Alcatraz

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Alcatraz

Prior to its discovery by the Europeans, Alcatraz was viewed as a barren, white rock - white because it was covered with pelican droppings - thus receiving the name of La Isla de los Alcatraces or ‘The Island of the Pelicans’, by the Spanish. However, it wasn’t until the 1850’s that the importance of this tiny island as a defensive position was realized. Finally, the military decided to build a fortress in case an unfriendly ship might decide to enter the Golden Gate. The Army Corps of Engineers began to build an impenetrable and imposing structure in 1854. The original construction estimates of $300,000 did not take into account the wind, rain, fog, strong ocean currents, lack of water, lack of vegetation and the fact that there was only one possible place to land equipment and supplies.
Construction began with the erection of a temporary wharf for supplies. This was followed by wooden shops, storehouses, barracks and offices. Those who couldn’t make it in the gold fields became reluctant labourers on Alcatraz. The labour force carved out roadways and other features as the fortress slowly took shape. It was only a matter of time before Alcatraz began taking human life.

During 1857, while a crew was excavating along the roadway between the wharf and the guardhouse, a 7000 cubic-yard rock landslide buried a team of labourers: Daniel Pewter, age 50, of Ireland and Jacob Unger, 25, of Germany, were the first known deaths on Alcatraz.

On a cold December day in 1859, the Third Artillery arrived on Alcatraz with a group of eleven anonymous soldiers of Company H - the first prisoners to be incarcerated in the basement cell room of the guardhouse for crimes not recorded in Army files. Alcatraz was now a fully operational fortress and prison. By August 27, 1861, Alcatraz was designated as the official military prison for the entire Department of the Pacific. Living conditions were grim. Men slept side-by-side, head-to-toe, lying on the stone floors. There was no running water or heat in the cells, sanitary facilities were almost non-existent and disease was rampant.
After the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers caught celebrating the death of President Lincoln were sent to Alcatraz. In 1868, the Army designated Alcatraz as a prison for military convicts and malcontents of society. By the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Indian chiefs and tribal leaders of Arizona and Alaska were incarcerated along with some of the worst thieves, deserters, rapists and repeated escapees from the Army. Alcatraz again became a disciplinary barracks for U.S. Army military incorrigibles, as well as a health resort when soldiers returning from the Spanish-American War convalesced there.

On the morning of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Alcatraz shook, but sustained little damage. That same year, four prisoners tried to paddle to the mainland on a butter vat, only to have strong currents bring them back. Driftwood was used for escape attempts in 1912, 1916, 1927 and a ladder was used during an escape attempt in 1929. All of the men were captured or surrendered, victims of the cruel currents and cold water. In 1911, Alcatraz was officially named the United States Disciplinary Barracks - an official Army prison which included both U.S. Army prisoners as well as German seamen who became prisoners of war.

The social upheaval of the 1920’s and 1930’s, and rampant crime sweeping America, provided Alcatraz with new life. Daring escapes, gang-related murders and mass rioting were a menace to an orderly prison. Attorney General Homer Cummings supported J. Edgar Hoover in creating a facility which would instil fear in would-be criminals by creating a place where prisoners could be safely controlled and could not escape. In 1933, the prison facility was formally turned over to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. During 1934, Alcatraz became an escape-proof, maximum security prison, where only the most hardened convicts were brought.
The first residents of the newly created Alcatraz received numbers 1-32, with Frank Bolt having the distinction of being Federal Prisoner #1 while serving a five-year sentence for Sodomy. He was followed by Charles Copp (Robbery and attempted Assault); Leon Gregory (Robbery, Assault and AWOL); Joseph Harrison (Sodomy); Forrest Henry (Robbery and Assault); Clyde Hicks (Sodomy); Ralph Hills (Robbery and Assault); Albert Hoke (Robbery); Alan Hood (Sodomy); and Frederick Holme (Sodomy and False Enlistment) to round out the first ten inmates. Al Capone was the first celebrity on the first train to Alcatraz, arriving in August 1934. He was given number 85.

