From dangerous gangsters who terrified the Depression Era United States to a convicted
killer who inspired an Oscar-nominated film, here are the 7 most infamous Alcatraz inmates:
Number 7 George Kelly Unlike other criminals on this list, George
‘Machine Gun’ Kelly came from a wealthy family in Tennessee and had even attended
college.
Many suspect that his wife Kathryn was the one who facilitated his rise to become public
enemy number one.
She introduced him to a number of notorious gangsters and even bought Kelly his first
machine gun.
Kathryn was an expert at marketing her husband to the public and underground circles.
Many historians believe that she was actually responsible for building the ‘Machine Gun
Kelly’ image.
The two were inseparable, enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and thrived in the criminal world
together.
Kelly performed a string of successful bank robberies in Texas and Mississippi, which,
some believe, had been orchestrated by Kathryn.
To avoid capture the couple would state hop and they’d also dye their hair to conceal
their identities.
The duo was ultimately apprehended following the kidnapping of wealthy oil tycoon Charles
Urschel.
While on Alcatraz, Kelly was reportedly considered a model inmate by the warden and he even worked
as an altar boy.
However fellow prisoners described him as boastful and said that he was frequently talking
about robberies and murders he hadn’t even committed.
Number 6 James Bulger Unlike the other inmates on this list, James
‘Whitey’ Bulger seemed to have actually enjoyed his time on Alcatraz.
While writing to Alcatraz historian Michael Esslinger, Bulger wrote “If I could choose
my epitaph on my tombstone, it would be ‘I’d rather be in Alcatraz’.”
Bulger was unlike most inmates.
He served his first long-term sentence at Atlanta Penitentiary, where he volunteered
for an experimental CIA program called MKULTRA, in which inmates were given heavy doses of
LSD as well as other drugs.
Alcatraz would only be a stepping stone in Bulger’s criminal career.
After the prison closed in 1963, he served the rest of his term at Leavenworth.
After his release in 1965, ‘Whitey’ Bulger would become a major player in Boston’s
criminal underground.
He remained a fugitive between 1995 and 2011.
After Osama Bin Laden was killed, Bulger rose to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
He was finally apprehended while living under an assumed identity in Santa Monica, California.
He was given two life sentences after being convicted of 11 murders.
Number 5 Roy Gardner Roy Gardner may not share the same level of
fame as other inmates on this list but this is mainly because he worked alone and was
never a Depression Era gangster.
Regardless, Gardner was a force to be reckoned with during the Roaring Twenties.
Much like the outlaws of the Old West, Gardner primarily targeted trains.
He is known as the last Great American Train Robber and was nicknamed the ‘King of the
Escape Artists’.
Gardner once escaped from a moving train.
He also escaped the penitentiary on McNeil Island.
In 1934, Gardner was transferred to Alcatraz which he would later describe as the ‘toughest,
hardest place in the world’.
He was released four years later after his appeal for clemency was approved.
Gardner would publish an autobiography called ‘Hellcatraz-The Rock of Despair’, most
of which he’d written as an inmate.
It was one of the first accounts about life inside the infamous prison, which also mentioned
some of the other infamous names of this list.
Number 4 Alvin Karpis Alvin ‘Creepy’ Karpis, who reportedly
earned the nickname from his sinister smile, spent more years on Alcatraz than any other
prisoner.
He was one of the leaders and the criminal mastermind behind the Karpis-Barker gang.
During the 1930s, the gang hijacked mail deliveries and robbed a number of banks before turning
do the lucrative field of kidnapping.
Aside from Karpis and the Barker brothers, Doc and Fred, the gang included around 25
other members.
Karpis reportedly had a photographic memory and genius-level IQ and even Fred described
him as ‘super smart’.
As they carried out their criminal operation, the Karpis-Barker gang would gun down anyone
that stood in their way, including innocent bystanders.
Karpis was the last ‘public enemy’ to be apprehended by Hoover’s FBI and his arrest
marked the end of big-name depression-era criminals.
During his 26-year imprisonment on Alcatraz, he would constantly complain about living
conditions and fight with other inmates.
