1. Nathan Burl Cain was born on July 2,1942 and is an American corrections officer and prison warden who currently serves as the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the former warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Burl Cain worked there for twenty-one years, from January 1995 until his resignation in 2016.
Burl Cain is the brother of James David Cain, a former Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the Louisiana State Senate, and Alton Cain.
Commissioner Burl Cain holds a degree from Louisiana State University at Alexandria and a master's degree in criminal justice from Grambling State University in Lincoln Parish.
Burl Cain began his career with the Louisiana branch of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Until 2011, Burl Cain served as the vice chairperson of the Louisiana Civil Service Commission.
Burl Cain increased media access to the prison, and several documentaries were filmed at the prison during his tenure.
Burl Cain established a television station at the prison and supported the newsmagazine and radio.
In 2008, Burl Cain became the longest-serving warden in the history of Angola.
In 2008 Burl Cain said he supported continuing solitary confinement for the men known as the Angola 3.
Burl Cain has been compared by both supporters and detractors to the Dukes of Hazzard character Boss Hogg.
In 2010, Burl Cain was among the speakers in a series at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The capital city newspaper claimed that Burl Cain sold interest in land that he owned in West Feliciana Parish to two developers who were reportedly either family or friends of two Angola inmates incarcerated for conviction of murder.
In May 2016, Burl Cain was exonerated of any wrongdoing, with respect to using his employees to perform home renovations.
Burl Cain discounted the findings of the Purpera report, saying it had misinterpreted his "creative" approach to handling his duties as warden.
Burl Cain authorized the construction of five new chapels built with privately raised funds.
Ultimately Burl Cain was cleared by the Daryl Purpera investigation and by another probe into his activities by the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Burl Cain said that he never doubted that he would be cleared because he had stolen nothing, had merely "thought outside the box" to bring needed changes to the penitentiary.
Burl Cain said that prayers from his fellow Southern Baptists assured that he would receive justice in the investigations.
Burl Cain, II, had advanced to become warden of Avoyelles Correctional Center in Cottonport, a facility since named for former state Representative Raymond Laborde of Marksville.
Burl Cain vacated the warden's position in Cottonport on May 24,2016.
Tonia Burl Cain's attorney cited her client's health issues as the principal reason for the resignation.
Nate Cain had built an identical structure at the C Paul Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy in Calcasieu Parish, where he was earlier the deputy warden.
Nate and Tonia Burl Cain divorced in 2017, and she resumed her maiden name of Bandy.
Burl Cain agreed to plea bargain and admitted to some of the seventeen wire fraud charges in hopes of getting a lighter sentence than she would have received if convicted of the crimes.
On June 17,2019, Tonia Burl Cain received an eight-month sentence in federal prison, while Nate Burl Cain received a 38-month sentence in federal prison; both were ordered to serve two years of supervised release and to pay more than $42,000 in restitution.