Famous Author Who Wrote That Chicago Gangsters Are Released Out of Jail to Kill Again

If you were to eavesdrop someone talking about "The Rock" today, nine out of 10 people would think that the subject of chat was action pic star and quondam wrestler Dwayne Johnson. But if you had overheard the aforementioned conversation eight decades earlier, when James Cagney was the toughest guy in movies and wrestlers had names similar Gorgeous George, there would accept been no incertitude what the topic of conversation was. The only "Rock" back then was Alcatraz, the maximum-security prison perched on a modest island in San Francisco Bay.

For almost 30 years, Alcatraz was the ultimate destination for many of the country's most unsafe and wily criminals. Prisoners who were uncontrollable at other penal institutions were at final tamed by the severity of life at Alcatraz, while restless inmates who fabricated a habit of breaking out of other prisons on the mainland found that their days of like shooting fish in a barrel escapes were over. Almost forty tried, but no one e'er successfully escaped the citadel perched on the rock in the bay.

These days, Alcatraz exists solely every bit a tourist attraction, its odd location and famous history still a magnet for visitors to San Francisco. A key role of that history is the curlicue phone call of notorious criminals who were guests of the land in that location. In its day, Alcatraz hosted some of America's nigh famous lawbreakers; here are some of the near infamous.

Inmate #85: Al 'Scarface' Capone

Al Capone

Photograph: Getty Images

Conviction: Tax evasion

Time Served at Alcatraz: v years (1934–1939)

Mail-Term: mental illness, death from syphilis

By the time Al Capone arrived at Alcatraz on the morning time of Baronial 22, 1934, he was past his meridian every bit a crime kingpin. He had been sentenced to an eleven-year term in 1931 after several lengthy court cases that focused more than on his errant proclamation 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 boyfriend inmates and staff resulted in a transfer to Alcatraz a mere ten days later on the prison opened.

At Atlanta Federal Prison, Capone had what might be chosen "the run of the place": furnishings in his cell, frequent visitors, and easily bribed guards. At Alcatraz, the warden and guards were allowed to his greenbacks and influence, and Capone had to toe the line or face solitary solitude.

By the time of his arrival at Alcatraz, Capone was in a bad way. He was suffering withdrawal from cocaine addiction, and untreated venereal affliction 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 house hospital. The Capone who left Alcatraz in 1939 was a sickly, incoherent human being who would live out his final viii years in seclusion at his Florida mansion.

Inmate #110: Roy Gardner

Conviction: Armed robbery

Time Served at Alcatraz: two years (1934–1936)

Mail service-Term: writer, suicide

Alcatraz was repurposed by the federal regime from a military prison to a general federal prison in 1933 expressly to bargain with criminals like Roy G. Gardner, the homo who was nicknamed "Male monarch of the Escape Artists."

Gardner seemed to exist an outlaw from an before fourth dimension. Mobs and business-similar organizations weren't for him; he worked alone as a bandit and stick-upwards man, frequently and successfully robbing trains. His large mistake was to rob U.Southward. post trains and trucks, which before long made him the about wanted man in America.

Caught and sentenced to 25 years in prison house at McNeil Isle Federal Penitentiary, Washington in 1921, Gardner fabricated a daring escape from a moving train. He was caught a year subsequently merely escaped again. Finally conveyed to prison on the third endeavour, Gardner escaped McNeil Island after cutting a hole in a fence and swimming to shore. Capture a couple of months later on, he afterward did time at several of the toughest prisons in America, including Atlanta Federal Prison house, where he befriended Al Capone.

While incarcerated, Gardner made several attempted breakouts, none of which were successful, simply all of which gave prison house officials headaches. Alcatraz was an inevitable destination for an escapee of his tenacity. Surprisingly, withal, 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 business relationship of what Gardner called "The Tomb of the Living Dead." Life outside of Alcatraz wasn't much happier for Gardner, though – he committed suicide past breathing cyanide in 1940.

Inmate #117: George 'Automobile Gun' Kelly

George Celino Barnes, amend known as "Machine Gun Kelly," 1933.