He was eventually transferred to McNeil Island Penitentiary in 1962, when Alcatraz was in
the process of closing.
Number 3 Frank Morris and the Anglin Brothers The fate of Frank Morris and the Anglin Brothers
has been the subject of speculation and urban legends but nobody knows for sure what happened
to them after their daring escape from Alcatraz in 1962.
They weren’t particularly violent offenders.
The Anglin brothers usually robbed stores after hours to ensure no one got hurt and
the only weapon they ever used in a robbery was actually a toy gun.
They were transferred to Alcatraz after repeated breakout attempts from their previous prisons.
In the past Morris had successfully escaped from Louisiana State Penitentiary before being
sent to the Rock.
It was Morris, in fact, who orchestrated the escape after the Anglin brothers were placed
in a cell adjacent to his.
The men worked on the Alcatraz escape for nine months.
They burrowed through the rotting cement at the back of their cells with smuggled cafeteria
spoons and discarded saw blades, using fake vents to conceal their work.
They fashioned a raft out of 50 stolen raincoats, which they sealed together with heat from
the steam pipes under their cells.
They made decoy heads from toilet paper, soap and a homemade cement mix, which they decorated
with human hair.
On June 11, the three men crawled out of the back of their cells, took the raft and made
their way to the roof.
They climbed down the wall into the bay and set off to nearby Angel Island.
The decoys were discovered the next morning during role call.
Many believe the men didn’t make it, as the tide was 8 mph and the temperatures were
54 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, circumstantial evidence from the early 2010s suggests that the men had survived
and that the authorities had covered up their successful escape.
Number 2 Al Capone One of the most famous gangsters of all time,
Alphonse ‘Al’ Capone made a fortune during Prohibition-era Chicago by selling illegal
liquor.
At the height of his empire, Capone was making around $60 million a year.
He wore double-breasted suits, diamond rings and drove an armored Cadillac.
Capone loved the attention he received from the press, which portrayed him as a type of
gangster-Robin Hood, an image that he relished in.
He would donate a percentage of his crime money to charity and even opened a soup kitchen
in Chicago.
In February 1929, Capone allegedly orchestrated one of the most brutal gangland massacres
in history.
At the time, Bugs Malone was one of Capone’s main rivals.
On February 14, seven members of Malone’s gang were lured to a Chicago garage where
they were gunned down by hitmen dressed as policemen, in what would be known as the St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Even though Capone was careful in running his criminal outfit, he was eventually sentenced
to 11 years for tax evasion.
His immense wealth enabled him to manipulate the system in order to secure a comfortable
life for himself on the inside.
That was until he was transferred to Alcatraz, in August 1934.
During his 4 and a half stint on The Rock, Capone was treated like every other prisoner.
He attempted to bribe the warden on several occasions but he was denied.
Capone himself said at one point ‘It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked’.
Number 1 Robert Stroud Robert Stroud, better known as the ‘Birdman
of Alcatraz’ was probably the prison’s most famous inmate.
Even before he got to Alcatraz, Stroud’s violent temper had earned him quite a reputation.
He got convicted of manslaughter in 1911, for killing a bartender who’d allegedly
refused to pay for a prostitute that Stroud was pimping.
After starting several fights and stabbing a fellow inmate at McNeil Island, he was transferred
to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas.
While in Leavenworth he stabbed a guard to death in plain view after he was denied a
visit from his brother.
Stroud was sentenced to hang, but President Woodrow Wilson ultimately commuted his sentence
to life in prison, in 1920.
Because of his violent outbursts and frequent threats against other inmates Stroud was permanently
placed in the segregation unit, to serve his sentence in solitude.
During his 30-year stint at Leavenworth, Stroud developed a keen interest in canaries and
raised almost 300 birds in his cells.
He even authored two books on canaries and their diseases, after careful study of their
habits and physiology.
He was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942, where he spent the last seventeen years of his life.
After the movie ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ came out, in which Burt Lancaster portrayed
Stroud as a humane and mild-mannered person, many people petitioned for his release.
Stroud was never allowed to see the movie, which earned Lancaster an Oscar nomination.
He died of natural causes in November 1963.
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