FAMOUS INMATES
IN ALCATRAZ
G'day folks,
If you were to overhear
someone talking about “The Rock” today, nine out of 10 people would think that
the subject of conversation was action movie star and former wrestler Dwayne Johnson.
But if you had overheard the same conversation 80 years earlier, when James Cagney was
the toughest guy in movies and wrestlers had names like Gorgeous George, there
would have been no doubt what the topic of conversation was. The only “Rock”
back then was Alcatraz, the maximum-security prison perched on a small island
in San Francisco Bay.
For
almost 30 years, Alcatraz was the ultimate destination for the country’s most
dangerous and wily criminals. Prisoners who were uncontrollable at other penal
institutions were at last tamed by the severity of life at Alcatraz, while
restless inmates who made a habit of breaking out of other prisons on the
mainland found that their days of easy escapes were over. Almost 40 tried, but
no one ever successfully escaped the citadel perched on the rock in the bay.
These
days, Alcatraz exists solely as a tourist attraction, its odd location and
famous history still a magnet for visitors to San Francisco. A key part of that
history is the roll call of notorious criminals who were guests of the state
there. In its day, Alcatraz hosted some of America’s most famous lawbreakers, and
on the August anniversary of the arrival of the first group of them back in
1934, we take a quick look at a few of the most infamous.
Inmate
#85: Al “Scarface” Capone
Conviction: Tax evasion
Time
Served at Alcatraz: 5 years (1934–1939)
Post-Term: mental illness, death
from syphilis
By
the time Alphonse Gabriel Capone arrived at Alcatraz on the morning of August
22, 1934, he was past his peak as a crime kingpin. He had been sentenced to an
11-year term in 1931 after several lengthy court cases that focused more on his
errant declaration of income than on his reputation as a killer and bootlegger.
Found guilty of tax evasion, Capone headed to an Atlanta prison, where
favoritism showed to him by fellow inmates and staff resulted in a transfer to
Alcatraz a mere 10 days after the prison opened.
At
Atlanta Federal Prison, Capone had what might be called “the run of the place”:
furnishings in his cell, frequent visitors, and easily bribed guards. At
Alcatraz, the warden and guards were immune to his cash and influence, and
Capone had to toe the line or face solitary confinement.
By
the time of his arrival at Alcatraz, Capone was in a bad way. He was suffering
withdrawal from cocaine addiction, and untreated venereal disease contracted
many years earlier when he worked as a bouncer at a brothel in Chicago had
begun to impair his body and mind. His last year at Alcatraz was spent in the
prison hospital. The Capone who left Alcatraz in 1939 was a sickly, incoherent
man who would live out his final 8 years in seclusion at his Florida mansion.
Inmate
#110: Roy Gardner
Conviction:
Armed
robbery
Time
Served at Alcatraz: 2 years (1934–1936)
Post-Term: author, suicide
Alcatraz
was repurposed by the federal government from a military prison to a general
federal prison in 1933 expressly to deal with criminals like Roy G. Gardner,
the man who was nicknamed “King of the Escape Artists.”
Gardner seemed to be an outlaw from an earlier time. Mobs and
business-like organizations weren’t for him; he worked alone as a bandit and
stick-up man, frequently and successfully robbing trains. His big mistake was
to rob U.S. mail trains and trucks, which soon made him the most wanted man in
America.
Caught
and sentenced to 25 years in prison at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary,
Washington in 1921, Gardner made a daring escape from a moving train. He was
caught a year later, but escaped again. Finally conveyed to prison on the third
try, Gardner escaped McNeil Island after cutting a hole in a fence and swimming
to shore. Capture a couple of months later, he subsequently did time at several
of the toughest prisons in America, including Atlanta Federal Prison, where he
befriended Al Capone.
While
incarcerated, Gardner made several attempted breakouts, none of which were
successful, but all of which gave prison officials headaches. Alcatraz was an
inevitable destination for an escapee of his tenacity. Surprisingly, however,
given his reputation, Gardner was granted clemency in 1936 and released.
Shortly thereafter, he published a book he wrote in prison called Hellcatraz:
The Rock of Despair, a first-hand account of what Gardner called “The Tomb of
the Living Dead.” Life outside of Alcatraz wasn’t much happier for Gardner,
though – he committed suicide by breathing cyanide in 1940.
