Kilby Correctional Facility  Kilby Correctional Facility is an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) prison for the state of Alabama, located in Mt. Meigs, an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Alabama, with a capacity to house over 1,400 inmates. Kilby serves as receiving and processing center for all male Alabama state inmates. The current Kilby Correctional Facility warden is Phyllis J. Billups. The Montgomery Women's Facility, an ADOC facility for women, is located behind Kilby. In 1922 and 1923, the State of Alabama constructed and opened Kilby Prison, located on four miles (6 km) north of the State Capitol. It was named in honor of Thomas Erby Kilby), governor of Alabama (1919–23). Kilby prison was the site where Alabama executed prisoners who had been sentenced to death, and when in the 1920s the method was changed from hanging to electrocution, an electric chair, "(Big) Yellow Mama", was constructed in Kilby. The chair was built by a master carpenter, Ed Mason, a man born in London, England, who had been convicted of burglary; he was convicted of having broken into six homes in Mobile to pay off gambling debts. After being promised a furlough or perhaps even parole by Kilby's warden, T. J. Shirley, he built the chair ( tall, straight-backed, weighing ) from maple, and named it "Plain Bill" for Alabama governor William W. Brandon, who he hoped would pardon him. Mason was granted a furlough by Bibb Graves, Brandon's successor, and promptly left the state never to return. State engineer Harry C. Norman installed the electrical wiring; "once the switch was thrown, a prisoner would get a first fist-clenching jolt of power; the current would then reduce and automatically build back up to 2,250 volts for a second shot of electricity". A crown made of metal wire was fitted over the prisoner's head, with a wet sponge to conduct power, and a second, similar electrode on the lower left leg. Norman was to execute the first victim, Horace DeVaughn, convicted of two murders, on April 8, 1927, but refused and quit his job days before. DeVaughn was executed, but it took four shots of electricity to kill him. On February 9, 1934, five men were executed in a span of thirty minutes: Bennie Foster, John Thompson, Harie White, Ernest Waller, and Solmon Roper.