Escape Artist: Memoir of A Visionary Artist on Death Row

by William A. Noguera

AUTHOR BIO: William A. Noguera —is an award-winning artist, author and speaker, William A. Noguera has gained international attention and received accolades for his photographic hyper-realistic ink compositions, profound mixed-media paintings, hybridized abstract expressionism and neo-constructivist wall sculptures—exhibiting in Paris, New York and San Francisco. Noguera has been the subject of over 35 articles in such publications as Forbes, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and BOOM! A Journal of California. Besides being an artist and lecturer, Noguera is a former Hapkido Middle-Weight Champion. Since writing his memoir, Noguera has aspired to help others through lectures at MBA programs and as a radio guest speaker, concentrating on prevention and intervention. Noguera’s inspiration is simple: pay his debt to society by creating art for charitable causes and encouraging others, and writing and speaking about what it takes to make progressive self-change and the continuous effort that is required for someone to have a positive influence on others. Noguera’s talks share an eye-opening, thought-provoking narrative on the realities of wrongdoing, prison life, ethical responsibility, prison gangs, their culture, the ramifications of destructive behavior, and the rewards of constructive rehabilitation.

FOREWORD: Walter A. Pavlo Jr. —is the co-author of Stolen Without A Gun: Contributions from Inside History's Biggest Accounting Fraud, and a contributor to Forbes.com. Pavlo is also a business professor and a professional-speaker who has addressed the FBI, top-ranked business schools and universities, accounting firms, law enforcement agencies, professional societies, and corporations on the subject of white collar crime. He is a frequent contributor to CNBC and Fox Business, and he has made television and radio appearances, in addition to public speaking.

OVERVIEW: William A. Noguera has spent 34 years at the notorious San Quentin Prison, home to the nation’s largest and deadliest death row. Each day, men plot against you and your life rests on a razor’s edge. In Escape Artist: Memoir of A Visionary Artist on Death Row, he describes his personal growth as a man and artist and shares his insights into daily life and the fight to survive in the underworld of prison culture.

After being sentenced to death, he arrived at San Quentin Prison and was thrown into a rat-infested cell—it was there that he discovered the key to his escape: art. Over the next three decades, Noguera rebelled against conventional prison behavior, and instead forged the code he lives by today—accepting responsibility for his actions, and a self-imposed discipline of rehabilitation. In the process, he has explored his capacity to bring focus and clarity to his artistic vision. An unexpected transcendent moment occurred while Noguera lay face down in the prison yard as guards fired shots at two men locked in battle. He realized the prisoners around him, their lives and experiences behind these walls, possessed significant worth.

Escape Artist exposes the violence, politics and everyday existence within the underbelly of society that is prison life. Noguera’s story includes having been an abused child and a victim of racial discrimination and bullying. Ultimately, these challenges led him to the martial arts—and the lethal unknown side effects of Roid-Rage Syndrome caused by steroid use. In an unprecedented narrative, Noguera reveals the emotional and heart-wrenching loss that landed him on death row and the journey he has taken to become an award-winning artist, speaker, and author, a tale of one man’s transformation through tragedy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 16, 2018

About the author

William A. Noguera is the author of two memoirs: Through the Lens of a Monster and Escape Artist.

He is a pioneering expert on serial killers with a unique perspective, having spent forty-two years on San Quentin’s death row before his release in 2025. Noguera is also an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been exhibited worldwide, and his insights into the criminal mind inspired the Oxygen True Crime docuseries Death Row Confidential, produced by Dick Wolf, Vanity Fair Studios, and Universal Television. His story has been featured in Forbes, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Guardian.

Today, he writes, speaks, and collaborates with law enforcement to expose the truth about the predators among us. When he isn’t working, he can often be found riding his Harley-Davidson.

Website: WilliamNoguera.com
Instagram: @DeadBodySociety
YouTube: @DeadBodySociety
TikTok: @Dead.Body.Society

Reviews

[dr reymon · Rating 5 out of 5]

great read. this book, to me, was about redemption. people can change. and they can become their authentic self in the most desolate of places. WN's style of writing is so visual and at times I felt like I was watching a movie--only difference is that this story was real and he continues to live it proudly.

[RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN · Rating 5 out of 5]

RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: WELCOME TO HELL!... Who Holds The Key That Sets Us Free?
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This is the bone-chilling autobiography Of William (Bill) A. Noguera. The author has spent thirty years on Death Row in San Quentin. Before that he served approximately four years in Orange County jail in Southern California. Potential readers should be warned that this is as brutal a telling of a life… or actually a “LIVING-HELL” of perhaps the lowest level of human society. IMMEDIATLEY… upon starting to read this book… you are now a passenger on the fastest supersonic train… sitting next to the conductor… who destroyed his own life… to end up in this position. On the page following the preface… is the *ACTUAL-DEATH-SENTENCE* handed down from the Orange County Superior Court Department 39… on Friday, January 29, 1988… you should now be aware… that this book.. is not some sanitized made for TV tough guy story.

If you’ll bear with me for a personal analogy for a moment… I want to give you an idea of what you will experience with this story. I am an Honorably Discharged Vietnam Era Veteran… so I know what war is… I have also fervently disliked when people such as pro athletes constantly use comments like… “we’re going to war”… or “I’m a warrior”… “I’d want him in a foxhole with me”… well let me tell you… that playing a game for a living is not a freakin war… and it’s demeaning to people who have been in… or faced war!

But the daily (I won’t call it life)… fight to simply exist… whether you committed a horrible crime… or not… to wind up in the jail and prison system… especially Death Row at San Quentin… well let me tell you something… you are immediately in a personal 24/7 war to not be killed or maimed. Whether you deserve to be there or not… you are now in a war in the very depths of hell! And this author… communicates that so unrelentingly… raw… without varnish… that you will lose your personal place in time… and feel like you’re in there with him. I finally had to take a break and find a small room in my house… and I actually measured out 4 feet by 9 feet… to get a clearer grasp of the cell he occupied. (or was thrown in and locked up!)

To air another personal dislike… solely for the purpose of further illuminating not only the content… but also the artistic style of writing by the author… I have always hated books that kept having “sloppy” flashbacks… and flash-forwards. So many times in other books… the reader gets so confused you can barely follow and understand the stories flow. But this book constantly goes from Orange County Jail… to San Quentin Death Row… to his childhood… to adolescence… to San Quentin… to Orange County… and back… and forth… and yet I NEVER LOST THE TIME AND PLACE… AND STORY FLOW! It actually was amazingly done.

The author who was a former Hapkido middle-weight champion growing up… never stopped practicing his self-imposed martial arts training and discipline… regardless of his location… and that is probably the biggest reason he’s still alive today. That and his soulful… religious like… control of the sanctity of his mind. The fact that he was able to maintain his inner- self while on death row… and many additional stints in numerous solitary confinements… is a tribute to his inner fortitude. Now before… a potential reader… tries to cast aside anything at all positive about this convicted killer…. (and I admit… that was my attitude when I started reading this book) consider this statement by the author:

“I MADE A HORRIBLE MISTAKE—ONE I REGRET AND THINK ABOUT DAILY SINCE THAT NIGHT SO MANY YEARS AGO WHEN I LOST CONTROL. NEVER FAR FROM MY THOUGHTS IS THE FACT THAT I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LOSS OF A LIFE, AND NOTHING I EVER DO WILL MAKE UP FOR IT. SO WHY TRY? WHY CONTINUE WITH THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THIS OPINION? BECAUSE I AM A HUMAN BEING. BECAUSE I REGRET IT. BECAUSE I AM RESPONSIBLE AND WISH TO EXPRESS MY REMORSE AND APOLOGIZE FOR THE PAIN I HAVE CAUSED.”