Guards armed with machine guns, insured there were no escapes. Many convicts found Alcatraz the end of their career in crime, as well as the end of their lives. For 29 years, the fog-enshrouded island, with its damp, cold winds and isolation, made Alcatraz one of America's safest prisons. The shell of steel and reinforced concrete confined ruthless men to a life of deprivation, rules and routines that proved almost intolerable. When one adds the fact that the convicts could hear the party boats pass by, and see some of the San Francisco city lights, it is little wonder that some preferred death to this kind of isolation. Failure to acquiesce to prison rules resulted in confinement in ‘D’ block, the treatment unit. Here, men could leave their four-by-eight cells only once in seven days for a brief, ten-minute shower.

Life was hard on Alcatraz, just the way that Warden Johnson envisioned it. His motto was "Take each day of your sentence, one day at a time. Don’t think how far you have to go, but how far you’ve come." For many prisoners, Alcatraz became synonymous with hell.

There were a number of escape attempts from Alcatraz, but the bloodiest occurred on May 2, 1946, involving Bernard Coy, Joseph Cretzer, Sam Shockley, Clarence Carnes, Marvin Hubbard and Miran Thompson. It cost the lives of three inmates and two guards, with 17 guards and one prisoner wounded. The trial afterward, resulted in the execution of two more convicts who took part in the aborted escape.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy officially closed the doors of Alcatraz on March 21, 1963. From 1963 to 1969, the prison was unoccupied. Today, it is maintained by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area where almost a million visitors per year pay to see ‘the Rock’. To get there; take a seat aboard the Red and White Fleet ferry service. Reservations can be obtained by contacting (800) 229-2784.

The reputation of Alcatraz, like the solid ground it was built on, represents a lasting reminder that no man is above the law, and for some, it is an eternal payback for their crimes against humanity -kind of a paranormal prison.
Here are some of the stories:

During a visit to Alcatraz by the television show, Sightings, in 1992, several of the Park Service staff confirmed the haunted history of the prison. Many rangers had experienced unexplainable crashing sounds, cell doors mysteriously closing, unearthly screams and intense feelings of being watched. Sightings called on psychic investigator Peter James to walk through portions of the abandoned prison to get his impressions. James began to pick up on the voices of the tortured souls driven mad since its inception as a prison. He also sensed unusual vibrations of abuse, mistreatment, fear and pain. His overall impression of Alcatraz was that it had energy like no other he had ever experienced … a persistent and overwhelming intensity that engulfed the island.
Some of the more haunted locations on Alcatraz appear to be the Warden’s house, the hospital, the laundry room and the cell block ‘C’ utility door where convicts Coy, Cretzer and Hubbard died during their escape attempt in 1946.
The most haunted area of Alcatraz is the ‘D’ cell block, or solitary, as it was often called. To most of those who go there, a feeling of sudden intensity pervades the cells and corridor. Some rangers refuse to go there alone. It is intensely cold in certain cells, far colder than normal -especially in cell 14-D. This cell is oftentimes so cold, that wearing a jacket barely helps -even the surrounding area is twenty degrees warmer. It is no wonder the area is called ‘the Hole’.

When authors Richard Winer and Nancy Osborn visited Alcatraz, they ventured down to solitary with a park ranger. As Osborn entered cell 14-D, she immediately felt strong vibrations coming from within. Winer and the ranger followed Osborn, and within seconds, each of them experienced an intense tingling sensation in their hands and arms -they were convinced that something or someone was in there with them. The far corner of the cell, where they were standing and feeling the intense energy, was the exact spot where the naked, shivering prisoners would huddle, night after night, in the unforgiving darkness. Osborn said that she had never felt so much energy in one spot.

Renowned ghost hunter Richard Senate, and a psychic, spent the night on Alcatraz as a part of a KGO radio promotion. They chose Al Capone’s cell as a place of temporary refuge.
According to Senate, emotions seemed to drip from every corner of Alcatraz as the long night progressed. He and the psychic visited the spots where rangers said they heard marching footsteps, and clanking metal; however, nothing happened. Finally, Senate locked himself in cell 12-D, where an evil and persistent ghost is rumoured to dwell. As the thick, steel door was closed, Senate immediately felt icy fingers on his neck and his hair stood on end. He knew he was not alone. Additionally, the psychic picked up on the twisted and dismembered bodies of uniformed men. Both left the island convinced that Alcatraz had its own special energy.

