“Comic book store owner shoots, kills armed robber in self-defense,” ran the headline from Chicago’s Daily Herald in November 2006. The kind of small-scale tragedy you read about every day. But neither the headline nor the article below hinted at the lifelong problem that lay behind the event.
I came to federal prison in 1993, a 22-year-old suburbanite with a 25-year sentence for a first-time LSD offense. I was shipped to FCI Manchester, a medium-to-high security prison in the foothills of Kentucky. Movies had prepared me for the worst. But luckily they didn’t throw me in with a big guy named Bubba. My first cellie was an average looking dude from Indiana, a few years my senior. His name was Geoffrey Webb.
“How you doing, buddy?” he greeted me. “Where you from? How much time you doing?” Mild-mannered and respectful—with no tattoos, bulging muscles or Old West mustaches—he made it seem more like arriving at a college dorm than prison. Like me, Geoff had grown up in the suburbs. He was a dedicated Colts fan, and loved to play basketball.
Everyone on the compound came to our cell for tips. Geoff was the authority on which horses to bet on, and would dispense his wisdom liberally.
I threw my stuff on the upper bunk and gave an inward sigh of relief.
As I settled in, I learned Geoff’s story. He had a 12-year sentence for bank robbery. But to hear him talk, he was a professional gentleman robber along the lines of Jesse James. He’d meticulously planned his heist, tracking the bank manager’s movements and following him home, in order to kidnap him at gunpoint, take him back to the bank and make him open the vault. This was all done—according to Geoff—in the most considerate way. It was a big score for him: several hundred thousand dollars, which the cops never recovered.
You hear plenty of tales in federal prison, but what stands out about his was the reason he robbed the bank in the first place: to pay off big gambling debts. He gambled on everything—sports, cards, games—but his main vice was the races.
Before he robbed the bank, he was so deep into the race scene that he’d even bought some horses, stabled and trained them, and entered them into events. He loved them so much that he bet on them every chance he got, even when they kept losing, again and again. Geoff had faith; he was the type of gambler who thought he could win every bet. But his luck never turned.
He got in serious debt, wore out his welcome with family and friends, and seemingly had no way out—so he pulled off the robbery and paid back the money he owed. “I just did what I had to do,” he told me. “I didn’t think I would get caught.”
As the months went by, we got more comfortable in our environment and started venturing out to the yard more. And that’s when Geoff jumped into the illicit gambling scene that thrives in every prison. Parlay tickets, over-unders, straight bets, freeze outs, 10-pick teasers, poker, spades, tunk, pool games, shooting contests—he did it all.
He was always first out of the cell in the morning when the doors cracked—coffee cup in hand, eyeing SportsCenter—and the last to leave the TV room at night, so he could check his tickets and see if he hit.
Out on the yard, I’d see Geoff holding court at the poker game or going over odds and spreads with other gamblers as they scoured the sports schedules. “This game is a lock,” Geoff would tell me. “You got some stamps to put on it?”
When he came back to our cell in the evening, I could tell instantly if he’d won or lost. When he was flush he had a glow about him; it would be sodas and nachos, a small celebration to break the monotony of prison life. “You ready to eat?” he would ask. “My treat.”
If he lost, he would go right to bed, not wanting to talk. He’d bounce back the next day, depending on how much he’d lost, but it would always take him the night to recover.
Still, a lot of prisoners do their time like that: Betting brings hope of the big score and all the buzz of sweating tickets, glued to the bottom line on ESPN.
Geoff kept me interested, too. He used to get all the race papers and try to explain handicapping and betting on the horses to me. “You gotta learn about this stuff,” he would tell me. “You can get rich off the horses.” He got horse breeding magazines and knew all the breeds. When the big races like the Triple Crown came around each year, he would be amped up, predicting the winners. Everyone on the compound came to our cell for tips. Geoff was the authority on which horses to bet on, and would dispense his wisdom liberally. He was a historian too: He could tell you who won what in any year.
During lockdowns he would scan AM radio stations for sports news, so he could get an edge. Geoff recited odds and over-unders and won-loss records like other prisoners spit rap lyrics; he had it all in his head.
Besides the Triple Crown races, football season was his favorite time: From late August until the Super Bowl, Geoff would be filling out multiple parlay tickets, betting on every game he could. He bet on which team would score the first field goal or touchdown, and even played quarter boards. He would gather his stamps every weekend, borrowing whatever he could, sweating each and every ticket until it was dead.
Eventually he started running tickets for other dudes on the compound and even opened his own—named “Triple Crown,” of course. He enlisted me as a runner and we used to hold the stash of stamps that were bet on his ticket in our cell. One time we got busted with 125 books and sent to the hole for a couple of weeks. As soon as we got out, Geoff was back at it with a vengeance.