Anyone who has ever watched a TV crime show… whether the ridiculously phony ones… or the true-life documentaries… it is always made clear.. that individual crime gangs run the prisons. Gangs such as La eMe…( the Mexican Mafia)… The Aryan Brotherhood (white supremacists)… Southern Mexicans… Crips and Bloods… etc. … and you’d better belong to one of them… or you’re not going to last long… with no one to watch your back. Bill refused to show affiliation with any gang… and miraculously… he has continued to survive. The abundance of shank’s-knives-planks… their size and sharpness… and their machine gun like speed of multiple stabbing motions in the blink of an eye… leaving bloody death in its all too common wake. And the ability to make the murder weapon disappear just as quickly.

And then there is the *YARD*!!! A convict and or inmate (and believe me… there is a gigantic difference between a convict and an inmate)… yearns for the limited time they get to be outside and exercise… but when you’re out there… even with manned gun towers looking down… the yard is nothing more than a killing field. And luckily the author possesses a keen alertness like that of a wild animal existing in a jungle… or he would have never survived to this juncture.

In the midst of paying for his awful crime… Bill shows… and constantly enhances with intense reading and studying… an almost magical artistical talent of drawing. There are many types that he has displayed… that I am not gifted enough to fully describe… and if I used the technical terms in the book… I probably would not get through to most people reading this review. So to put it in basic layman terms… which is what I am… the author can draw pictures that come out looking EXACTLY like it is a real photograph! From there he added mathematical and geometric capabilities… that have drawn interest from the art community throughout the world. Many exhibits of his work have been displayed worldwide. While still on death row his paintings sell for thousands of dollars. He sends money home to his family… and donates anonymously to charity organizations.

Where other convicts take foolish pride with the people in their gangs… Noguera blatantly states that if he wasn’t in prison he would never associate with these types of individuals. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Blood In… Blood Out”… which is one of my son and I’s favorite “underground-cult-classics”… “The Escape Artist”… is a thousand times more powerful. I never stop reading and on Amazon alone I have read and reviewed over seven-hundred books in the last decade… and other than books on the Holocaust… the Vietnam War… and the World Wars… nothing is like this book. It reminds me at times of “Papillon”… and at times of the “Autobiography Of Malcolm X”.

Along with the daily “wartime” fear and cruelty… once in a while… some gallows humor shows its head… such as the time that the moratorium on executions in California was lifted… and Norguera was given an execution date… and so he was put on “death-watch”…

“That’s when they place a cage in front of the cell with a bull in it 24/7. His job would be to watch the death watch prisoner to prevent him from killing himself. Can you imagine? They don’t want me to kill myself, and will go as far as placing a bull in front of my cell around the clock, so at the end they can kill me.”

The only part of the book I was disappointed in… was the last ten-to-twenty pages. But, I suppose after being on a supersonic train for over four-hundred-pages… the train has to slow down before coming to the end of the line.

For a quick brief ending of my review… I’d like to leave you with a sentiment from the author: “MY WEAPON OF CHOICE IS MY MIND.”

[Tabitha Rohm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book: Escape Artist by William Noguera. To say that it was a page turner would be an understatement. It is his personal memoir, and he lets you into his world. He was 19 years old when he was arrested for murder and sentenced to DEATH ROW. He was on death row until another judge saw the circumstances of his case and commuted his sentence to Life In Prison With Parole. He spent 42 years in prison by the time he was given parole. He wrote this book while he was in prison. You would think that I have just given you the book … far from it. Most of what I just said isn’t even in the book (or at least not in these exact words).

As I was reading the book, I chatted with him from time to time on Facebook. I love authors that take the time to talk to their audience, to me, that tells me that they care. But that is him, he is just that warm welcoming.

Noguera takes you from the start of his world to how he got here. It is beautifully spelled out with precision to help you understand him. He carefully breaks up every segment of his life and when every chapter ends, it takes you into another chapter that explains how he got to that place. He explains all his faults, torments, fears, happiness, and hopes. At times you will want to cry for him and other times your shocked that he done this or that … and you are holding in your hand one of his masterpieces. He truly is an Escape Artist. Honestly, that is the perfect name for his memoir.

