Doing Eternal Time at Alcatraz

The end of the line for scores of America's worst criminals was the prison called Alcatraz, aka "The Rock." For almost 30 years, the damp, dank, fog-enshrouded prison on a rocky outcrop 1 1/2 miles out in the San Francisco Bay kept the public safe from over 1,000 of the baddest of the bad. With the heavy fog, the swirling currents of the freezing water of the bay which totally surrounded the rocky island, the searchlights sweeping the barred windows all night every night and the ominous foghorns, it was a most lonely place to be incarcerated. Those who survived often did so at the cost of their sanity. For some, the cost was even higher - their very souls.

Alcatraz tested the limits of men's endurance, both physical and mental. Over the years, many prisoners reached their limits and attempted suicide. Many of them succeeded. Many more were driven to insanity. One prisoner who worked in the machine shop took a hatchet and, placing his left hand on a wooden table top, methodically began chopping off each finger and then his hand at the wrist, all the while laughing maniacally. He then handed the bloody hatchet to one of the guards, placed his right hand on the table and began begging the guard to chop off his right hand while calmly saying he had no more use for hands. Another inmate used the small blade from a disassembled pencil sharpener to slice the inside of his arms into strips of spaghetti. A third man broke the lenses of his eye glasses and used one of the shards to cut open his jugular vein.

In May, 1946, six of the prisoners managed to overcome five of the guards in an organized escape attempt. The guards were locked in cells 402 and 403 and when the inmates could not find the key which would let them out of the cell block, they used rifles they found in the guards office and shot them, killing two and severely wounding the other three. Other guards, trained troops and even Marines were brought in and began firing into the doors and windows of the cell block. In addition to bullets, the cell block was barraged with tear gas and rifle grenades. Three of the convicts ran back to their cells and lay on the floor behind their water-soaked mattresses while the other three took refuge in a small corridor that ran off from the main passageway. After the guards retook the cell block, the bodies of these three were found riddled by bullets and shrapnel.

 Not long after, prisoners began complaining about noises, moaning and screams, which seemed to come from the corridor where the 3 men had died. Eventually, the iron door was welded shut. In 1976, long after there were no more prisoners or anyone living on Alcatraz, a night watchman heard strange sounds coming from behind the door. After much effort with special tools, the door was once again opened, but nothing was found. Several nights later, the guard heard the noises again and immediately opened the door. As soon as the door was opened, the noises stopped. Shining his powerful flashlight into the maze of pipes and conduits the guard found nothing that could have caused the noises. As soon as he shut the door, the noises began again. For several years, different guards all reported hearing the noises as they made their rounds, but the noises always stopped as soon as they opened the door and nothing was ever found. When the guards began to refuse to go into the area at night, authorities decided to re-weld the door shut. Today, Alcatraz visitors walk right past this door every day and never hear anything, but in the dark of night, long after the last visitor has left the island, guards say if you are brave enough to put your ear to the door, you sometimes will hear the muted sounds of moaning and desperate voices crying out.

Sounds coming from behind welded-shut doors are not the only signs of haunting. Through the years, night watchmen have told of hearing footsteps echoing from upper walkways and voices of long dead men talking. Upon investigation, no rational cause can be found. In the machine shop where the insane prisoner chopped off his own fingers, unexplained loud crazy laughter is often heard.

In the late 1990's, a female National Park Ranger told of working one cold, rainy day when the number of visitors was few due to the weather. She went for a walk in front of A Block and was just past the door which leads down to the infamous dungeons, the cells of solitary lockup where severe and unusually cruel punishment was administered, when she heard a loud scream from down below. Knowing this area was locked and off-limits to tourists, she ran away. When asked why she didn't report it , she stated, "I didn't dare mention it because just the day before, everyone was ridiculing another worker who reported men's voices coming from the hospital ward and when he went to check it out, it was completely empty."

A number of the Rangers and guards talk, off the record of course, about one particular cell in the dungeon, 14D. They all speak of a sudden feeling of intensity, a strange, heavy feeling immediately upon entering the cell. They all will tell you that cell 14D, even on the hottest summer day, is always cold, much colder than the other 3 cells right next to it. 