According to Antoinette May, much of the paranormal activity on Alcatraz occurs around areas associated with the penitentiary’s worst tragedies. One of them is the block ‘C’ utility corridor, cell blocks ‘A’ and ‘B’, with the eeriest area centering around cell 14-D -where it is always cold. According to May, gifted psychic Sylvia Brown, accompanied by a CBS news team, investigated parts of Alcatraz. As Brown toured the prison hospital, she picked up cards and notes tacked up on a wall, and the letter ‘S’. A ranger confirmed that the ‘S’ probably stood for Robert Stroud who spent a ten-and-a-half years in the hospital, in the very room where they were standing. He also had hundreds of notes and cards tacked up all around him. Brown sensed strong energy in what used to be the therapy room, and the prison laundry room, where at least one prisoner was murdered.

Co-author, Michael Kouri, visited Alcatraz in July of 1984 with his uncle. After several preliminary psychic impressions, Kouri reached cell 14-D, and entered. He first felt a ‘tingling sensation’, which began at his fingertips; then, a very intense feeling of cold engulfed him. In a slight trance, he began to communicate with a man of small stature; who had his head shaved and was left in ‘the hole’. The spirit, in obvious pain, "told" of a horrifying tale of being beaten, his legs broken by guards, and left in solitary confinement -he had squealed on another inmate -the year was 1939. Kouri then tried to lead the poor soul to the light. (Note: Kouri’s other unique experience with a visitor, is truly remarkable, as well as an interview with the wife of an ex-warden -but you’ll have to wait until the book comes out for those.)

A former guard related his stories about cell block ‘D’ (particularly cells 12 and 14), and the frightening remnant energy lingering in the subterranean portion of the prison. During his stint in the mid-1940’s, convicts were often confined in one of the 14 cells in ‘D’ blocks. Cells 9-14 were called ‘the Hole’, because they contained no windows, and only one light which could be turned off by the guards. The darkness made it seem like a hole in the ground -hence the name. On one occasion, an inmate was locked in ‘the Hole’. Within seconds, the inmate began screaming that someone with glowing eyes was in there with him. Tales of a ghostly presence wandering the darkened corridors in clothing from the late 1800’s were a continual source of practical joking among the guards, so the convict’s pleas of being ‘attacked’ were ignored.
The man’s screaming continued well into the night, until there was silence. The following day, the guards inspected the cell -the convict was dead, a horrible expression etched on his face and noticeable hand-marks around his throat. The autopsy revealed that the strangulation was not self-inflicted. Some say he was strangled by a guard who had enough of the man’s screaming, although no guard ever admitted it, even to the other guards.
Others believed it was the restless, evil spirit of a former inmate who exacted his vengeance on yet another helpless soul. To add to the mystery, the day after the tragedy, several guards, performing a line-up of the convicts, counted one too many people. At the end of the line, the guards saw an extra body -that of the recently deceased convict. As everyone looked on in stunned silence, the figure of the ghostly convict vanished into thin air.

A number of guards from 1946 through 1963 experienced something out of the ordinary at one time or another. From the outer rim on the grounds to the deepest caverns, there was constant talk of people sobbing and moaning, horrible smells, cold spots and seeing the ‘Thing’ with the glowing eyes. Even groups of phantom prisoners and soldiers have appeared in front of startled guards, guests and the families who lived on the island.

Sometimes the old lighthouse (long since demolished) appeared out of a dense fog, accompanied by a ghostly whistling sound, and a green flashing light which passed slowly around the island, just as if the lighthouse was still active. The spectacle would then vanish before the startled eyes of guards and visitors. Phantom cannon shots, gun shots and screams often sent seasoned guards falling flat on their stomachs thinking that prisoners had escaped and obtained weapons. Each time, there was no explanation. A deserted laundry room would sometimes emanate a strong scent of smoke, as if something was on fire. The sensation of the choking smoke would drive guards out of the room, only to return a few minutes later, the area now completely smoke free. The phantom smoke occurred many times over the years.

