Mr. Henessy observed the proceedings and asked some questions. The Coroner's Jury returned a verdict that Royal C. Cline, officer of the prison had met his death at the hands of the convicts named who assaulted him in their attempt to escape, and that Prisoner Thomas H. Limerick met his death from wounds inflicted by Officer Stites who shot him in the performance of duty in order to frustrate his attempt to escape.
The verdict of the Coroners Jury is what I have received orally but I am awaiting the copy of the verdict as well as the death certificate so that I may enclose copies with this report. United States Attorney Henessy in bringing the matter to the attention of the Federal Grand Jury and states that he will present it on Tuesday, the Seventh of June, at which time he intends to ask the jury for indictments for Franklin and Lucas. Subsequent developments will be reported as they occur so that you will be kept fully advised.
J.A. Johnston, Warden
Chief Medical Officer Doctor Romney Ritchey wrote the following memorandum to the Warden, describing the condition and injuries of Limerick when he was received at the prison hospital:
United States Public Health Service
U.S. Penitentiary
Alcatraz, California
May 24, 1938
Memorandum to the Warden: Re. Reg. No. 263-A Limerick, Thomas R.
The above captioned inmate was brought to the Hospital at 3:00 P.M. on a stretcher yesterday afternoon, May 23, 1938. He was entirely unconscious and found to be suffering from a gunshot wound of the head. There was a large bleeding hole in the forehead just to the right if the midline. The right eye was badly swollen and prominent. His breathing was heavy and the pulse was small and rapid. There was no wound in the back of the head, but there was some slight prominence at one point about opposite the point of entrance, which might indicate that the bullet had reached the skull posteriorly but had not entirely penetrated it. He was in a very critical condition and medication and treatment was administered to combat the shock. His condition appeared to be absolutely hopeless from the first and he gradually grew worse until about 08:00 P.M. when stertorous breathing set in and the pulse became weaker and he died at 11:18 P.M. May 23,1938, without ever regaining consciousness. Several verbal reports were made regarding this case both to the associate warden and yourself, and the associate warden was notified when he died.
Respectfully,
Romney M. Ritchey, Surgeon.
Chief Medical Officer
Lucas in own account written years later described the escape:
Limerick and Franklin picked a little after one o'clock as the time the officer in charge of the shop went into the office to check his count sheet. At Alcatraz, each officer must check his men on the count sheet every thirty-minutes. He also looked over the orders and stayed in the office about fifteen-minutes. This routine never varied just as the officers changed places every thirty minutes on the roof and never varied. The day of the break came, Limerick said I was to work with him. At one o'clock, Mr. Cline went into his office as usual. Limerick got out a wedge he had built to hold the window open and level when he stood on it. He put it on and waited. Franklin went into the file room. He was to watch the officer patrol the back side and when he started back to the far end of the building and his back was to the window he was to walk out of the File Room. That would be the signal to go up on the roof. So that was the reason Franklin was in the file room. We stood on the floor near the window watching for Franklin to come out of the File Room. Then as we stood on the far side of the shop under the window, Mr. Cline came out of the office and walked slowly into the File Room. I don't know why he came out of his office so soon, he never had before. He never looked around, just walked slowly into the File Room. Maybe he went there to check on an order for supplies. I just don't know. I told Limerick let's put it off. His eyes were cold as ice, he shook his head. He said he didn't notice anything meaning Mr. Cline. We waited what seemed like a million years, but was only a minute or so according to time verified at the trial. Then Franklin walked out of the File Room with a hammer in his hand. Limerick grabbed my arm. Let's go he said and crawled out the window and stood up on the steel sash of the window. I crawled out the other side and stood on the steel sash also. I looked up and could see the officer in the tower, his back toward us, looking over the work area. The door to the glass tower stood open. He was totally unaware to what was creeping up behind him. I was supposed to help Limerick cut the barbwire. Franklin was below us now waiting to crawl out the window as soon as one of us went up. Before I could put up my hand and pretend to cut the wire, Limerick cut through two strands. I had to act fast as the officer was still sitting unaware of anything. As Limerick cut the third strand, I lifted my foot and kicked out one of the windows. I looked up at the officer, he never moved, my heart fell. Below Franklin jerked my pants leg. As he held one pant leg, I rested that foot on the steel sash of the window and kicked another pane of glass out. The window was only 3 panes wide. I looked up. The officer heard that one break. He slowly turned around and looked back. Limerick was crawling up on the roof. He stood up and charged the tower throwing everything he could at the tower. The officer kicked the door shut and he barely had time to bring his gun into action. At that time, the other officer was on the far side of the building getting ready to move a scaffold for workers putting in new steel. I got up on the roof and Mr. Stites was firing at everything and everybody. I was barely able to save my life by crawling under the tower. Limerick was killed at the door. Franklin came flying into action and charged the door and struck several times against the glass with a blood stained hammer. He was shot down and he struck again and again with the hammer. After everything was over, they dragged me out from under the tower. I thought all there would be was an attempt to escape against me. But I wound up being tried for murder. The very thing I sacrificed myself to avoid. There was no plan to kill Mr. Cline, he just walked out into the room where there was a man who already had a life sentence in Alabama for murder. At the trial, I asked Franklin why he killed Mr. Cline and he said when Mr. Cline came into the room, he tried to tie him, but was resisted. He said Mr. Cline reached for his sap. Franklin said he hit him several times with his hammer before he fell.
