Jerry Whitworth

Jerry Alfred Whitworth (born August 10, 1939) was sentenced to 365 years for his part in the Walker family spy ring, which, at the time of Whitworth's arrest, U.S. authorities described as "the most damaging espionage ring uncovered in the United States in three decades".

Early life Whitworth was born in his grandparents' house next door to the New Covenant Free Will Baptist Church in the Paw Paw Bottoms Oklahoma.

Whitworth came from a broken home. His father left his mother and moved to California before he was one year old. His mother had died shortly afterwards, so his maternal grandparents and one uncle were awarded guardianship. The family breakup had hit the young Whitworth hard, and he had trouble making friends in school. At the time of his arrest, a now-retired educator who had been one of Whitworth's teachers in elementary school noted he "seemed to struggle to find a place to belong". By the early 1960s, Whitworth left the Navy and was a student at Coalinga College, a community college in Coalinga which is now known as West Hills College Coalinga, and was planning to go on to study engineering at the University of California. However, deciding that this would take too long, he decided to re-join the navy and make it his permanent career. He went on active duty at Naval Air Station Alameda in September 1962. in revenge for his failure to pay alimony. Shortly after Walker was arrested on 20 May 1985, Walker's son, Michael, and Walker's brother, Arthur, were arrested. Barbara Walker had never met Jerry Whitworth, and his role in the spy ring was tougher to uncover. Through Whitworth's 1984 letters to the FBI, John Walker's poorly-coded letters to the KGB which identified him as "D", and Barbara Walker remembering her ex-husband often mentioning a friend (though she could not recollect if his true name was "Wentworth" or "Whitworth"), the FBI was finally able to pinpoint Jerry Whitworth, and he was arrested on 3 June 1985. Walker entered into a plea bargain, agreeing to testify against Whitworth, apparently mainly in return for lenient treatment of his son. But Walker also received more lenient treatment than the man he had recruited—Walker would have been eligible for parole in May 2015 (he died on August 29, 2014, in prison). Whitworth ended up receiving the harshest punishment of the spy quartet, being fined $410,000 and sentenced to 365 years imprisonment.