving a life sentence for a 1953 murder in Detroit, was declared insane and sent to the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Earlier in the year, Barney Fancher fired the prisoner from his cleanup job at the gymnasium for being loud and abusive.

Corrections Employee Fancher was a United States Army World War II veteran. He had served with the Michigan Department of Corrections for seven years, starting as a guard and later managing the Jackson recreational baseball league, as well as serving as the assistant athletic director. He was survived by his wife, three sons, and a daughter.