Photo: Adoc-Photos/Corbis/Getty Images

Confidence: Kidnapping

Time Served at Alcatraz: 17 years (1934–1951)

Mail service-Term: died of a heart assail in jail

It couldn't exist said that many of the criminals who ended upward in Alcatraz were from good families, only Machine Gun Kelly was raised in a well-off Memphis household and fifty-fifty attended some college. A sudden marriage led him to drib out of school, and he got involved in bootlegging during Prohibition. Kelly didn't actually hit the large time, though, until he met and married a more than experienced criminal named Kathryn Thorne. Thorne clean-cut her new husband for success, buying him a Thompson auto gun and encouraging him to larn how to utilise it. Shortly, the two robbed banks Bonnie and Clyde-style throughout the South and discussion of "Machine Gun Kelly" spread.

The couple misstepped when they kidnapped an Oklahoma oil tycoon named Charles Urschel. They successfully obtained a $200,000 bribe and began to alive big, but the Bureau of Investigation (soon to get the F.B.I.) was on the instance. In two months' time, the Barneses were defenseless, 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 fourth dimension at Alcatraz quietly. He was so well-behaved that other inmates began to refer to him equally "Pop" for "popular gun." He worked in the office, served equally an altar boy, and reportedly regretted his life of crime. When he left Alcatraz in 1951, notwithstanding, it wasn't to go free; he was transferred back to Leavenworth, where he died in 1954.

Inmate #325: Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis

Alvin Karpis

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Conviction: Kidnapping

Time Served at Alcatraz: 26 years (1936–1962)

Post-Term: author, pill overdose

Similar "Automobile Gun" Kelly, Alvin Francis Karpowicz saw kidnapping every bit an easier manner to brand large sums of money than banking company robbing. Known every bit "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 grouping of "public enemies" that too included John Dillinger and "Pretty Boy" Floyd.

Karpis and Ma Barker'south boys worked with assorted accomplices to kidnap millionaire William Hamm for $100,000 in 1933. This job was so successful that they did information technology once more, 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 concern to track down the offenders. The Barkers were killed, but Karpis escaped from the police more once; he wasn't arrested until 1936 when Hoover personally took Karpis into custody later agents barricaded his Plymouth Coupe in the street.

Karpis had the ignoble laurels 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 fourth dimension 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 'Birdman' Stroud

Robert Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz.

Photo: Bettmann Annal/Getty Images

Confidence: Murder

Time Served at Alcatraz: 17 years (1942–1959)

Mail-Term: death past natural causes in jail

Possibly the well-nigh famous inmate in the history of Alcatraz is Robert Stroud, the so-called "Birdman of Alcatraz." This is due to a very successful 1962 moving picture (loosely) based on his life starring Burt Lancaster. The title of the film has given rising to the common misconception that Stroud raised birds at Alcatraz prison. Alcatraz did non allow animals of whatever kind within its walls; Stroud conducted his experiments with canaries at Leavenworth before his time at The Rock.

Initially sent up to McNeil Isle for stabbing a bartender at age 21, Stroud was an unruly and dangerous inmate. He attacked beau prisoners and did his utmost to sow dissension in the prison house. Transferred to Leavenworth, he stabbed a baby-sit to death and his sentence was upgraded to life. To keep him away from swain inmates, prison officials isolated Stroud and allowed him to pursue his involvement in bird breeding and intendance to proceed him occupied. Stroud wrote 2 well-regarded books on the topic and started a business concern selling treatments for bird diseases.

After his transfer to Alcatraz, now deprived of his birds, Stroud filled his time past writing Looking Outward: A History of the U.S. Prison System. He left Alcatraz for some other prison in 1959 after his health began to fail and died in 1963. Although prison officials considered him a model for how a prisoner could be rehabilitated, fellow inmates viewed him every bit a cantankerous, unpleasant person. The portrayal of Stroud as a quiet, thoughtful man in the moving-picture show about his life (a film that Stroud never saw) seemed an unfunny joke to the people who knew him.

