Dixon, Illinois (CNN) -- William Heirens, the "Lipstick Killer," is believed to be the longest-serving inmate in the United States. He turns 81 on November 15. 

Diabetes has ravaged his body, but his mind is sharp. 

"Bill's never allowed himself to be institutionalized," said Dolores Kennedy, his long-time friend and advocate. "He's kept himself focused on the positives." 

The days are spent mostly watching television and reading magazines. Using a wheelchair and sharing a cell with a roommate in the health unit of Dixon Correctional Center, he still yearns for a chance at freedom. It is something he has not tasted since 1946. 

Heirens has been locked behind bars and walls for 63 years, making inmate C06103 the longest-serving prisoner in Illinois history, state officials say. 

According to Steven Drizin, the legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Heirens "has served longer than anyone in the U.S. that I can find." 

He was put away a year after the end of World War II. It is a dubious record, but fitting for the man dubbed the Lipstick Killer, whose crime spree remains among the most infamous in the history of Chicago, the city of Capone and Leopold and Loeb. 

The scar-faced gangster and the thrill-kill pair are long gone. Heirens, however, has not slipped into the past. He lives in the present and hopes for a future outside prison. Supporters have championed his cause, convinced that he is innocent, or arguing that he has been rehabilitated, a model inmate who has served his sentence. 
When was he jailed?
a year after the end of World War II