Robert ‘Nudie’ Mims, 69, notorious killer, dies in prison

Then-Police Commissioner Frank L. Rizzo called the crime "the most vicious . . . I have ever come across."

Author W.E.B. Griffin wrote a novel, The Witness, based on the incident.

Mims fled to Chicago, where he served as a bodyguard for Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, before finally surrendering, according to Philadelphia's "Black Mafia": A Social and Political History by Sean Patrick Griffin.

While serving a life sentence at Graterford, Mims allegedly arranged for drugs and even prostitutes to be smuggled into the prison. He allegedly also ran a heroin ring in Northwest Philadelphia.

As the imam of the prison's 1,800-member Muslim population, he reportedly had an office and phone.

In 1995, 650 state troopers and corrections officers swept the prison for drugs and weapons. Mims and other inmates considered to be drug dealers and troublemakers were transferred.

A corrections officer recalled afterward an incident two years earlier in which the staff tried to get 100 inmates to move during an evacuation drill. They refused.

"I said, 'OK, go get the imam and tell him I need him to move these people,' " the officer, Cynthia Link, said. "He came over and waved his hand, and it was done."

Information on funeral arrangements was not available Monday night.

Contact Robert Moran at 215-854-5983 or bmoran@phillynews.com, or follow @RobertMoran on Twitter.