Even Warden Johnston, who didn’t believe in ghosts, encountered the unmistakable sounds of a woman sobbing, as if coming from inside the walls of the dungeon while he accompanied a number of guests on a tour of the facility. As if that weren’t enough, an icy, cold wind blew through the group, chilling them to the bone, just as the sobbing stopped.
The now burned-out shell of the Warden’s house has also been a focal point for sightings since the 1940’s. During a Christmas party, several guards witnessed the chilling apparition of a man wearing a grey suit, brimmed cap, and mutton-chop sideburns. When the men saw the apparition, the room turned deathly cold, the fire in the Ben Franklin stove was extinguished and, after less than a minute, the man vanished.

witchdoctor · The ghosts of Alcatraz

The ghosts of Alcatraz

Security guards report creepy sounds, sensations at long-closed prison

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, Calif. – Each day at sundown, when the last tour boat departs this desolate, wind-swept outpost, one lonesome soul is left behind. He’s the night watchman of Alcatraz.

Guided by the beam of his flashlight, Gregory Johnson inches down the gloomy infirmary ward of this retired prison, once home to the nation’s most malicious killers and psychotic criminal malcontents.

“Hey, what’s that noise?” he asks, throwing the light against the half-open door of a solitary confinement cell.

He pauses, shrugging off another unexplained Alcatraz phenomenon.

“Man,” he whispers, “I couldn’t imagine being out here at night without my gun.”

Until the first boat arrives after dawn, the U.S. Park Police officer spends the night battling both his nerves and imagination, patrolling the place once known as America’s Devil’s Island.

Lore of desperate men

Over the years, Alcatraz was the dreaded last stop for 1,576 murderers, mobsters and the nation’s most-wanted crooks.

Known as “the Rock,” the 12-acre penal island was notorious for cramped cells and rigid discipline that at times demanded silence. Decades after the prison closed March 21, 1963, with inmate Frank Weatherman’s valediction, “Alcatraz was never no good for nobody,” all that remains is the lore of the desperate men once locked up here.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, per se,” says Johnson, 38. Holding a shackle of keys, he cautiously makes his moonlit rounds across the island.

He walks the old cellblocks that once housed bank robber and gangster Arthur “Doc” Barker and kidnapper Alvin “Creepy Karpis” Karpavicz, a former Public Enemy No. 1.

He checks the medical ward where Robert Stroud, “the Birdman of Alcatraz,” spent 17 years.

He peers into the laundry room where Chicago mobster Alphonse “Scarface” Capone hustled among the industrial washers.

He patrols the office of wardens nicknamed Saltwater, Gypsy, Cowboy and Promising Paul.

Now and then, the old prison plays tricks on his mind. One night, as the buoy bells clanged and the foghorn moaned, he swore he heard clinking glasses, as if a toast were being made. He hears mice skitter on cellblock floors. The wind howling often seems like crazy laughter.

“This is one creepy place after dark,” he said. “It can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up straight.”

Cruel mind games

For years, ferry company employees were assigned to the island’s night shift. Last fall, when the National Park Service, which runs Alcatraz, changed ferry services, park police took over until the new contractor begins work.

Officers watch both the ferry docks and federal facilities, mindful of pranksters or protesters. American Indians fighting for civil rights once occupied Alcatraz for 19 months, starting in November 1969.

Johnson initially balked at the duty he shares with other officers.

“I like to be scared, but not that scared,” he said. “I had to remind myself, ‘There’s no one out here but me. So just put that stuff out of your mind.’ ”

Between 1934 and 1963, the Civil War-era military fortress turned penitentiary provided inmates with the hardest time they ever did, in part because San Francisco’s cityscape reminded them of the freedom they had lost.

George DeVincenzi, a guard at Alcatraz from 1950 to 1957, said the proximity of the California culture drove prisoners nearly insane.

