by David Ward
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 Franklin
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.73
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, 1974.74
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.
This bud of reform lodged and stuck in my mind, but it did not grow easily. It took many months before I could erase all the bitterness and despair from my heart. But fortunately it did stick and grow into full-blown. . . . During the months that followed my release from the dark hole, I gradually turned to reading and studying more. I had always liked to read but had for the most part neglected doing so until this time. But now I did turn to books for companionship. We had a good library stocked with all the better authors and it was to these I turned. . . . I started to rebuild my life. . . . The turmoil that had seethed in my brain for so long was still and my thoughts became clearer and I felt calm and peaceful. … If I were to pick out any particular assistance that helped me most in this struggle, I should have to choose the thoughts expressed in the Book of Job, the gentle teachings of Jesus in his first instructions to his disciples, and Kipling’s If.75
Because Whitey Franklin lived only a few months in the free world after his parole he did not have much time to test his resolve to “rebuild his life.” But his decision many years earlier at Alcatraz to reject the inmate code and side with “these enemies” was likely a much more severe test of his own transformation then any obstacles he would have encountered after his release.
Another reason for including the Franklin story in this book is that this man took on the difficult task of trying to explain to others the circumstances, emotions, thoughts, and considerations—the rational calculation of costs and benefits—that brought about such a dramatic change in his life. He did not mention another factor that might have influenced his decision. Confinement at Alcatraz was in many ways a monastic experience, but isolation in a dark cell in disciplinary segregation unit was extreme; there were no distractions of any kind to interrupt Franklin’s reminiscences of life in the free world or, as George Kelly put it, “all the things that make life worthwhile.”
FAILURES
Those Alcatraz inmates who were returned to prison failed in different ways. Some, like James Audett and Gerard Peabody, represent a very small number of the genuine habitual incorrigibles who were sent to Alcatraz. Their criminal and prison careers lasted for their lifetimes; they stayed out of prison only at the end of their lives when they were old and infirm and released to die outside prison walls. Others, like Tom Holden, were able to stay out of trouble with the law for only a short time before committing serious crimes. The majority—represented below by Dale Stamphill—made serious attempts at living law-abiding lives but drifted back to crime and had to spend more time behind bars before finally succeeding late in life.
James Audett
James “Blackie” Audett was one of the Rock’s most outstanding failures. He had the distinction of being the only man with three Alcatraz commitment numbers. Audett, the prototypical career criminal, led a life of crime and imprisonment matched by few others sent to the island. His first arrest took place in Canada in 1921 at age nineteen, and his last occurred in 1974 when he was seventy-two years old. He served time in Alberta and in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary before violating laws across the border. He was committed to McNeil Island Penitentiary for auto theft, violated parole, was returned, and then escaped from a train that was taking him to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. Recaptured, he was sent to St. Elizabeth’s, where a psychiatric evaluation concluded that his mental illness was feigned and represented only an opportunity for him to escape, an opportunity of which he had taken advantage. He was returned to Leavenworth and released from that institution in July 1933.
Six months later, back at McNeil on a new auto theft charge, he escaped again. When he was apprehended in July 1934, he was shipped to Leavenworth but only long enough to join the first trainload of convicts being sent to Alcatraz, where he was assigned number 209. He was released in May 1940 but was rearrested in August for bank burglary. For this crime he received a ten-year sentence that earned him a trip back to Alcatraz, and a new number—551. Seven years later he was conditionally released, but after six months he was charged with possession of stolen money and returned to McNeil Island as a conditional release violator. In September 1950 he was released once again, but two months later he was back in prison—this time in the Oregon State Penitentiary to serve seven and a half years (later reduced to five).
He was paroled in September 1952 to federal authorities, who wanted him for violating his conditional release. Audett went back to McNeil Island, finished time on his ten-year bank robbery sentence, and was released in April 1953. But by December of that year, he was back in the Oregon State Penitentiary for violating his state parole. Released from that prison in October 1955, he was arrested on a charge of bank robbery in January 1956. For this new conviction he was sent back to Alcatraz, this time as number 1217, to begin a twenty-year term. In March 1963 he was transferred to McNeil Island, where he served time until his mandatory release in January 1968. Six months later, in June, he was arrested in Portland, Oregon, for attempting to break into a food store, which resulted in one year in a county jail. A conviction for attempted burglary violated his federal release contract, and in May 1969 he was back, for the fifth time, at McNeil Island.
