overcrowded prisons, many believe it's only a matter of time before another new penitentiary opens its doors. that's our report. thanks for watching. i'm john seigenthaler. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. msnbc takes you behind the walls of america's most notorious prisons into a world of chaos and danger, now, the scenes you've never seen. "lockup: raw." at the top of every "lockup" episode we run a warning for viewers about the subject matter. well that warning is extremely relevant to what we're about to show you. we put together a collection of some of the most disturbing and dangerous inmates in "lockup" history. viewer discretion is definitely advised.

>> inside america's maximum security prisons is an assortment of predators. the interviews our producers conduct with such inmates are always graphic and often revealing. we heard three of the most shocking stories of predatory behavior at the same prison. california state prison corcoran when we interviewed these men, our crew was required to wear stab-proof vests. one of the corcoran inmates we sat down with was christian knight. and nobody describes the daily pressures, the ups and downs of being a predator, like he does. >> it's seductive. you know what i mean? you could love the game but the game loves nobody. you know what i mean? you could sit there, give it your all, think that everyone is supporting you and before you know it, just like that. you're getting your throat cut, seen it, done it. >> knight was serving time for

murder, and attempted murder. crimes he committed at the los angeles county jail while awaiting trial on an outside murder/robbery charge that he was convinced would send him to prison for life. but when he went on trial for that original murder charge, something completely unexpected happened. >> they find me not guilty. and it righteously blew my mind. i actually had -- i mean i had to laugh. the irony of it was classic. >> knighton should have walked away as a free man, instead he remained incarcerated until he was tried for his jailhouse murder. this time he was found guilty and given 79 years in prison. but that murder was no random killing or crime of passion. assuming he was headed toward a life in prison anyway, he killed out of ambition, to join an organization he admired since childhood, the mexican mafia. >> when you're a kid, you want to shoot for the stars. i want to be that guy.

out on the streets, someone may want to be a ceo or own their own company to be their own boss. you back here, regardless it's still power. and it's because of the power behind them. that being the mob, you know, the mexican mafia. >> christian knighton was probably one of the most engaging inmates i've ever encountered. doing "lockup." he was articulate, very well read, very well spoken and quite proud of his career as a criminal. >> i gave my "a" game, i would do it to the extreme violence-wise, selling dope wise. >> in the "lockup: extended stay" episode in which nighton originally appeared he gave shocking details of what he meant by extreme violence. in describing his l.a. county jail murder. we warn you, the following is very graphic. >> and i walk up to him, hook his leg, put him in a bare naked chokehold, bring him down. i throw him my hooks and choke him out, and snap his neck.

when his neck snapped you feel is right against your arm, pop. snapped. i pulled out my piece, stabbed him in the neck. let him have it in the chest. and he started making noises and i pulled out a pipe and i bashed his head in until pieces of skull came out. so the blood was -- i mean, it was everywhere, it was this thick. >> sitting there listening to him relay these very graphic, violent, brutal acts, i have to remain somewhat detached to keep him talking and it was almost like he was just discussing another day at the office. >> by this time we were hungry. so -- this is kind of funky but it is what it is. where my tray -- where we usually stack up trays and put a bomb -- you take a of cotton

blanket, rip off a strip, then you light it and it gives you a good, blue flame. i took the bomb, lit it, put it on top of his body and cooked grilled cheese sandwiches on top of his -- used his body as a stand. so when we're eating -- there's where there's a rumor throughout the state of california, oh, yeah, they were burning this food, and -- because they never found his eyeballs. yeah, they ate his eyeballs some type of weird ass ritual. it got righteously out of proportion, you know what i mean? >> where were his eye balls. >> one eye ball. >> we don't know. have no clue. >> as a made man in the mexican mafia, knighton strove to become a well rounded leader of the organization when' rived in prison. >> as far as, you know, just being able to put holes in people. anyone can do that. to educate yourself, now that's where you want to go. >> he studied the art of war from some historic practitioners.

