Sullivan had been tipped to the story at a prison conference a few years earlier. During an interview there for a series on the state of solitary confinement in the United States, Sullivan learned from a warden that two inmates had been in solitary confinement for more than 30 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, more commonly referred to as Angola State Prison. Sullivan was astonished. If that were indeed true, these inmates had spent more time in isolation than any others in the United States. But the story would have to wait. She was working on several other projects. She kept her notes in her reporter’s “tickler” file for future reference. [1]

In February 2008, after returning from maternity leave, Sullivan decided to look into the two inmates in solitary confinement at Angola State . She was intrigued principally because the practice of solitary confinement was controversial. Prison officials in the US defended its use as a means to prevent violence and as a tool to enforce discipline. But others considered solitary confinement a form of torture. According to a New Yorker piece, “in 1890, the United States Supreme Court came close to declaring the punishment to be unconstitutional” because such confinement could lead to mental illness. [2] One study the writer cited found that a third of 200 prisoners in solitary confinement became psychotic. [3]

For the preceding two years, Sullivan had been working on a story about elderly inmates and their quality of life. She was following several prisoners and making repeat visits to tape interviews. As luck would have it, one prisoner was at Angola State . Sullivan had visited him twice with the consent of prison officials, including a public relations person. So Sullivan knew the authorities at Angola .

Based on this preexisting relationship, Sullivan one afternoon in late February picked up the phone and called the prison spokesperson at Angola to confirm whether they had held two prisoners in isolation for 36 years. She was immediately placed on hold. After a few minutes, the spokeswoman came back on the line to say the prison had no comment. The reaction and curt response surprised Sullivan. She was used to stonewalling from officials, comments such as “I’ll have to check the records.” But this felt different. Why would the prison administration want to keep this a secret?

Sullivan was disconcerted to realize that she had made a strategic error. She had long known that it was not effective to approach a key source on the very first phone call to get to the bottom of a story. She preferred to build her stories, working up from least important sources to the most central ones. Inadvertently, she had tipped her hand too early to the prison administration. However, she was confident she could retrieve the situation.

Sullivan went to see her boss, Senior National Editor Steven Drummond . “There are two guys down there in solitary confinement for 36 years. It’s this really screwed up case that sounds like a mess,” she filled him in. “Do you think we should do the story?” Drummond gave her the go-ahead.