It later came to light, however, that Palmer apparently had incurred a $42 gambling debt and feared reprisals.
Officials moved Palmer to an "isolation cell" inside the Buckley Unit, Cell A-26. He was in a holding pattern until authorities figured out what to do with him.
The murder and mutilation weapon used by Jasper Rushing.
The crime scene inside Cell A-26 at the Arizona State Prison.
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Shadow Dwellers: A Series
What's the one image you took away from the Tucson shootings? We thought so. That mugshot of Jared Loughner is haunting. And for the world, it has become the face of mental illness in Arizona. Here, we know that's not true. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the story of what it's like to be mentally ill in this place cannot be told in a single photograph.
Tens of thousands of seriously mentally ill people live in Arizona. Some of them look just like you.
Other stories in the series:
Tucson's Cafe 54 Is the Real Face of Mental Illness in Arizona, Not Jared Lougher, by Amy Silverman
Phoenix's Most At-Risk Homeless Find Their Way, Thanks to a Team of "Navigators", by Paul Rubin
Meet Raven, a Homeless Man with More Community Than Many of Us Have, by Paul Rubin
Mental Illness Hasn't Stopped Chris Shelton from Becoming a World-Class Boxing Historian, by Paul Rubin
Jan Brewer's Response to Jared Loughner: Slash More Than 35 Million in Services from an Already Beleaguered Mental Health System, by Paul Rubin and Amy Silverman
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The cells are aptly named, as inmates are treated much the same as those in the dreaded supermax unit in Florence. That is, locked up and closely monitored around the clock.
It was solitary confinement that, for Shannon Palmer, wasn't solitary for long.
On August 19, Jasper Rushing also refused to house, claiming extortion by three inmates.
This is where the system — actually several Lewis Prison officials — failed both Shannon Palmer and, in a twisted sense, Jasper Rushing.
For starters,they were putting two inmates instead of one in the small isolation cell at Buckley to handle overflow of so-called "detention inmates."
Corrections officer Kimberly Churchwell later told investigators that her job was to pair two "compatible" inmates who needed to be housed in detention or isolation cells.
She would review the inmates' height, weight, race, gang status (if any), history of institutional violence, and, finally, what they were incarcerated for and for how long.
From the Arizona Department of Corrections internal investigative report:
"Churchwell stated, based upon the policy and procedures in place at the time, [that] the placement of Palmer and Rushing in the same isolation cell was acceptable."
Jasper Rushing moved in with Shannon Palmer last August 19, hoping, he says, to spend a short time there before getting sent to another unit.
Having gotten there first, Palmer got the sole bed in the cell. Rushing was given a roll-up mattress to put on the floor.
Officers allowed Rushing to take one disposable twin-blade razor with him into his new digs, which may or may not have been within policy (depending on which prison official was talking to investigators after the murder).
Investigators later concluded that "there were conflicting descriptions of how the isolation cells were classified, and differences in how the inmates assigned to the isolation cells were managed."
Those "differences" would allow Rushing the opportunity to murder and mutilate his cellmate.
"He wasn't acting weird at first," Jasper Rushing says of Shannon Palmer.
"Then he started acting really goofy. I think he was crazy to start with, and the situation in that cell was making him crazier. And it was doing a number on me, too."
Days passed, and the inmates were forced to endure each other (and themselves) in a setting reminiscent of descriptions of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
Rushing and Palmer were locked up for all but a half-hour of exercise and a shower every two days. They each could make one 20-minute phone call each week.
The cells have a trap on the thick metal door that officers open from the outside to push through a prisoner's food tray.
A window on the top part of the door looks out onto a stark hallway. That window is all that separates inmates from being encased in a concrete tomb.
Isolation cells are not meant for the claustrophobic. In fact, A-26 is almost as restrictive as any cell on Arizona's death row, located in Florence.
If it wasn't bad enough, the lights went out in the cell on August 24. It was day five of what turned out to be 23 days that Rushing and Palmer were locked up together in A-26.
Work records from the Buckley Unit show that prison officials tried to fix the lights inside the cell, but to no avail.
That left the men literally in a twilight zone, with the barest ambient light from the hallway sneaking in through the cell-door window.
Conversations between the inmates grew tense and increasingly strange, Rushing says.
One day, Rushing says, Palmer mentioned the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children — a centerpiece in Palmer's long-held delusion.
"I thought it was funny he mentioned that organization," Rushing says. "I've been donating $10 to them for several years now — you can look it up. I don't like people who mess with women and children, and this guy was starting to say things about kids. I didn't like his lack of respect."
Both men spoke by phone with their mothers the day before the murder. Neither mentioned the other during their 20-minute chats, recordings of which New Times has heard.
Rushing sounds subdued but focused, saying he doesn't know how much longer he would be in isolation.
"Hopefully not too much longer," Rushing says. "Honestly, I'm starting to formulate my own plan. Do you think we're intelligent enough to know when it's [your] time to call it [a day]?"
Mom says she doesn't know.
"I think that's the road I'm going down," he continues. "But I don't want it to be a great big surprise on your part. Everybody else will get over it."
Rushing says he has asked for psychiatric help, "but there is no hope to be had, and there is no help to be had. It's the same for everyone here."
(Rushing tells New Times, "You can read whatever you want into what I told my mom. I was thinking that I'm not going to live in a bullshit situation for the rest of my life. I was thinking about ending things for myself, not killing Shannon Palmer.")