Inmate
#117: George “Machine Gun” Kelly
Conviction: Kidnapping
Time
Served at Alcatraz: 17 years (1934–1951)
Post-Term:
death
by heart attack in jail
It
couldn’t be said that many of the criminals who ended up in Alcatraz were from
good families, but George Kelly Barnes, Jr. was raised in a
well-off Memphis household and even attended some college. A sudden marriage
led him to drop out of school, and he got involved in bootlegging during
Prohibition. Kelly didn’t really hit the big time, though, until he met and
married a more experienced criminal named Kathryn Thorne. Thorne groomed her
new husband for success, buying him a Thompson machine gun and encouraging him
to learn how to use it. Soon, the two robbed banks Bonnie and Clyde-style
throughout the South and word of “Machine Gun Kelly” spread.
The
couple misstepped when they kidnapped an Oklahoma oil tycoon named Charles
Urschel. They successfully obtained a $200,000 ransom and began to live large,
but the Bureau of Investigation (soon to become the F.B.I.) was on the case. In
two months’ time, the Barneses were caught, convicted, and sentenced to life.
When Kelly bragged that the tough Leavenworth Prison couldn’t hold him, alarmed
officials immediately shipped him to Alcatraz. He arrived not long after Al
Capone and Roy Gardner.
Unlike Gardner, who was
anything but a model inmate, “Machine Gun” Kelly served his time at Alcatraz
quietly. He was so well-behaved that other inmates began to refer to him as
“Pop” for “pop gun.” He worked in the office, served as an altar boy, and
reportedly regretted his life of crime. When he left Alcatraz in 1951, however,
it wasn’t to go free; he was transferred back to Leavenworth, where he died in
1954.
Inmate
#325: Alvin “Creepy” Karpis
Conviction:
Kidnapping
Time
Served at Alcatraz: 26 years (1936–1962)
Post-Term: author, pill overdose
Like
"Machine Gun" Kelly, Albin Francis Karpowicz saw kidnapping as an
easier way to make large sums of money than bank robbing. Known as “Creepy” by
fellow gang members for his unsettling grin, the native Canadian became the
brains behind the Barker family, a bank-robbing gang known for their
viciousness during the early 1930s. In a relatively short time, Karpis became
one of an elite group of “public enemies” that also included John Dillinger and “Pretty Boy” Floyd.
Karpis
and “Ma” Barker’s boys worked with assorted accomplices to
kidnap millionaire William Hamm for $100,000 in 1933. This job was so
successful that they did it again, kidnapping a banker named Edward Bremer for
$200,000. Bremer had friends in high places, however, and J. Edgar Hoover of the F.B.I. made it
his personal business to track down the offenders. The Barkers were killed, but
Karpis escaped from the police more than once; he wasn’t arrested until 1936,
when J. Edgar Hoover personally took Karpis into custody after agents
barricaded his Plymouth Coupe in the street.
Karpis
had the ignoble honor of being the longest serving inmate at Alcatraz, where he
was sent on a life sentence, even outlasting the prison itself, which closed in
1963. Karpis finished his time elsewhere and was deported to Canada upon
release in 1969. He wrote two books about his life of crime before dying of an
accidental overdose of sleeping pills in 1979 at the age of 72.
Inmate
#594: Robert Stroud
Conviction: Murder
Time
Served at Alcatraz: 17 years (1942–1959)
Post-Term: death by natural
causes in jail
Possibly the most famous inmate in the history
of Alcatraz is Robert Stroud, the so-called Birdman
of Alcatraz. This is due to a very successful 1962 movie (loosely)
based on his life starring Burt Lancaster. The title of the film
has given rise to the common misconception that Stroud raised birds at Alcatraz
prison. Alcatraz did not allow animals of any kind inside its walls; Stroud
conducted his experiments with canaries at Leavenworth before his time at The
Rock.
Initially
sent up to McNeil Island for stabbing a bartender at age 21, Stroud was an
unruly and dangerous inmate. He attacked fellow prisoners and did his utmost to
sow dissension in the prison. Transferred to Leavenworth, he stabbed a guard to
death and his sentence was upgraded to life. To keep him away from fellow
inmates, prison officials isolated Stroud and allowed him to pursue his
interest in bird breeding and care to keep him occupied. Stroud wrote two
well-regarded books on the topic and started a business selling treatments for
bird diseases.
Clancy's comment: Mm ... Interesting that most of them had a nickname. Then again, who doesn't?
I'm ...
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