>> you had way out cats. they were cool. but you'd pick up game, righteous game. i'm an avid reader and student of ancient japanese philosophy. i love it, the whole warrior culture. machiavelli, napoleon, the 48 laws of power. code, you go all the way down as far as from all different cultures, they're all war manuals and philosophies. when i mean studying, that's exactly what i mean by studying. >> to become a better -- >> warrior, yeah. to be a shotgun or whatever you want to call them you know what i mean. yeah, to be better at my job, which would be, i guess you could say, prison criminal. >> knighton's education would come in handy when a power shift in his gang put him on the wrong side of the new regime. and the predator had become prey. >> now i find out i'm on the

list. that's a death sentence. my heart broke. i'll be honest with you. i was like you've got to be [ bleep ] me. spotless career and i'm on the list? yeah, they put you on the hat. i'm not going nowhere, stubborn, you know what i mean? so, it was on. i'll be honest with you, that was -- if i sat here and tell you that i wasn't, you know, scared, "a," terrified. i got hit, sliced. well, it was two. the other one healed up better. sliced my throat, bam, they thought i was going to slip. went down to my cell, cleaned it up, coffee, packed it full of coffee, so it -- it helps, you know. went ahead and went, didn't go to the doctor's because they would have took me off the tier. took me 28 days later, the individual that did it, i got him from back throat to his throat. he was gone. >> after nine years, knighton made a shocking career move.

he retired. through a process called debriefing, he shared his gang secrets with authorities and was transferred to the prison's protective custody program. knighton will most likely spend the rest of his prison term in protective custody, knowing he will always have a target on his back. so now, the once-dedicated warrior, tries to focus his energy on spirituality. >> that's one thing i struggle with now. i understand the hypocrisy of my words, speaking to you right now, because if you believe all this and know it's wrong, yeah, hey, i got some atonement, i guess you could say, to make up for it. things are looking rough. i could say if i do believe in the afterlife. >> would you kill someone today? >> oh, yeah. yeah, sure. >> you didn't hesitate, christian. >> you want me to lie? >> no. >> and pretend, you know what i mean? yeah, yeah. next on "lockup: raw" -- >> i sliced his throat repeatedly. blood was everywhere. >> a predator targets his cell

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it still surprises me at times hearing some of these inmates accounts of their extreme violent behavior. i'm often curious as to why or how they became this way but i also think it's part of the human condition. and i think it's important that people understand that. part of it, i think, is created as birth, but also a big part of it is how one survives in prison. more often than not, a lot of these stories of violence have occurred in the prison setting. in order to survive in such a violent world, most of these people feel they have to be

violent. >> in 1992, robert glenn was sentenced to three years for auto theft. when we met him 15 years later at california state prison corcoran, he was still in prison. two of his former cellmates were six feet under. glenn murdered the first one while he was still in county jail. >> i slashed his throat repeatedly. blood was everywhere. and then another inmate passed me a shank, probably about that long, with a handle on it and i just started stabbing him. stabbed him over 100 times, in the back, sides, the neck. he was crying, telling me to stop, begging for me to stop. he was still alive through all of it. >> you're smiling. >> i like that. that was one of my favorite ones right there. >> he surprised me in that he had a gleefulness about him as he was discussing the violence

he had committed in prison. he had this proud little smile as he was telling us these very disturbing and violent acts. >> after murdering his cell mate in jail, glenn came to prison where his predatory behavior escalated. >> while i was there for about a year, i got about 14 assault on inmates. >> why? >> a lot of my violence i've had is like people don't clean up after themselves and they don't wipe the sink out after they use it. little courtesies, being in a cell situation, that you have to have. little things like that just piss me off. once i'm pissed off, that's it, i beat the hell out of you. that's how prison is. it makes you violent. i know it's twisted to say it but i enjoy it. >> you enjoy what? >> i enjoy hurting people. >> glenn killed his second cellmate in 2005 while at another california state prison. he told us he did so because the cellie was a child molester.

>> i went and told the c.o. to move me. she told me to deal with it. so a couple days later, i dealt with it. waited one night. i picked a fight with him. i told him to turn his tv off and go to sleep and he didn't like that too much. i got up out of my bunk to turn his tv off. he got up, once he stood up, i put him in a choke hold and choked him out, killed him. i shoved his head into the concrete. while i was doing it, i was kind of upset that i told that c.o. that i wanted that cell moved, and she told me to deal with it. so i wanted to give her a little present. i tried to cut his head off. because my whole plan was the next morning when she came by to open the doors for chow, i was going to toss her my cellie's head. >> contrary to glenn's claims, his cellmate was not convicted of a sex crime, but of robbery.

detectives investigating the murder say glenn did it in order to coerce the prison into letting him cell by himself. >> after we did the interview with robert glenn, we went back to his cell and he freely demonstrated what it was like when he was committing his crime, and he actually demonstrated with the string how he attempted to decapitate his victim. >> what i do, is i make a little slip knot on either end, something like that. the string has to be a lot stronger. you don't want him getting out of it. just look like that. that's good to go. >> glenn is currently serving 98 years for the two murders he committed behind bars. but he left us with the impression that his predatory behavior may have extended beyond just these two. >> how many people have you killed? >> i've been convicted of two. i won't talk about anything i haven't been convicted of.