Inmate #1428: James 'Whitey' Bulger

Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, Jr. poses for a mugshot on his arrival at the Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz on November sixteen, 1959.

Photo: Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Conviction: Armed robbery

Fourth dimension Served at Alcatraz: 3 years (1959–1962)

Post-Term: killed in prison house

Most people think of Alcatraz as a relic of past times, a chapter in a long-closed history of crime in America, but there are one-time inmates of Alcatraz who are nevertheless alive today. One of the about notorious is James "Whitey" Bulger, a human being who began his career of criminal offense as a gang fellow member in Boston in the early 1940s and eventually served prison stints for armed robbery and assault. His involvement in a long-running crime syndicate has implicated him in nigh 20 deaths.

Bulger served his start serious prison sentence at Atlanta, where Capone and Gardner had done time. During his 3 years there, he voluntarily enrolled in the C.I.A.'south MK-Ultra program, an experimental "heed control" operation that involved hypnosis, hallucinogenic drugs, and even abuse. Bulger regretted participating in the experiments and happily left the program upon his transfer to Alcatraz in 1959. The prison would only be open up for a few more years later his arrival, although Bulger oddly recalled his stay there every bit one of his best prison house experiences.

Transferred in 1962 and freed in 1965, Bulger became deeply enmeshed in Boston's Irish mob. Rising in rank to become i of the metropolis's crime bosses, Bulger dominated the region in the 1970s and '80s with his gambling, bookmaking and drugs rackets. In 1994, under investigation, Bulger went on the run and remained at large for 16 years, a longstanding fugitive on the F.B.I.'s Most Wanted list. In 2011, he was finally tracked downwards, and in late 2013, he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms for various crimes including racketeering, coin laundering and extortion. He was also been indicted for murder in several states.

Bulger was beaten to expiry past inmates in 2018, soon after existence transferred to the Hazelton federal penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, Due west Virginia. He was 89 years sometime and in a wheelchair.

Inmate #1518: Meyer 'Mickey' Cohen

Mickey Cohen shown before boarding a prison boat for return to Alcatraz Federal Prison, May 14, 1962.

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Confidence: Tax evasion

Time Served at Alcatraz: about a yr, on and off (1961–1963)

Mail service-Term: prison house pipe attack, natural death

Alcatraz wasn't very far from closing when Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen made his two brief visits. Convicted of tax evasion for the 2d time in 10 years, Cohen served his time at Alcatraz in two parts – he was actually bailed out for 6 months in the center, the only prisoner ever to be so removed from the prison. The bail was signed by Earl Warren, who was the Main Justice of the Supreme Court under John F. Kennedy. Although information technology's surprising that such a senior official would stump for a known gangster, this fact is a testament to the far-reaching sway that Cohen held in political circles.

Built-in in New York, Cohen made his name in Los Angeles. Stints as a newsboy and boxer put him in touch with gambling interests; his willingness to practice whatever was necessary made him indispensable to "Bugsy" Siegel's Jewish mob. Under Siegel'due south tutelage, he helped Las Vegas gambling become off the ground (Earl Warren was a frequent visitor to Las Vegas). Cohen rose upward the ranks, privately eliminating anyone who stood in his way while publicly hobnobbing with Hollywood movie stars and running a string of "legitimate" businesses. A publicity hound, Cohen made good copy for the daily newspapers, brushing off several attempts on his life, including a bombing of his house, as comic inconveniences.

A colorful grapheme to say the least, Cohen'southward financial indiscretions somewhen allowed the feds to indict him, and he was sent up to Alcatraz, which the fastidious Cohen referred to as "a crumbling dungeon." When the prison house closed in early 1963, he was transferred to Atlanta, where his luck finally ran out. An inmate with a grudge (some sources say a quondam Alcatraz inmate) smashed Cohen in the skull with a lead pipe. Cohen would never walk unassisted over again, and a bout with stomach cancer slowed him further. He died in 1976, four years afterward his release, another graduate of "The Rock" whose life afterward could hardly be called an escape.

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Source: https://www.biography.com/news/famous-inmates-of-alcatraz

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