end, they compromised on a life sentence; the jury recommended mercy and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment for Filkowski. Common Pleas Judge Frederick P. Walter formally sentenced Filkowski to life on April 18, 1932. On the same day, he was transported to the Ohio State Penitentiary to begin his sentence. Imprisonment and aftermath On December 7, 1936, while serving his life sentence in the Ohio State Penitentiary, Filkowski played a minor role in an attempted prison break. Other prisoners in the group included two other Cleveland-based bank robbers named Frank Benszkowski and Vernon Taylor, and Leroy Keith, a native of Warren, Ohio, who was serving a life sentence that had been commuted from a death sentence for two murders. While being escorted back to their cell block after their evening meal, the prisoners overpowered the guards escorting them and took two as hostages. When other armed guards responded to the situation, the prisoners went to the Deputy Warden's office and surrendered themselves to him. Guards later determined that Filkowski had only helped to transfer notes between prisoners and had no intentions of escaping with the group, so he was not punished. During his first seven years in prison, Filkowski was involved in three separate escape attempts. On April 15, 1963, Joseph Filkowski was released from prison on parole after serving almost 31 years in prison for Veryk's murder. On July 6, 1963, Filkowski married Mary Kekic, by then going by the name Mary Stazek Keck. Keck's husband George had divorced her after she eloped, and he had since died; she spent the years after her divorce serving as one of Filkowski's most ardent advocates while he was in prison, petitioning governors, mayors, prosecutors, and newspapers for his release while working a job for $6 a week as a single mother. Filkowski credited Keck for his behavioral transformation behind bars; after Keck began advocating for him, he became a prison trusty and helped in the construction of the Marion Correctional Institution, where he was later transferred for his good behavior while he learned baking skills. Eventually, Maury C. Koblentz, the state corrections commissioner, recommended that Filkowski's life sentence be commuted to time served. In January 1963, Governor Michael V. DiSalle commuted Filkowski's first-degree murder conviction to second-degree murder, which paved the way for Filkowski's release. Filkowski's life after his release from prison and his marriage is unknown, although it is