They became ‘chosen brothers’ in a maximum-security prison. Then one got out.

Scott Harmon and Mark Williams met each other in a maximum-security prison in the heart of Pennsylvania coal country in 2012.

They had both grown up in the Philly area; both were in their early 20s, at the very beginning of life sentences without the possibility of parole for homicide convictions. Both had sons.

They were also both desperate to leave State Correctional Institution (SCI) Greene, the isolated prison where they met and which they described as harrowing. They aimed to appeal their convictions and get free.

They clicked as lifelong friends.

In 2018, Williams was transferred to the more desirable SCI Phoenix, in Montgomery County, and soon Harmon was transferred there as well. Both saw the reunion as an unexpected gift, and they became cellmates, or “cellies.”

While organizing with the activist group the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration and working with the same attorney to appeal their separate cases, they maintained a similar mindset: Despite what the courts said, their sentences would not last the length of their lives.

“When you’re sentenced to life, there’s really very little reason to hope that you’re ever going to get out again,” said Catherine Trama, an attorney with Wiseman, Schwartz, Cioschi & Trama who represented both men. They showed “a positivity that would be impossible for most people.”

Harmon was 22 when he was arrested for killing a 24-year-old man, Timothy Haines, in North Philadelphia. In 2011, he was convicted and given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. He maintained his innocence for the next decade-plus.

In 2024, his murder conviction was overturned. The District Attorney’s Office stopped short of endorsing his innocence but offered him a plea deal, in which he pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and firearms violations to get out of prison in April 2025. (“When that opportunity is offered to you: you can go home today, or you can take a chance fighting the system again, you don’t fight the system again,” Harmon, 39, said).

Harmon and Williams, who call each other chosen brothers, had been working toward the same goal, but now one had achieved freedom and the other had not.

“It was really difficult for a while. I didn’t want him to feel as though I was upset that he was leaving, or wasn’t happy for him,” Williams, 36, said.

Williams is still incarcerated at SCI Phoenix, and is currently challenging his conviction through the Post Conviction Relief Act, claiming the state violated his right to due process. He was 21 when he was convicted of killing a 21-year-old man, Isaiah McLendon, in Darby Borough and also given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Harmon is now a utility worker at a country club and lives in the Philadelphia suburbs. He has a girlfriend who he met as a teenager and reconnected with while in prison.

It is against state Department of Corrections policy for Harmon and Williams to meet in person because Harmon was formerly incarcerated, a spokesperson for the PA DOC said. Instead, they speak almost every day by phone.

The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg in separate interviews, has been edited for length and clarity and combined.

Mark: Everybody calls Scott “Slim.” I met Slim when he came upstate in 2012. We were young. Just seeing the shock of our new reality setting in with him, I had just experienced that a year ago. I could share how I made it through and hopefully it could help.

Scott: He seemed like a cool dude. We didn’t dive into each other’s cases, we just both knew that we were sentenced to die at such a young age. We call it death by incarceration, or a “DBI” sentence.

We had the same intention, which was getting out of prison.

Scott: We ate together all the time. The commissary is extremely limited — for the bags of instant rice that they sell, you need really hot water, which we figured out ways to make.

We would buy an extra bucket, put water and baking soda or denture tabs in it with an extension cord, and it heats up. You put your food inside a trash bag, you put a trash bag over the bucket, and you set your food on it, and it cooks.

We also started working out together. In prison, we work out so hard because it’s stress relief. We punish our bodies physically: 100 burpees may be a warm-up.

On the outside, I tried to do 10 sets of 10 pull-ups. Mark laughed at me when I told him I couldn’t.

Mark: SCI Greene was in a very, very racist part of the state. That environment kind of makes tighter bonds in people.

I transferred to SCI Phoenix [35 miles from Philly] maybe six months before Slim did. When I got transferred, it was an emotional time. It was hard. I didn’t really understand how close we were, until it was severed in that way.

Scott: You can’t choose what prison you go to. It’s like rolling a dice.

For those that were sentenced to “death by incarceration,” you have to stay seven years write-up free to get transferred. Now, mind you, you can get a write-up for having the thing that I just told you that we used to cook with. [The state DOC confirmed this.]

Mark: When he got here, that was a huge relief. To have someone back where it’s like, I know this is one of my brothers. It’s something I wasn’t expecting.

At the time, I think I was collecting trash on the walk. He was coming around the walk. And I saw him. We just were yelling and hugging.

Mark: As soon as he got to Phoenix, we start pulling strings to get in the cell together. We had to talk to the unit managers, talk about why we wanted to be cellmates, how it would make sense for our incarceration. Our argument was all about compatibility: I’m compatible with this person, and I won’t keep asking you to move me from cell to cell to cell.

Scott: We had bunk beds — two grown men. It’s not normal for two fully grown men to be in such a small space: maybe eight steps to the door, and four steps sideways.

We talked about being free, and what that freedom will look like, and reaching back for each other. He would say, “If I get out, you don’t have to worry, I’m not gonna be like other guys,” and I’m saying the same thing.

Scott: I was trying to build a relationship with my son. Mark told me, “Just keep at it, just keep writing, just keep calling.”

It is extremely frustrating when you want to be there, and you’re not being allowed. Had Mark not been there to advise me about the best way to go about it, I may not have the relationship I have with my son today.

Mark: Going through COVID was one of the hardest times. We were locked down all the time — we were getting out less than an hour a day.

The person that you were living with, you had to really be able to tolerate. We were in there, tight, every day, annoying each other, annoyed with what was going on.

You don’t know what your relationship will be with somebody until you’re actually trapped in a small space with them for a year.

Scott: I get on the phone and my attorney is like, “We heard back from the judge, and they overturned your conviction.”

I lost my breath, got nauseated, I started crying. Mark is two phones down. He started hugging me. It was a moment, man. I couldn’t even talk to him, snot was running down my nose. He was just happy for me, man. So happy for me.

Mark: It was a shock to me, just like it was a shock to him. Immediately I just felt joy, and excitement.

Then as time passed, it was more complicated. It wasn’t anger or jealousy. It was more of maybe sadness, and trying to reconcile the feelings of gain and loss at the same time. The situation was bringing up all types of feelings.

Scott: It’s never a conversation about him not getting out. The conversation is always like, “You’ll be out here soon.”

Mark: I think I probably did have a fear that we wouldn’t be as close as we are. Over the years, we experienced a lot of people that we built bonds with who went home. We might still be close with them, but we don’t talk as frequently. It’s not what it was.

Scott: We both worked in hospice, so the nurse allowed us to come down to the hospital and say goodbye to each other a day or two before I left.

I left him all my property. I left my TV to him. I left the books and stuff that he wanted, any clothes or sneakers that I had that he might want. I didn’t take anything out with me.

Scott: I talk to him every day. I know intimately what type of support he needs. Our conversations have changed in that it’s not about our freedom, it’s about his freedom.

The experience is like how guys are in the Army: because I was dead to the world. I was maybe in contact with 10 people out of the billions and billions of people on the Earth. He talks to maybe 20 people outside of prison. That’s nothing.

Mark: We talk about the new realities that he’s facing, and some of the ones that I have to look forward to.

It might have been harder for me to leave him behind. Survivor’s remorse — that can be tough to deal with.

Yes, I want my freedom, but it’s not much more than I wanted him to have his freedom.

This story is part of a new series about life partners across the Philadelphia area.

If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.