>> why is that? >> i haven't been convicted of them yet. i don't want to talk about any crimes that i've done because right now i have a life sentence, so i'm here. if i'm convicted of any more crimes, they're going to give me the death penalty. coming up -- >> i used to kidnap people and hold them for ransom. >> a parent's worst nightmare. >> like, you know, you got the call that your kid's out there. you know they've got money. ring ring!... progresso! it's ok that your soup tastes like my homemade. it's our slow simmered vegetables and tender white meat chicken.

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when it comes to the predators we've met inside america's prisons, no one looked the part more than robert galvin. at california state prison corcoran. and with his menacing appearance came a violent streak that earned him the nickname, the phantom. >> they say i'm fast at hurting people, you know, getting people. they'll have holes in them and i'll be gone, you know.

like a ghost. >> when i first saw robert galvin, he carried himself in this very tough way, kind of walked like a wrestler, covered in tattoos. odd hairstyle, shaved his head and had a flap of long hair in the back. and very much cultivated this tough demeanor. tell me about that. >> we considered like a tail, a bulldog tail. it's also called a mongolian. that means warriors. there's warriors or gangsters. or whatever. we don't have to be told what to do. a warrior knows what to do. >> galvin made it clear knowing what to do inside corcoran meant stabbing his enemies. >> i was on the yard and i stabbed a white guy like 17 times or whatever. from there, they took me to ad seg. and yes, i stabbed another white guy. and that's what got me here.

>> galvin's violent ways in prison landed him in corcoran's security housing unit, the shu, a 23-hour-a-day lockdown, reserved for only the most dangerous inmates. galvin told us his predatory ways began on the streets of fresno. >> i used to kidnap people, hold them for ransom. you got the college kids out there, you know they got money. they're in college. you know? so, you know, you just take one of them. >> how? >> by force. >> how? >> just grab them by the neck and put them in the car. you know? have them call their parents and have them wire money to an account, you know, that's about it. after that, you let them go if they put the money in the bank. >> if they don't? >> that's a different story, you know. >> how does that story end? >> bad. i'm in here for kidnapping,

ransom and murder. that kind of bad, you know. >> galvin's last kidnapping ended beyond bad. even before it got to the ransom stage, one of his victims managed to call his parents and give his location. >> when i was in the car with these two kids, they weren't kids. they were over 18. you know, i don't mess with, you know, kids under 18, you know. they called their parents and the cops ended up following us and the helicopter. so, you know, it ended kind of bad. that's how i got caught, you know. >> well, what happened? >> well, um, i cut the guy's neck and the cops surrounded the car and pulled me out, you know what i mean? >> did he die? >> yeah.

>> ironically, robert galvin is both a predator and a parent. he has four kids, ranging from 8 to 16 years old. >> i let them know about the mistakes i've made, so they don't repeat them, so they don't end up in here. i do what i can for them, moneywise. you know? send them money, you know, put it in the bank. >> how are you sending them money? >> i can't tell you that. >> galvin also asserts that supporting his family motivated his crimes on the outside. >> i've robbed every pizza place in fresno, practically, just like money for christmas. i never did wrong on the streets. just out of spite, just to hurt people. i've never done that.

you know? i've done it for money. everything i've done out there was for money. >> i'm gonna beg to differ. the homicide that put you in here, you didn't make any money at that. you knew you were caught. >> yeah, you're right. >> why did you kill him? >> that right there, i mean, i had no reason to do that. >> all i hear is keys jingling. >> i guess i'm just a bad guy. >> it disturbed me. he on one hand was talking about his own children and how much he loved them and how much he wanted to provide for them but couldn't make the connection that he had killed some other people's child. and just didn't seem to be able to relate the two accounts.

it was important for me to try to get him to see that connection. >> it's in everybody's nature to protect their young. that's just like the animal kingdom. you know, the lion ain't gonna let their kids get hurt. >> robert, how old was the young man you killed? >> huh? >> how old was the man you killed. >> which one? >> the one you killed on the street. >> which one. >> the one that put you in prison. >> in his early 20s. >> that's young. >> that was somebody's child. >> exactly. >> you guys don't make a lot of sense sometimes to me. >> yeah. i know some of the things we do don't make sense. unfortunately things happen and there's no way for me to get out of it. this is me. i'm going to die in here.

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