The Man Who Broke Into Jail

In December 2019, security footage at Nashville's new Downtown Detention Center showed the same man entering the building again and again—sometimes dressed as a supervisor with a clipboard, other times as a labourer hauling buckets. Cameras caught him drilling into walls, grinding, painting. He occasionally covered cameras, but mostly let himself be recorded.

When two master keys went missing, investigators pulled thousands of hours of surveillance. The man had been coming since August. At least ten separate visits. Moving methodically through different sections of the facility.

On 4 January 2020, police arrested 50-year-old Alexander Friedmann outside the building. In his pocket was a hand-drawn schematic of the detention centre. He tried to eat it.

When investigators searched the walls, they found three loaded handguns, ammunition, handcuff keys, razor blades, and hacksaw blades—all easily accessible to inmates once the facility opened. At Friedmann's home, they found 23 more guns, body armour, grenade pouches, and a concrete bunker with grout work matching the jail.

But here's what made it disturbing: Alex Friedmann wasn't a criminal mastermind. He was one of Tennessee's most prominent prison reform advocates. He'd testified before Congress. Worked for Bernie Sanders' campaign. Spent 20 years fighting for inmates' rights—and worked closely with the very sheriff whose jail he'd just sabotaged.

Was this trauma or terrorism? The answer may never be known.

Become a Patreon or Apple + subscriber now for ealry and ad free access from as little as $1.69 a week. All the details here

Subscribe to Crime at Bedtimes Youtube channel HERE

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(245)

From the Vault - Sin City Shadows

Hello legends, Jack here, host of Crime at Bedtime. I'm currently travelling to the US because my other show, One Minute Remaining, was lucky enough to be nominated for an award. I’ll be back very soo...

3 Jun 18min

Introducing - The Just Sleep Podcast

"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" is a Sherlock Holmes short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in 1904, featuring Holmes's confrontation with a ruthless blackmailer who prey...

3 Jun 42min

From the Vault - Lars Mittank

31 Mai 20min

Should I Marry a Murderer? The Tony Parsons Case

On 29 September 2017, retired Royal Navy veteran and cancer survivor Tony Parsons set out on a 104-mile charity bike ride through the Scottish Highlands. He stopped at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel for a ...

27 Mai 34min

The Seven Year Dream

In June 2025, a 19 year old woman in Lyon, France, was placed into a medically induced coma. For the next three weeks, she lay still in a hospital bed, kept alive by machines while her body healed. Bu...

26 Mai 22min

The Woman in the Bushland

On the evening of 3 January 2014, a 39 year old woman was found in bushland at West Hoxton in Sydney's south west. Her skin was peeling from her body. She had suffered horrific burns to over 80 per ce...

24 Mai 22min

D.B. Cooper

On 24 November 1971, a quiet man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, collected $200,000 in cash and four parachutes… then stepped out of a Boeing 727 into the night over t...

23 Mai 36min

The Vanishing Act

On a typical spring break night in 2006, 27-year-old medical student Brian Shaffer stepped into a bar with friends, but he was never seen leaving. What began as an evening of bar hopping in Columbus, ...

23 Mai 22min