"Heroes Live Forever" - the story of Washington State Corrections Officer Jayme Lee Biendl

McLean, VA (September 17, 2024) - Jayme Lee Biendl was a hard working star athlete who became a correctional officer with the Washington State Department of Corrections in 2003. On January 29, 2011, Correctional Officer Biendl was strangled to death with a microphone cord in the chapel of the Washington State Reformatory by an inmate who was serving a life sentence without parole for a series of violent attacks against women. The cold-blooded killer told investigators that the reason he strangled Officer Biendl was because “he had nothing to lose” and felt that “the staff would change their attitudes if a body showed up.” More than a year after her death, a colleague, Corrections Officer Kristen Marken, said, “It has been one year now, and there is not one day that goes by when I or any of our correctional officers walk through that wall to work and do not think about Jayme.”