by David Ward
In 1944, with only one misconduct report, Peabody was described as “a shrewd, intelligent, prison-wise individual with a deep-seated antipathy toward institutional control” and recommended for transfer to Alcatraz because he “associated himself with the more violent, dangerous and troublemaking type prisoner and has required extremely close supervision on this account.”81 (A more important factor in Peabody’s transfer recommendation may have been his appeals to federal court regarding his sentence and treatment while in prison.) In July 1945 he was transferred to Alcatraz—Atlanta got rid of a minor troublemaker and Alcatraz filled an empty cell.
Peabody adjusted smoothly to the regime on the Rock. His family made complete restitution of the money taken in the bank robbery for which he had been convicted (but had not admitted to). By the date of his transfer to McNeil Island three years later, in November 1948, no misconduct reports had been filed against him; he was described by officers as “friendly and cheerful.” Except for two minor violations that resulted in no action, his good conduct and work records continued at McNeil. The State of Maryland dropped a detainer that charged him with a parole violation, and he received monthly visits from his two daughters. He was reported to have inherited considerable financial resources from his parents’ estate before he was conditionally released in November 1953.
Three years later, on November 19, 1956, despite significant financial resources and a recent marriage (his third), Peabody and an accomplice robbed the People’s National Bank of Washington in Seattle of $42,800. He was arrested the next day and a jury found him guilty the following April. Peabody and his co-defendant were sent to Alcatraz. The reasons for committing a fifty-seven-year-old prisoner with no record of escape, violence, or serious institutional misconduct to Alcatraz, and for keeping him there for six years, were not specified in institution records. At his annual review meetings, Peabody either asked to be excused or remained “absolutely mute throughout the interview.”82 He had six brothers, two ex-wives, two daughters, and a son but did not correspond with or receive visits from any of them. He continued to avoid misconduct reports, received good work reports, and was described as “popular” with other prisoners. His health problems and “nervousness” increased, however.
Dispersal of the prisoners before the end of operations at Alcatraz in March 1963 resulted in Peabody’s transfer back to McNeil Island in December 1962. He reestablished relationships with his daughters and his adjustment continued to be satisfactory until July 1965, when he was reported to be assisting other inmates “in plotting and planning escapes.” His motivation for helping others to escape was attributed to his belief “that he will not outlive his present sentence. . . . He is a highly sophisticated, criminalistic man who has devoted his life to outwitting the law.”83 The staff sought to have him transferred to a high-security penitentiary; a few months later, in September 1965, he was transferred to Atlanta, where he continued the convict lifestyle he knew so well, occupying his time working as a cell house orderly and reading. Like other Alcatraz transferees used to having their own cells, his most serious adjustment problem was in learning to live in a cell with up to eight other prisoners.
In October 1966 Peabody was returned to McNeil Island, where his daughters resumed visiting him. He spent many hours making leather goods in the hobby shop, maintained “an excellent attitude,” but had “resigned himself to dying in prison.” He became eligible for parole in 1957 but declined to apply due to the fact that “it will be necessary for him to admit his guilt to the current offense and that he is definitely not [going to do].”84
In June 1972 Peabody wrote in an application for parole, “I am 74 years of age and have only a few years to live. . . . I am old, infirmed, ill and am unable to be a threat to anyone . . . at my age there is little left in life except a few years of quiet living with my children and grandchildren.” On March 1, 1973, Peabody was released on parole from McNeil Island. Despite his claim that he just wanted time with his family, it turned out that he had not just one, but three more bank robberies in him. He was arrested after a few months and, along with his Alcatraz partner Blackie Audett and another confederate, was convicted of robbing the Bank of Washington of $17,509. He was sentenced to fifteen years and sent back to McNeil Island.
In April 1978 Peabody was transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri, for treatment of cataracts in both eyes and cancer. Preparations were initiated for a release plan, but by this time he was a “bed-to-wheelchair invalid,” and none of his family members would agree to provide housing for him. One of his daughters notified prison officials that she “could not take Mr. Peabody in her home as one of her own children threatened to leave if he were to live there.”85 The medical staff recommended that Peabody be paroled to a nursing home with costs to be covered by his social security payments, and on August 6, 1980, he was moved by charter plane from Springfield to a senior center in Seattle. Four months later, on December 23, he died of heart disease and cancer, outside the walls of prisons where he had resided for almost fifty years.
Audett and Peabody broke very few prison rules (except for possessing contraband), none involving serious confrontations with staff. Their good work records and congenial relationships with guards and work crew supervisors gave them senior citizen status at McNeil Island, where each spent so many years. They were men for whom prison had no deterrent effect; in his interview for this project, Peabody said he much preferred doing time at Alcatraz to putting up with the ever-changing rules at McNeil Island and living in cells with seven or eight other men at Atlanta. While they were on the streets for brief periods, Audett and Peabody enjoyed a series of marriages that were quickly dissolved once they returned to prison. Audett’s charm was evident even into his seventies when a former female inmate at Lexington offered to take him into her home should he be released; this arrangement was not approved by parole officials.
