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.

The Late Night Call

It was late one night when the knock at the door of the little house sitting at the edge of town came, the sound soft, but insistent. The house was shared by the town's only doctor and his young wife and when the doctor came out onto the porch, he found a man standing off to the side deep in the shadows, his hat pulled low obscuring his face. He said the emergency was to the south in the woods several miles beyond the houses at the edge of town. Little did he know, but the young doctor and his pretty wife were embarking on a most interesting house call, an enduring unsolved mystery.

It was a fine night, soft with a glowing full moon and the green scent of spring. The year was 1900, a brand new century had begun just a few months before and the little town in West Texas was growing and full of optimism. It was very late, but the doctor's wife said she would accompany him so instead of riding his horse, the buggy was hitched. The doctor turned toward the stranger to reassure him only to find he had retreated even further into the shadows, sitting on his horse impatiently waiting. As the wife came from the house and climbed into the buggy, the shadow man led them away, heading south past the last little cluster of homes marking the town's edge.

"I think there's something wrong with him?" the doctor's wife asked him. "He's very strange."

"His friend is hurt and he's worried," replied the doctor. "I could tell by his voice. If it's a big enough emergency to come get me after dark, then people are always very worried."

"But even the way he's dressed is strange, so old fashioned, " she said.

The good doctor flicked his reins, urging his horse to a faster pace in order to keep up with the horseman ahead of them in the dark. "I didn't really notice," he replied to his wife. "He stayed in the shadows."

They continued on their way, much further than the doctor expected. There were no more houses and eventually even the road turned into nothing much more than a trail that seemed seldom used. Finally, just as some clouds slipped across the moon blocking what little light it provided, the shadow rider led them down a narrow side trail leading into a dense grove of trees. 

Deep in the woods, they came upon a small cabin with a dimly-lit window. The strange rider got down from his horse in the deep shadows of the trees surrounding the somewhat foreboding little house. Although it was hard to see him, the doctor could make out that he was standing motionless and without saying a word, pointed toward the cabin. It was a struggle, but the doctor managed to quell his uneasiness enough to get his medical bag and step down from the buggy. Turning to his wife, he told her she should stay there. 

Approaching the cabin, the doctor found the front door slightly ajar. A lighted room was to the left of the entrance hall, but the rest of the cabin was so dark he could see nothing within it. He took a step into the dim room and froze at what he found there. Blood was spattered on every wall and lay in wide pools. What appeared to be pieces of torn flesh was mixed in with the blood. a chair with a leg broken off laid on its side in the corner beneath a particularly gory spatter of blood. A table was overturned next to a bed. On the bed lay a woman, naked, her eyes open, intently watching the doctor. Her right leg below the knee was covered in blood.

The doctor knew someone had just died here, a horribly violent, painful and gruesome death. He could feel it oozing from the darkness, he could smell it in the stale air of the cabin. But here in front of him was a wounded woman and she needed to be treated. He shouldn't be alone in the room with a naked woman so he called for his wife to join him, but a gruff voice from the darkness outside said, "No, she stays out here." The doctor turned to his task.

The wounded woman was fortunate. She had been shot, but the bullet had gone through the meaty part of her calf. The doctor cleaned the wound as best he could with what he had, an action that usually made even hardened men cry out with the pain, but the woman didn't flinch or make a sound, her eyes never left the doctor. He didn't look her in the face, but though he couldn't even hear her breathe, he could feel those eyes watching him. He happened to glance up once and caught a fleeting glimpse of a face in the window, but when he turned to look, it was gone. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he hurried to finish bandaging the wound.

When he was done, he quickly stood and told the woman to come see him tomorrow and he would make sure the wound is clean and bandage it again. Without speaking, her eyes not blinking and still watching him intently, she slowly nodded. The sense of imminent violence suddenly came upon the doctor again so he plunged into the dark hall and safely out the cabin's door. With great effort, he forced himself not to run for the buggy. As he stepped up to the seat next to his wife and took the reins, a small rawhide coin purse landed on the floor next to his feet with the sound of several heavy coins inside it. As he urged the horse to a quick trot, he turned just once to look back at the cabin. The darkness had swallowed it completely, the light at the window extinguished.

His wife was shaking with fear. She told him a different man, not the one who had come to their house, had stood at the window watching. she was sure he held a gun and his face was smeared with blood. The doctor told her what he had seen in the dimly lit room. He was sure someone had been murdered there and dragged out. "You have to tell the sheriff," his wife told him.

The doctor waited two days for the wounded woman to come in, but she didn't come and somehow he knew she never would. His wife was right, he needed to let the authorities know.

When he reported what he had seen, the sheriff told him he must be mistaken as the cabin he was talking about was abandoned. Nobody had lived in that old run-down cabin for years, he said. "It was not old," the doctor insisted, "I was there." He would show them if they would just accompany him back to it.

The sheriff and a deputy agreed to go with him. He remembered the way exactly and there was no mistaking the lonely side trail. The cabin was there as he said it was, but it was an old, abandoned wreck with the windows broken out. The deputy stayed outside to look around as the sheriff and doctor went inside the structure. Carefully making their way across the rotten floor boards, they went into the little room the doctor remembered. The bed was still there as before, the table overturned next to it and the broken-legged chair in the corner. An old, moth-eaten coverlet was on the bed. It was not stained. Thick dust covered everything. It was obvious no one had been here for many years. Looking down, there were stains on the flooring that looked like they had been scrubbed many times, years ago. The doctor shook his head in confusion.

All of a sudden, the deputy called out to them. Meeting him outside, they found the deputy shaking and wide-eyed, He said he had been walking around the trees looking for anything that might seem suspicious when he looked up and saw a man watching him. "There was blood all over his face and his shirt was soaked with it!" When the deputy started toward the man, he vanished! "Not twenty feet from me, plain as day," the deputy said. "Then he simply vanished into thin air while I stood there and watched!" All three men searched through the trees all around the cabin, but nothing was there.

"You believe me, don't you?" the doctor asked when they arrived back in town. The sheriff remained noncommittal and the doctor began to have doubts as to just what he had experienced. The deputy though, he knew what he had seen - a dead man still on his feet. The sheriff said he would take more men out there the next day to look around more closely. Neither the doctor nor the deputy returned and the sheriff reported they found nothing and the cabin was still empty as it had been for so long. Shortly thereafter, the case was officially closed.

There was talk, just rumors really, that the sheriff and two other deputies had gone back to the cabin and all three had seen the bloody figure waiting in the woods. Among themselves, they decided it was best to leave that part out of their report. 

Several months later a flood took the cabin ruins away. Where the foundation had been, some people said a grave-sized hole remained. Others said the grave hole was closer to the trees, a few feet from where the cabin once stood. It was hard to tell. Floodwaters do strange things to bottom land.

And some insist, even today, that the doctor's descendants still possess three silver dollars - payment for one particular late night house call.