The trial of Franklin and Lucas lasted three weeks. It was an emotional process, due to the brutal circumstances of Cline’s murder. The jury was forced to examine the grisly weapons used in the crime. They were shown graphic photos of the blood trail left behind when the body was dragged, the hammer which delivered the fatal blows, and the vivid death mask showing the viciousness of the attack. These factors contributed to the jury’s quick decision. Franklin and Lucas were convicted of first-degree murder, and both received life sentences for Cline’s death.
Jimmy Lucas and Rufus Franklin being transferred to court via the prison launch on November 18, 1938.
Lucas (left) and Franklin (right) during their highly publicized court appearances. Both inmates were convicted of first-degree murder for their role in Officer Cline’s death.
Rufus Franklin in court, awaiting the jury’s verdict.
Coroner's Technician Paul Green testifying in the Franklin and Lucas trial. Mr. Green is seen pointing to indentations in the skull, which the prosecution claimed were caused by hammer blows inflicted when Cline resisted the escapees.
Death mask of slain guard R. C. Cline; the hammers used in his murder; and other tools found in the Model Shop that were used in the escape attempt.
Harold P. Stites is sworn in to testify at a coroner’s inquest on November 4, 1938. On the table is Limerick’s death mask, showing the bullet wound from Stites’s fatal gunshot. Stites himself would later die in the brutally violent “Battle of Alcatraz” of 1946.
Franklin, who had been found with the bloodied hammer used in Cline’s killing, would be sentenced to serve nearly fourteen years in a closed-front solitary confinement cell. He would spend the longest term in solitary of any inmate in the history of Alcatraz. Nevertheless, Franklin was event
ually extended a few special privileges. After a long period, he was allowed to keep the door front open and to enjoy a non-restricted diet. His long-term isolation status made him an underground hero among his fellow inmates. Even while being held in the most controlled cell row, he was able to communicate with others in the general population via orderlies, and thus to obtain contraband.
On February 27, 1945, Franklin was allowed time in the recreation yard along with famed inmate Henri Young. In an interrogation of Young while he was under the influence of the drug Sodium Amatol, the prisoner asserted that Whitey Franklin was the “coolest” inmate at Alcatraz. However, Franklin apparently didn’t reciprocate Young’s feelings. During their brief meeting in the yard, the two quickly engaged in conflict, and Franklin produced a kitchen knife and inflicted a minor stab wound to Young’s right shoulder. In a telegram written to Bureau of Prisons Director James Bennett, Warden Johnston suggested that an inmate assigned to the kitchen detail had planted the knife in the yard.
Franklin was released back into the general population in 1952. Because he refused to participate in a culinary strike that lasted from March 18th until April 4th, Franklin was forced back into the Treatment Unit for protection from the hostility of other inmates. He was allowed to continue work, and was permanently returned to the general population on February 12, 1954. Records show that Franklin readjusted easily to the normal prison routine. He increased his reading habits and was noted to take special interest in spiritual and philosophical subjects. Franklin gradually became more trusted by the custodial staff, and was later awarded a privileged position in the prison’s hospital. He was trained as an X-Ray technician and later qualified as a surgical assistant, and was even allowed to prepare and handle the surgical instruments during operations.
After spending twenty years at Alcatraz, Franklin was allowed to transfer back to Leavenworth Penitentiary for a brief ten-month stay, and then to Atlanta Federal Prison to be closer to his family. In a letter written in August of 1958, Franklin boasted about the train ride through New Mexico and Arizona in a Pullman car, and the emotion of seeing life outside of prison for the first time since the murder trial of Royal Cline. He wrote frequently to Warden Madigan and other friends at Alcatraz, keeping them up-to-date on his progress. Madigan seemed to reflect pleasantly on Franklin’s progress, and in a letter dated October 15, 1959, he wrote in part:
It has been a long time since you first came to Alcatraz and you have been through many difficult years and trials. You were a young man when you first came to us and as many young men you possessed the fire that got you into difficulty. You grew out of those years and by application improved your education and work habits. It was not easy for you since there were many pressures brought to bear that made it most difficult for you to conduct yourself as you wished to do. At any rate, you accomplished what you set your mind to do and are now in a position to accomplish still more.
