Alcatraz (79 page)

The staff at Springfield suspected that Young had feigned mental illness in order to be transferred out of Alcatraz, and that he continued to do so—complete with a “superficial” attempt at suicide—to ensure that he would remain at the hospital. Deferring their diagnosis, the doctors decided Young needed “further psychiatric observation”:

Clinically he does not fit the usual picture of a catatonic schizophrenia and his symptoms just don’t “ring true.” Both psychiatric and psychological studies will be continued in an effort to arrive at a correct diagnosis so that appropriate therapy could be instituted. In the meantime in view of his desperate behavior at other institutions it will be necessary to keep him under maximum custody.
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Several months later, whether malingering or truly mentally ill, Young got his wish to remain at Springfield. After tests with sodium pentothal, he was declared psychotic.

He says that all of psychiatric text books and knowledge is false due to the fact that all psychiatrists are merely Jesuits in plain clothes, that they have been indoctrinated by the followers of St. Ignatius (whom Young knows to have been a woman) as part of a grand scale attempt to subjugate the human race to their own purposes. . . . We now look on his superficial catatonic symptoms as a pathological defense against these primarily grandiose and paranoid delusions.
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Young spent his time in a locked ward reading and sleeping, although the staff psychiatrist reported that this quiet demeanor might cover “some plan of escape or revenge.”
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Young’s psychotic status continued and in 1951, when his condition improved, he was assigned to work as an orderly. He did not associate with other patients, did not participate in educational, recreational, or religious programs, and did not correspond with anyone.

In 1954 Young became eligible for a conditional release from his original sentence. He still had a three-year term to serve for the involuntary manslaughter of Rufe McCain in 1941 but was turned over to Washington State authorities, who transported him to the state penitentiary to begin a life sentence for the murder he had voluntarily confessed to ten years earlier. Young arrived at Walla Walla on December 9, 1954, where an admissions summary reported the remarks of the prosecutor in his 1944 murder case: “It is my personal opinion that the defendant cannot ever be rehabilitated and he should never be allowed to be loose in society under any circumstances.” The record clerk at Alcatraz stated,
“
Young had one of the worst records of any prisoner at Alcatraz and is considered the most cold blooded one of all
” [original emphasis]. The admission report concluded by stating the expectation that Young would “rapidly become a custodial problem” because he was “still capable of yielding considerable influence over the worst element of the prison population.”
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At Walla Walla, Young at first refused work assignments and spent his time in his cell reading, but he maintained a clear conduct record. Over time, the diagnosis at Springfield of “schizophrenic reaction of a paranoid type” faded into the background. He began work in the institution cannery, received excellent evaluations, moved to an inside construction detail, began to attend Mass, and participated in yard activities.

By 1965 Young’s good conduct record had resulted in a reduction of his custody classification to medium security. He completed the second year of high school, was a spectator at institution sporting events, and continued to receive good work reports and evaluations. Nevertheless, a counselor in 1966 concluded, “In my opinion, this is a hardened criminal who would not hesitate to again commit a serious crime when subjected to moderate stress.”
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On June 8, 1967, assigned to a minimum-security building, Henry Young escaped from Walla Walla. What he did to survive during seven months in the free world is not reported in the prison records made available to the author. But after he was apprehended in Missouri on January 8, 1968, and returned to Walla Walla, he spent twenty days in isolation and six months in “special segregation.” When he appeared before the Adjustment Committee, he “pled guilty stating that he didn’t think he was going to get out so he took off.”
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As time passed, Young was asked to develop a parole plan. He declined, saying he would develop a plan when he received a parole date. Told that he would not get a date until he had a plan, he refused to think about release. A 1969 progress report concluded, “This inmate is completely dependent on the institution as he apparently has no desire to formulate realistic plans or to do any positive thinking for himself that might someday prove helpful and constructive.” In 1971 he was again classified as minimum custody. He had become active in the Lifers Club and finally proposed a release on parole to an Alcoholics Anonymous ranch where he would work as a maintenance man in exchange for room and board. The manager of the ranch was a former prisoner from Walla Walla well known to Young.

On March 17, 1972, after almost forty years in state and federal prisons,
Henry Young at the age of sixty-one was released on parole. Two weeks later, on March 31, he “absconded.” There is no record to indicate that he ever came back to prison; the life he led after he left the AA ranch remains one of many mysteries associated with this man. For the postrelease study, Henry Young falls into the “not known to be dead” category, and, in the absence of evidence that he was returned to any prison, he was classified as a “success” after release.

Unless Henry Young, or others who knew him after March 1972, are still alive, the truth will never be known about the reasons for his murder of McCain; why at the time he was suing federal prison officials over the conditions of his confinement he chose to confess to a murder committed many years earlier; whether he experienced genuine mental health problems or pulled off a clever ruse to get a transfer to the Springfield Medical Center; how he survived on the streets for seven months following his escape from Walla Walla; and most important, what happened to him after he walked away from parole supervision.

Rufus “Whitey” Franklin spent thirteen years in D block disciplinary segregation following his conviction for the murder of officer Royal Cline during the May 1938 escape attempt from the old industries building; he now had another life sentence to go with the life sentence he had earlier received in Alabama for murder during a robbery. During his years in D block Franklin amassed thirty misconduct reports, included tearing up his cell, assaulting James Grove with a horseshoe when segregation inmates were allowed to go to the yard, stabbing Henry Young on the yard with a sharpened table knife, fighting with other inmates, striking an officer, and violating almost every other rule. He was force-fed three times as a consequence of the hunger strikes. In the late 1940s, however, his attitude changed and his conduct improved. In 1951 he was returned to general population and given a work assignment on the kitchen crew. In April 1952 for seventeen days he joined other members of the work crew on strike. When offered a chance to return to work and be quartered in the hospital, Franklin and four other inmates decided to return to work. For the next three years he had to endure threats, sneers, cat-calls from other inmates, and an assault with a heavy steel pitcher wielded by a prisoner in the dining hall.