I always knew he went hard, but now I understand: Geoff was a full-blown gambling addict. He had no control of his addiction, and the prison environment fostered it. Maybe his problem should have been obvious to me. I had my own issues, but all his signs were there: anxiety, anger, paranoia, impulsiveness, preoccupation. I just put it down to the stress of doing time.
In all the years he spent inside, he never got any help or treatment for his one real problem. No one ever identified it. Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings were on offer at FCI Manchester, but no Gamblers Anonymous. I doubt Geoff would have taken advantage anyway. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, fewer than 5% of problem gamblers enter treatment. Geoff didn’t think he had a problem.
A 12-year sentence is a high price for an out-of-control gambling addiction, but many pay an even higher one: The National Council on Problem Gambling has estimated that one in five problem gamblers attempts suicide—about twice the rate of people with other addictions.
My friend’s death may not have been suicide, like all those other gambling addicts, but it was a form of self-annihilation.
I didn’t know Geoff on the street, but in the cesspool of prison he was kind and considerate and could be trusted to watch my back.
Eventually I transferred to FCI Beckley in West Virginia. I kept in touch with Geoff over the years through letters and the mutual acquaintances who would sometimes show up. I know Geoff didn’t change; every time I saw a new arrival who knew him from Manchester, they told me he was still going hard on the gambling tip. For years, he and I even did a play-by-mail fantasy football league together, making trades and coordinating draft strategies. “Gearing up for the football season,” he wrote. “You know I got to get my stamps up.”
Geoff always paid his way, though. Even when he was running up huge gambling debts. He had a reputation at FCI Manchester as hardworking and responsible. A model inmate, almost. He held a top-grade job as a clerk. He would file the paperwork and take care of the reports and payroll for his boss, the facilities manager. For prison, he made great money.
Eventually, after serving his time, Geoff was released.
He sent me a few letters after he got out, saying he was working and getting his life together. “It’s great to be out,” he wrote. “Now I can really live again, finally.” This was in 2006. I was happy for him. I figured he would make it. With his work ethic, it seemed a no-brainer. Because for real, despite his bank robbery, Geoff didn’t seem like a criminal. He wasn’t on that macho prison bullshit like so many guys.
But I failed to take his gambling problem seriously enough. In fact I, dismissed it. I failed to make the obvious connection between gambling and his crime. Eventually Geoff stopped writing. After nearly 12 years of communication, I didn’t hear from him any more. I figured he was moving on with his life. I was wrong.
A few years later, my wife forwarded some Facebook messages from a guy who had done time with Geoff and me. He was Geoff’s homeboy from Indiana, who used to hang with us in our little crew at FCI Manchester.
“You heard about Geoff, didn’t you? He was shot and killed in a robbery attempt.”
I couldn’t believe it, and made a wrong assumption. “In Indianapolis?” I wrote back. “They were robbing his home?”
“In Illinois. Geoff was attempting to rob a coin store and the guy behind the counter pulled a gun. Geoff got shot in the head.”
I asked my wife to do an Internet search. She found the newspaper articles about Geoff’s death and sent them to me.
At 10:30 am one Friday, he had entered a cards, comic and coin shop at a strip mall in Roselle, a quiet suburb of Chicago, and attempted to rob it by brandishing a revolver at the store owner. The owner pulled his own gun and both men fired.
“The armed robber—later identified as Geoffrey A. Webb of St. Louis, a 40-year-old convicted felon—was shot several times, including the head, and died at the scene,” read the Daily Herald report.
The articles make Geoff look like merely a hardened criminal, a federal prison parolee. But he was more than that. I knew Geoff; he wasn’t a naturally violent person. But he was, I know now, a sick, desperate man.
I later learned from mutual acquaintances that Geoff had been up to his old tricks. He had gotten into debt again from gambling on the horses and was trying to raise the money to clear it. The man always did pay his debts. But in trying to avoid catastrophe, his every attempt at a solution compounded his problem. Geoff became ever more deceitful, manipulative and secretive.
Feelings of hopelessness must have overwhelmed him. I never thought Geoff would resort to crime again. He always seemed too nice. But I guess he did kidnap a bank manager, no matter the spin he put on it, so go figure. When I learned of his death, I wondered why he would take such a chance after all the time he did. But really, I knew. It’s because he was addicted. I wish he could have done something else with his life, but without help or treatment, what chance did he have? My friend’s death may not have been suicide, like all those other gambling addicts, but it was a form of self-annihilation.
His autopsy report didn’t cite gambling as a cause of death, but it killed him just as much as the bullet that entered his skull. It’s sad that it took his death for me to realize the truth. And sadder still that the kind, agreeable man who made my time in prison a little easier to bear probably never realized how dangerous his addiction was—or even that he was an addict at all.
Seth Ferranti is serving 25 years for drug trafficking. He’s a columnist for The Fix. To learn more about prisoners, check out gorillaconvict.com. Seth’s new book, Gorilla Convict, a compilation of his writing about prison gangs, the mafia, hip-hop and hustling, is now available.