A guard who worked there in the 1940's told the off-the-record story of solitary confinement in cell 14D. About 1946, one particularly hardened prisoner was locked in 14D for some infraction. Within seconds of being locked in the dark cell, the convict began screaming in terror. Upon being looked in on, he was found to be shaking uncontrollably and crying. He said a a creature with fiery eyes was locked in the cell with him. He begged to be locked up in a different cell, but the guards, used to hearing claims from the prisoners about ghostly spirits walking the catwalks at night, ignored the man's pleas and locked him in the dark again. The man's screams continued on into the night, shouting that he was being attacked by "a devil." Finally, just before the sun rose, there was silence in the cell. When it was time for the man to be fed his breakfast of a single slice of bread and a cup of water, a guard found the man dead, his eyes wide open, a look of horror frozen on his face. There were clear marks of finger prints around his neck. An autopsy showed the man had been strangled to death, but the indention of the prints proved he could not have strangled himself in such a way. Rather than try to explain how someone could have strangled a man while he was by himself in a locked, tiny cell with multiple guards monitoring the cell door all night, his death was officially declared to be of "natural causes." Even stranger, the morning after the man's death, two other guards who had been informed of the man being sent to the dungeon but knowing nothing of his death, reported they were 1 over on their count as the prisoners lined up for their walk to the cafeteria for breakfast. They found the man who had been sent to cell 14D the night before standing at the end of the line. When they began to approach him, he vanished right in front of the guards and several of the prisoners standing close by.

Could it have been just a coincidence that cell 14D was the exact cell where a notorious bank robber and murderer, Henry Young, was locked up for several months after an escape attempt? Guards reported Henry had gone quite insane during his stay in 14D, his eyes "crazy looking" and constant incoherent babbling. He was finally moved back into the general prisoner population where he later murdered another inmate by strangling him. Did Henry leave a piece of his insanity behind in 14D? Or perhaps, did an evil something that already inhabited that place give a part of itself to Henry?

It is said the ghosts of people return to places where they suffered traumatic experiences when alive. Prison guards from the 1940's through 1963 when Alcatraz was finally shut down as a prison, told of experiencing many strange happenings. They told of hearing disembodied voices speaking out, of hearing sobbing and moaning, inexplicable smells, cold spots and spectral prisoners and soldiers who inhabit all parts of the island. Phantom gunshots sent seasoned guards ducking to the ground in the belief that prisoners had escaped and acquired guns. The deserted laundry room sometimes filled with the smell of acrid smoke, but upon investigation, the air would be clear with no evidence of fire. 

James Johnston, the first Warden of Alcatraz, did not believe in ghosts, but even he experienced several unexplained events.  He was once in the middle of personally giving a tour of the facilities to several important visitors when they all heard the unmistakable sound of someone sobbing as they walked past the 4 empty solitary confinement cells in "The Dungeon." Trying to find the source, the warden put his head right next to the wall before quickly leading his visitors from the area. He later swore the sounds were coming from the wall itself. 

One of the most famous prisoners on "The Rock" was Al Capone. Warden Johnston refused to allow any special treatment for Capone, insisting he be treated just like all the other criminals in his prison. As time passed, Capone had very few friends among the other prisoners because he refused to take part in several strikes the convicts tried to stage for better treatment and since he wasn't allowed any privileges the other prisoners didn't have, he wasn't able to dispense gifts or favors to anyone. One of the jobs he was assigned was to mop the halls and he was quickly given the nickname "the wop with the mop" by the other prisoners. Capone learned to play the banjo and for a short time, even played in the prison band, but as the years went by, he slowly began losing his mind due to the harsh conditions of confinement in Alcatraz and an untreated case of syphilis. He was finally admitted to the hospital ward where he would sit unresponsive to people, playing simple snippets of music on his banjo. Guards, tour guides and tourists sometimes hear soft banjo music coming from the hallways Capone called home and the infirmary where he spent his last days on Alcatraz before being transferred elsewhere. 

Could it be the famous gangster himself, his lonely and broken spirit returned to where he lost his sanity? Maybe it's the spirit of a long-forgotten soldier from the days when Alcatraz was a military fort. Or perhaps it's simply one of the other countless spirits condemned to eternally do time on The Rock.