Blackie Audett and Gerard Peabody might not appear to be candidates for confinement in a prison for “public enemies” and prison hell-raisers but Alcatraz always needed to fill beds; there were never enough gangsters and troublemakers in the federal system to maintain its population.
Ted Walters
Ted Walters, Floyd Hamilton’s rap partner, came to Alcatraz with a sentence of thirty years for bank robbery and transporting a stolen automobile across state lines. He tried to escape in 1943 by climbing over a fence in the industries area, but the escape attempt failed when he fell on the rocks below, injuring his back. This action cost him 3,100 days of good time. He accumulated fifteen additional rule violations, several of which involved fights with other prisoners. In one of these Walters attacked Medley, a black prisoner, following an argument about the war:
The Japanese [were] fighting in the Philippines and Walters stated that the Japs would rape all the white women, whereupon Medley said that if he were with the Japs he would probably be doing the same thing. . . . Walters stated he took offense at this . . . and started slashing [Medley] with a knife.86
Walters forfeited another 500 days of statutory good time for cutting Medley about the face and neck. He was also cited for refusing to work—in one case being identified as the ringleader of a strike—and for insolence, hiding a knife in an empty cell, hiding a sixteen-inch hacksaw blade under the linoleum in front of his D block cell, refusing to obey orders, and using profanity. He corresponded with six family members. When he wasn’t segregated in D block, he worked in the laundry and the kitchen.
In 1951, after a two-year period of clear conduct, and what the staff regarded as better control of his temper, he became discouraged when none of his lost good time was restored. According to a January special progress report, “evidence of increase in depression and bitterness is becoming more apparent and subject now attends sick-call [almost] daily. He appears to view his present situation as hopeless.” The classification committee, however, took Walters’s improved “attitude” into account when it recommended his transfer to
Leavenworth, which was accomplished on August 23, 1952.
Walters went to work in the shoe factory at Leavenworth. After visiting him, two of his brothers requested that he be released to the State of Texas, which held three detainers against him, one for violating the state’s habitual criminal act for which he had received a sentence of ninety-nine years. He expressed confidence that if he was returned to Texas he could clear up these old charges. He received a conditional release in May 1957, was taken into custody by Texas officials, and soon succeeded in clearing up his three Texas detainers. He was released in November 1959, under joint state and federal supervision. In February 1962 he was returned to the Texas State Prison at Huntsville for assaulting a family member. He was released again from the Texas Department of Corrections in October 1968; this time he returned to Leavenworth as a conditional release violator. In 1970 Floyd Hamilton appeared before the U.S. Board of Parole to urge the release of his old friend, and Walters left the confines of prison one last time.
The final hours of Walters’s life after he left Leavenworth were recorded by Hamilton, who had tried his best to counsel Walters:
Now fifty-eight years old, he was still Terrible Ted. In October 1971 Walters held up a Dallas liquor store with a shotgun. He nearly got away with it. Fleeing the robbery, his car was stopped by a police officer only when he made an illegal right turn. As the officer approached him, Walters began firing his shotgun. The officer returned the fire, wounding him in the shoulder. Walters fled on foot to a nearby house, where he took Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt Houston and their five-year-old daughter as hostages.
Police quickly surrounded the house. Walters emerged with his three prisoners. He held his shotgun to Mr. Houston’s head. Officers stood by helplessly as Walters and his prisoners drove off in the Houston car. But Walters ran into a 150-man police blockade several miles out of town.
The police talked to Walters for twenty minutes. The officers tried to bargain with him. If he would release his hostages unharmed, they would let him drive off. As Walters thought it over, he relaxed, moving his gun away from Mr. Houston’s head. A sharp shooting Texas Ranger, Tom Arnold, saw his chance. Fired from a powerful rifle from a distance of one hundred yards, Ranger Arnold’s bullet hit Walters in the head. Instantaneously, the other officers raced up to the car and fired three more shots into Walters’ body. The Houston family was unharmed. . . .
“The officers tried their best. They tried to convince him to throw down that shotgun and surrender. But Ted said he’d rather be gunned to death like a mad dog than go back to prison. And that’s what happened. I don’t know what Ted was thinking. He was just mixed up.”87
Thomas Holden
Tom Holden and his rap partner, Francis Keating, arrived at Alcatraz on September 7, 1934, on the first train from Leavenworth Penitentiary. They had robbed banks and mail trains, associated with most of the major Midwest gangsters (including Frank Nash, George Kelly, Harvey Bailey, Alvin Karpis, and Fred Barker), and with forged passes they had been able to walk out the front gates of Leavenworth (see chapter 1). After Holden had been captured and returned to Leavenworth, a classification committee characterized him as “a constant menace to the public safety and would be again if at large” and said that he was an escape risk and “a serious hindrance within the institution to the employment of reclamation methods.”88
At Alcatraz, Holden and Keating settled down to do their time quietly, surrounded by many old friends. Holden received just one misconduct report, for participating in a 1937 strike. His quiet manner and “good attitude” resulted in the restoration of 185 day of lost good time, advancing his release date to June 1950. His only visitor at Alcatraz—in January 1943—was his son, a private in the army.
