[1] Thompson was of Irish extraction, his parents having emigrated to the United States in the early twentieth century and settled in Huntington, West Virginia.

In October 1979 Crawley was shot whilst drinking in a bar, Thompson was prosecuted and found guilty of murder and robbery in 1979.

Whilst a prisoner, Thompson studied law, assisting other inmates in appeals and challenges, and also began writing anarchist literature and poetry.

[1][3] On October 11, 2008, Harold H. Thompson suffered a heart attack, dying in West Tennessee State Penitentiary at sixty-six years of age.

[1][4] In accordance with his final request, Thompson's ashes were scattered over the waters of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland by six of his anarchist friends.