In a 1975 letter to the U.S. Board of Parole, Franklin described his violation of the convict code:

I think I should define for you the term “Prison Code.” It is really an unspoken thing and actually only a way of thinking. Roughly it can be defined thus: the traditional inmate’s attitude toward all people connected with law enforcement, which includes policemen, judges, prison personnel, and anyone else connected with the enforcing of laws, is that all these people are enemies and any inmate who aids or abets in any way, or attempts to be friendly with any of these enemies, is a rat and a renegade and is to be considered an enemy too.

The Alcatraz administrator in charge of food services described the consequences for Franklin and the other strike breakers of joining “these enemies”:

They were repeatedly threatened and subjected to ridicule and derision by the other inmates. It was necessary, for their safety, to arrange permanent quarters for them in the Alcatraz hospital. They could not go into the recreation yard, or participate in any kind of group inmate activities. It was necessary to extend supervisory protection to them at all times and in all their movements. . . . Franklin remained in this protection status in the Alcatraz hospital for some five years. To the best of my knowledge the other inmates there never forgave him for coming to work and helping to put down the strike. . . . It should be borne in mind that Franklin was no “stool pigeon”; he simply did what he thought was right, and did it in the face of considerable personal hazard.
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While living in the hospital, Franklin became interested in becoming an orderly and was given that assignment in 1955. Due to his outstanding work, in July 1958 he was transferred to Leavenworth, where he worked as a hospital orderly, took a training course in nursing, and was promoted first to hospital nurse and then to operating room nurse. In January 1963 he was turned over to State of Alabama authorities to begin concurrently serving his state and federal sentences. In 1969 he was awarded a state parole, but when he learned that he would be returned to federal custody he escaped from Gilby prison. After four days of freedom he was apprehended and sent to the Atlanta Penitentiary. In 1974 Franklin’s situation was assessed by the U.S. Parole Board:

For more than 20 years he has been cooperative and appears completely institutionalized. . . . Has never participated in formal counseling during the 41 years of his incarceration. . . . It is doubtful that he would become fully accustomed to community life and he still reacts criminally as evidenced by his recent (1969) escape. The examiner recommends parole effective June 19, 1974.
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Franklin completed a parole plan that called for his sister in Dayton, Ohio, to provide a room for him in her home; no job was assured but the sister was told by a local hospital that Franklin could apply for work based on his experience as an X-ray technician. He was released from a federal prison camp on October 29, 1974, and given the funds in his federal prison account—$34.07. He had only a short time to experience freedom—in January 1975 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died at age sixty on May 17, 1975. However, he had achieved the hope of almost every long-term convict: he did not die in prison.

In an insightful and thoughtful letter to the parole board Franklin described his transformation from one of Alcatraz’s most dangerous and dedicated troublemakers to a man who made a conscious decision to violate the inmate code and become a completely conforming prisoner. In his case, as in those of Floyd Hamilton, Jim Quillen, and Harmon Waley, “the light went on” when he was in a disciplinary segregation cell:

There comes a time in the lives of most men who are incarcerated when the light of reform flickers on in their minds. It comes seemingly out of nowhere and without any conscious volition of the inmate. Where it comes from and why I do not know. Perhaps it comes from a feeling of shame and remorse; or from the sudden realization that he has wasted a good part of his life behind bars; or perhaps it is the inherent decency, which is common to all men, striving to be heard; or it might be the longing for a loved one that lights the light; or perhaps a combination of these things or something else; but whatever it is, please believe me, it exists. …

Unfortunately, in most, this flicker is lost and dies out in a short time; but in a few it is nurtured and grows slowly into a steady flame. When this happens, the man is reformed. . . . I have known many thousands of men since I have been locked up and I have seen this amazing transformation many times and I have never known one man who has undergone this change to return to prison. I wish I could tell you how to recognize it, but I don’t think I can for it is something you sense through close association and personal knowledge of the man in question. I can only explain my own case, which I shall do shortly. The outward symptoms are: where the man has been rebellious and perhaps arrogant he becomes strangely silent and withdrawn. This continues for a time and you see a different light in his eyes. Where before you have a cynical and reckless light there is a softer more kindly light. He seems to be more relaxed and his interest slowly begins to turn outward and he becomes more concerned with the problems of others around him and less concerned about his own troubles.

The light flicked on in my mind in 1944. I was in the dark hole in Alcatraz,
having just been detected and foiled in my last escape attempt. I was pacing up and down in the dark when it occurred to me just what an utter idiot I had been all my life. I reviewed my entire life and found little of which I could be proud. The shambles I had made of my life was a sorry spectacle to view, and when I thought of the pain and heartache I had caused my family, I writhed with shame. These sordid thoughts caused me to consider committing suicide, but then I realized this was the coward’s way out and I knew this would only add to the grievous wounds I had already inflicted upon my family.

So my thoughts gradually veered around to the positive side, and I considered what I could do that was constructive. I thought of trying for parole but that seemed long in the future and I shuddered at the thought. But I could not think of anything better. I realize this was the only way out. I knew I would never try to escape again; for, there in the dark, the full realization of just what would happen should I be successful in escaping dawned upon me. The thought struck me with the force of a powerful blow in the back of the head, that as an escaped convict I would not be free. I would be hunted and hounded like a wild animal. I would not be able to return to my family, and the only end I could hope for would be death or back to a prison cell.