On March 25, 1944, Holden was transferred to Leavenworth. A year later he experienced one of the painful consequences of being locked up in prison when he received a telegram from his mother informing him that his son was dying and asking to see him. Four days later another telegram arrived: “Tommy Passed Away, Thursday At 5 P.M.”89 More of his lost good time was restored. Holden was paroled to Chicago in 1947, where his wife was waiting for him.
At a family gathering in 1949, Holden exchanged angry words with his wife, drew a gun, and shot her dead. When her brothers tried to come to her defense, Holden shot and killed them and fled. He managed to avoid capture, and when the FBI created a list of the 10 Most Wanted fugitives in March 1950, Holden headed the list. Bureau officials described him as: “a menace to every man, woman and child in America.” He remained at large until June 23, 1951, when federal agents arrested him in Beaverton, Oregon, after receiving a tip from a citizen who recognized Holden’s mug shot among the Top 10 fugitives in the local newspaper. Holden was convicted of murder in Chicago and was sent to the Illinois State Prison, where he died two years later.90
Because they were not living when this study was conducted and because records of their postrelease experiences did not provide sufficient information, it was not possible to identify the reasons that Ted Walters was “mixed up,” or why Tom Holden shot and killed the woman who had waited so many years for him to get out of prison.
Dale Stamphill
Dale Stamphill deviated from the usual pattern of survival on parole. He lived a law-abiding life for ten years in the free world after Alcatraz. Then he drifted back into crime.91
Stamphill received five misconduct reports during his first year at Alcatraz; four resulted in confinement in disciplinary segregation. In January 1939 he was wounded while trying to escape from D block with Dock Barker, Henry Young, Rufe McCain, and William Martin. After three months in the prison hospital, he spent the next fifteen months in D block, where he incurred another misconduct report for creating a disturbance. A few months after his return to the general population, contraband was found in his cell—a knife, two razor blades, and a package of gum. He was locked up again in D block.
His conduct record improved over the next decade, and in December 1950 Stamphill was transferred to Leavenworth, where he compiled a good work record, received only one misconduct report (for “possession of brew”), took courses in advanced accounting and industrial safety, and received frequent visits from family members. State of Oklahoma authorities had identified him as a “habitual criminal of the vicious type” and placed two detainers against him for not completing his life sentence for murder and a twenty-year sentence for robbery with firearms. However, based on a recommendation for clemency by the state pardon and parole board, the governor of Oklahoma granted Stamphill a state parole to become effective when he was granted a federal parole, with state and federal parole officers sharing joint supervision. On April 22, 1956, at age forty-four, he was released from Leavenworth to reside with his brother and sister-in-law. He went to work for a paving company as a laborer at $40 a week.
Within six months of his release, he moved from the position of laborer to the foreman of a work crew. He married and began part-time work as a tax consultant for H&R Block during periods when the paving company had no work. In 1958 he went into business for himself selling insurance, providing bookkeeping services for several small businesses and also offering tax services. Marital problems developed but were characterized in his probation officer’s report as being “entirely the wife’s fault” due to her excessive drinking; divorce followed.92
Stamphill married for the third time and continued working as an accountant while his wife worked as a nurse. In 1965 his reporting obligation was reduced from monthly to quarterly. Then in late February 1966, after ten years of successful living in the free world, Stamphill and a minor felon were caught in the act of trying to open a safe in a Wichita Postal Credit Unit; they were charged with burglary. When questioned by federal probation officers, Stamphill described mounting financial obligations related to the purchase of a home and a car loan that had become his responsibility when his wife left him. Despite working two jobs, he was falling behind on his payments and receiving threatening letters fro
m creditors. “I was tired, wore out, and didn’t know where to turn,” he said, “and it was affecting my work on both the night job and the day job.”93
In an interview with the author, Stamphill attributed his return to prison to problems with alcohol.
During my incarceration before I left Leavenworth I used to get loaded. I didn’t always get reported for it but I used to drink that brew—I always had a drinking problem. When I made parole one of the guys talked to me and said [drinking] was just like a sword hanging over my head. If I started drinking again, I’ll be back and there wouldn’t be any chance of ever getting out again. So sure enough these three marriages went down the drain because of drinking. I started drinking and it was just a short time and I was back [in prison] with a violation.
Stamphill’s parole was revoked; he was taken into custody and returned to Leavenworth. The State of Kansas sentenced him to twenty-five years for the burglary, to begin after he served his federal sentence. Determined to deal with his alcohol problem, Stamphill began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, taught a course on taxes, and quietly served time while the Leavenworth staff urged the U.S. Board of Parole to parole him to Kansas so that he could begin his state term. (Oklahoma declined any further interest in returning him to serve more time on the two sentences he owed that state.)
In December 1970 Stamphill was paroled from Leavenworth again; he was transported to the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing. Due to his age and continuing good conduct he was soon placed in a minimum-custody dormitory, where he was assigned to work as a clerk typist in the prison store outside the prison walls. In June 1975, at age sixty-three, he was paroled from Lansing with instructions to report to the federal probation office in Kansas City, Missouri, to resume his federal parole.