Noguera was exceptional in his writing. I had to keep going back and fourths between him on Facebook and him in this book. They are two very different people. This is the only spoiler I will give you and it really isn’t much of one. In his book, he quotes Walter A Pablo Jr. when he said: “Can a person be seen for the good that they do now, no matter the wrong they have done in the past? This question is not one of forgiveness, it is about our ability to accept the good in the world and without judgment”. When I read that, I couldn’t help but think about the one time I did try to do this very thing and it didn’t turn out too well. He is truly and exception on every count. I will assure you, by the time you get to the end of this book, you will feel like you are one of his personal friends the way he brings you into his world. I don’t usually read memoirs, but when I read a testimonial on Facebook about him and his book, I had to get it and read it. I couldn’t believe someone actually beat the death row sentence and came out on the otherside and artist of many kinds.

[Trasee Monroe · Rating 5 out of 5]

GRIPPING. HEARTFELT. INTENSE.
Escape Artist is a memoir of William A. Noguera, an exceptionally talented artist, published author, and speaker that resides on San Quentin's infamous death row in California.
Mr. Noguera tells the compelling story of events and extenuating circumstances that led him to death row and gives an unreserved disturbing account of his experiences in the notorious prison.
He goes on to explain how he creates and utilizes his mesmerizing artwork to channel freedom from the restraints of his environment.
I love the fact that he has the courage of his convictions and is brave enough to do what he feels is right during situations such as protecting a kid from being assaulted in the jail showers.
His strength and incredible resilience are what real men are made of and are very admirable.
This book is eloquently written and kept me enthralled the entire time. A fantastic read!
As for the reason he is in prison.... Everyone makes mistakes in life, but it's how one responds afterward.
Mr. Noguera has taken accountability for his past indiscretions and has expressed a geniune remorse. Having to remain in a constant state of hypervigilance in the most dangerous prison in America, he still strives daily to make himself a better person and to help others as well. Yes, he deserves another chance to be free in society.
To those people who judge otherwise, unless you've made no mistakes in your life, be careful of stones that you throw.

[Val · Rating 1 out of 5]

Narcissistic rant


448 pages of narcissistic rant. He’s a better fighter than everyone… He’s a better car thief than everyone... no sports team can possibly win without his help… filled with delusions of grandeur and excuses for his criminal behavior.
Nowhere in it does he actually show any remorse for his heinous behavior. He fails to even include the son that he did father while a prisoner at San Quentin or the woman who fell under his spell who married him and gave him a son. Unsure how he was even able to have conjugal visits but then again, it’s just more of him trying to work the system.
Bill Noguera is exactly where he is supposed to be.

[it’s ok to decay 13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy Memoirs, this is THE book for you.
I’m not done reading it yet but I’m halfway there. By the third chapter I had two dreams about this book. In my dreams I was living the story, I was the prisoner. This book has brought me to tears! I can tell this book was written with soul. If I could yell at the world, I’d tell the world to stop scrolling through tick tok for this book. Can’t wait to finish this book and if this writer has any additional books. I want to read them all!

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

KSKS

[Trasee Noguera · Rating 5 out of 5]

GRIPPING. HEARTFELT. INTENSE.
Escape Artist is a memoir of William A. Noguera, an exceptionally talented artist, published author, and speaker that formerly resided on San Quentin's infamous death row in California.
Mr. Noguera tells the compelling story of events and extenuating circumstances that led him to death row and gives an unreserved disturbing account of his experiences in the notorious prison.
He goes on to explain how he creates and utilizes his mesmerizing artwork to channel freedom from the restraints of his environment.
I love the fact that he has the courage of his convictions and is brave enough to do what he feels is right during situations such as protecting a kid from being assaulted in the jail showers.
His strength and incredible resilience are what real men are made of and are very admirable.
This book is eloquently written and kept me enthralled the entire time. A fantastic read!
As for the reason he is in prison.... Everyone makes mistakes in life, but it's how one responds afterward.
Mr. Noguera has taken accountability for his past indiscretions and has expressed a geniune remorse. Having remained in a constant state of hypervigilance in the most dangerous prison in America for 40 years, he still strives daily to make himself a better person and to help others as well. YES, he deserves another chance to be free in society.
To those people who judge otherwise, unless you've made no mistakes in your life, be careful of stones that you throw.