Somers, Connecticut – The oldest incarcerated person in the US, Francis Clifford Smith, has died at the age of 101. He was sentenced to death in 1950, but his execution was stayed eight times.

In 1950, at the age of 25, Francis Clifford Smith was sentenced to death for the murder of Grover Hart, a night watchman at a Connecticut yacht club.

Smith ate his last meal eight times before the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment in 1954.

Smith was spared from execution multiple times as his guilt became a subject of dispute. He maintained his innocence throughout. Witnesses recanted, and another incarcerated person confessed to the murder.

Smith spent the better part of the last 70 years behind bars and is considered the longest-serving person in prison in the US.

Smith died in June at a nursing facility while under supervised parole, per the BBC. He was 101 years old.

Smith had three short stints outside the prison system over the last 70 years. In 1967, he escaped, only to be recaptured 12 days later. He went home for Christmas Eve and returned the next day, in 1974, Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, told the BBC.

Then in 1975, Smith was released on parole. Ten months later, however, he was arrested for theft and possession of a weapon, which was a violation of his parole.

Between 1975 and 2020, Smith reportedly rejected several parole offers. In 2020, he was granted supervised parole and moved to a specialized care home for the elderly within the justice system.

"He would stuff as much bread as he could … in his clothing," Banevicius said, and continued: "Everyone kind of turned a blind eye to it because they knew he was just feeding the birds."

Smith's bird feeding hobby earned him the nickname the Birdman of Osborn.

Smith died in his sleep in June and was later cremated, said David Skoczulek, a spokesperson for the nursing facility. "Essentially, he died of old age," Skoczulek told the BBC.