In February 1974, after another conditional release, Audett was instructed to report to the State of Oregon authorities, which he failed to do. A federal warrant was issued, but when he reported to the Seattle, Washington, federal probation office in April, the warrant was held in abeyance. Two months later, on June 5, 1974, he was arrested, along with ex-Alcatraz convict Gerard Peabody and two other men, all of whom were armed and masked when they robbed $17,500 from the Ballard Bank of Washington in Seattle. The driver of the getaway car was identified, apprehended, and soon gave up the names of his accomplices. Audett and Peabody were arrested the following day. Audett was subsequently indicted on a second charge that he had robbed another Seattle-area bank of $32,000 on May 8; he was also suspected of driving the getaway car in a third bank robbery.
Prior to sentencing, Audett provided a statement to the court, explaining that his long list of law violations was motivated by a “dreadful disease” fed by “hate and bitterness,” and pleaded for “one break in life.”76 The judge, however, was unmoved and gave him a sentence of fifteen years. Audett was remanded to the Bureau of Prisons, which sent him to Leavenworth. There he settled back into the prison life he knew so well—had Alcatraz remained open, he might have earned a fourth commitment number.
As his health problems increased, Audett was transferred first to the Springfield Medical Center and then to the extended care unit at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lexington, Kentucky. As his health deteriorated due to heart disease, federal officials advanced his release date to allow him to return one more time to the free world. His case manager stated: “It cannot be overlooked that the instant offense was committed when Mr. Audett was seventy-two years of age. We do believe that he has ‘burned out’ due to the combination of age and ill health.”77 When given a form to fill out that asked who should be notified in the event of his death, Audett responded, “No one.”
Part of Audett’s remarkable criminal and prison career was documented in his book, Rap Sheet: My Life Story, and in a book-length article, “My Forty Years Outside the Law,” in True: The Man’s Magazine. These publications led to an offer from Jay Robert Nash (author of many true crime books) to assist Audett if he could be released to Chicago where Nash was located.78 With Nash as his sponsor, Audett was released from Lexington on July 23, 1979, telling staff members he was proud to have lived through so many years of “turmoil” in state and federal prisons.
Blackie Audett overcame the convict’s greatest concern—he did not die in prison (the date and cause of his death were not recorded in the records available to this project, however). He married twice during his brief periods of
freedom. He never intended to “go straight”—he was proud of his gangster days, that his body was marked by seventeen bullet holes, and that he had been sent to the Rock more times than any other man. He was also proud to have known most of the noted gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s—John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Lester Gillis (alias Baby Face Nelson), Frank Nash, and Wilber Underhill—men he called “big leaguers.” He left an epitaph of sorts in the last paragraph of his article for True:
If a heister [robber] gets along toward sundown and is still alive, it’s time for him to throw away his gun. Maybe he should have throwed it away when he first picked it up. But if he didn’t, like I didn’t, and it’s getting along toward sundown for him, he better pitch it then. He can’t win single handed, even if he thought he could back there when he was young. There’s too many other guns. And all of them are aimed at him.79
Gerard Peabody
Another notable Alcatraz failure, Gerard Peabody was coincidentally Audett’s rap partner in the 1974 bank robbery in Seattle. After serving eighteen months in the state reformatory in Rahway, New Jersey, and eight years of a fifteen-year sentence in the state prison in Baltimore, Maryland, for robbery with a deadly weapon, Peabody and several associates robbed four banks in Maryland—one of them twice, in order to “come back to get the money they missed in the first robbery.” In all four robberies, cashiers, bookkeepers, and customers were locked in the banks’ vaults “at the point of a gun.”80 Peabody was committed to the federal prison in Atlanta in March 1940 to serve a twenty-two-year term.