“Yachts circled the island, and men on the third tier of C and B blocks could see girls in bikinis drinking cocktails,” he said. “It was so near, and yet so far.”

The mind games got crueler.

“After dark, it got colder and danker,” DeVincenzi said. “You could hear the bellow of the fog horns. It was a lonely, sometimes scary sound, even for the murderers among us.”

Eight people were killed by inmates at Alcatraz. One guard was murdered in an assault in the prison’s laundry room in the 1930s, and two died during an attempted breakout in 1946. Five inmates were killed in random attacks. Five other prisoners committed suicide.

‘Pinched on the butt’

Years after the prison shut its doors, the island’s sense of seclusion remains. Until cell phones, night watchmen relied on a ship-to-shore phone to reach the mainland.

Erik Novencido worked the island night shift for 10 years. The worst part was walking inside the electroshock therapy room. Once he took a picture at night to show friends. When he developed the film, he says, the snapshot showed a face in the room staring back at him.

He never figured out what it was.

“Sometimes I was just overwhelmed by fear,” he said. “The rangers told me stories about the things that happened here. And I’d say, ‘Keep that to yourself. I’ve got my sanity to keep.’ ”

Veteran park ranger Craig Glassner has been afraid even during the day.

“Once on an isolated spot I heard this ‘whooooo, whooooo,’ like someone blowing on a big Coke bottle,” he said. “I thought, ‘Do I run?’ Then I saw it was the wind blowing across the stanchions of a fence. It really freaked me out.”

Mary McClure, who spent 12 years working nights on Alcatraz, preferred the isolation.

“It was the standard fantasy of being alone on an island,” she said.

Even so, there were strange events.

“Many times, at night in the cell house, I had the distinct sensation of being pinched on the butt,” said McClure, 52, a former paramedic. “It happened with great regularity. I have no explanation for it, and I don’t talk to people about it, because I know it makes me sound crazy.”

John Banner, 83, spent four years as an inmate here in the 1950s. He still recalls the squeal of the wind at night.

“Laying awake, listening to that wind, trying to hold on to what sanity I had left, I always thought of the brutality of that prison,” said the convicted bank robber, who lives in Arizona.

The stuff of crime photos

When darkness comes, you don’t leave Alcatraz; you flee. A ranger hands Johnson the keys to the island – hurrying toward a ferry that whisks away the last of the day’s 5,000 visitors.

Johnson stands amid the seagulls. The big birds are everywhere, lined up on walls, circling like vultures. They make him uneasy.

“It’s like they’re watching me, to see if I’m going to crack,” he says, “like in that Alfred Hitchcock film, ‘The Birds.’ ”

He makes a sweep for any tourist stragglers and settles in for the long night.

Johnson’s father was a prison guard in upstate New York. He has the job in his blood. But Alcatraz is different.

The last rays of sun gone, the island fortress becomes a grim, humorless place, the stuff of black-and-white 1950s crime photos. Johnson plays upbeat music on his iPod.

He earns overtime pay for his 18-hour shifts (3 p.m. to 9 a.m.), but sometimes, in the dead of night, he says, “it seems like blood money.”

At 8 p.m., his radio squawking with park police chatter, Johnson winds his way up a switchback as birds dive-bomb from ledges. The cell house looms like a haunted castle.

He walks cellblock rows that inmates nicknamed Broadway, Sunset Alley and Seedy Street. He enters a solitary cell, its heavy iron door creaking. The tiny quarters remain perfectly black even after his eyes grow accustomed to the space.

He stops at the cell of Frank Lee Morris, whose daring breakout was immortalized in the film “Escape from Alcatraz.” Morris and two others left dummy heads fashioned out of soap and toilet paper inside their cells. The idea was to fool guards while they left through holes chiseled in cell walls.

Johnson looks at a model of one fake head left in the cell as a tourist display. He knows how the men felt: “Ten years here? I’d go crazy before that.”

By dawn, the night watchman is weary of the Rock. Passing the keys to a ranger, he makes his own escape from Alcatraz, the sun on his face.