Franklin would spend nearly his entire life behind bars. He was finally paroled on October 29, 1974, and died only a short time later on May 27, 1975 in Dayton, Ohio. He was living with his sister Ruby Farrow at the time of his death, and was said to have enjoyed cooking every morning, and rode the bus into the city everyday to savor his freedom.
Franklin’s final resting place at the Willow View Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio. He was laid to rest on May 30, 1975.
Correctional Officer Royal Cline tragically had been only thirty-six years old at the time of his death in 1938. His wife Etta remained faithfully at his side in the hospital until he succumbed to his injuries. Fellow correctional officers were profoundly affected by Cline’s death, which was especially sobering to the island’s families since Cline left behind four young children. His death would emphasize the reality that convicts would commit murder in trade for freedom. Warden Johnston would be quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as stating: “I greatly regret that one who was so attached to his duty should meet such an end.”
ESCAPE ATTEMPT #4
The Barker-Karpis Gang and the Escape Attempt of 1939
Date:
January 13, 1939
Inmates:
Arthur “Doc” Barker
Dale Stamphill
Henri Young
William “Ty” Martin
Rufus McCain
Location:
D Block (Segregation Unit)
It seemed almost predestined that “Doc” Barker would ultimately meet his death as the primary conspirator in the first escape that would demonstrate a weakness in the security of the main cellhouse. Doc’s life as a desperado is the fascinating and bleak story of an American tragedy. A memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to Attorney General Homer Cummings dated August 15, 1935 states in part: “Arthur ‘Doc’ Barker is beyond doubt among the most dangerous criminals with which this Bureau has had to deal.”
Arthur “Doc” Barker
Arthur “Doc” Barker
Doc was a member of the notorious “Ma Barker Gang” that terrorized the Midwest during the early 1930’s. He was born in 1899, into an impoverished family in the remote Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Short in stature, he was the third of four sons who had all been reared into a life of crime by their mother, the legendary Kate Barker, known affectionately by associates simply as “Ma.”
Arthur Dunlop and Kate “Ma” Barker.
The FBI chronicled the family’s history extensively and a confidential report dated November 18, 1936 includes the following description:
Ma Barker in the formative period of her sons' lives was probably just an average mother of a family which had no aspirations or evidenced no desire to maintain any high plane socially. They were poor and existed through no prolific support from Ma's husband, George Barker, who was more or less a shiftless individual... The early religious training of the Barkers... was influenced by evangelistic and sporadic revivals. The parents of the Barkers and the other boys with whom they were associated did not reflect any special interest in educational training and as a result their sons were more or less illiterate... Ma was more intelligent than any of her sons, she ruled them with an iron will and found this expression of dominance easily exerted because of the submission of her sons Fred and Arthur
Hoover further characterized Ma Barker as “a monument to the evils of parental indulgence,” and according to legend, she instructed her boys from an early age in the finer points of robbery, kidnapping, larceny and murder, romanticizing the life and wealth of being an outlaw.
The family eventually moved to Tulsa Oklahoma where the Barker boys quickly became community nuisances, engaging in petty thefts and forming a youth crime group dubbed the “Central Park Gang.” During his adolescence Doc would form strongly bonded relationships with these town hoodlums, including Volney Davis and Harry Campbell, who years later would also find their way to Alcatraz. Another gang associate, William Green, would conspire in a 1931 mass escape from Leavenworth Prison, and would ultimately commit suicide to avoid recapture.
Volney Davis
The eldest Barker son, Herman, was arrested on March 5, 1915 for highway robbery in Joplin, Missouri, and this would mark the beginning of the family’s private crime wave. It is documented that Ma Barker liked to live well and purchased expensive clothing, furniture, and other necessities from the spoils of her sons’ depredations. FBI records disclosed that Ma was exceptionally jealous of her sons’ girlfriends, and would purposely attempt to sever their relationships. Her personality would be sharply described as that of a “gutty old girl with a fantastic loyalty to her sons, who wouldn’t tell cops or G-Men the time of day and backed her boys to the hilt, right or wrong.”
Herman left the Barker household and continued his criminal antics while traveling through the Midwestern States. He was arrested several times and ultimately landed himself in prison, serving moderate terms for grand larceny and robbery. Fred Barker would also leave the family homestead, and venture out to pursue his own career in crime. He would eventually join forces wi
th Herbert Farmer, who owned a renowned chicken ranch with his wife near Joplin, Missouri, and over the years they would harbor several fugitives, including Bonnie and Clyde. Farmer would later find himself sentenced to serve time on Alcatraz after being convicted as a conspirator in the famous 1933 Kansas City Union Station Massacre, an event which had a profound impact on the image of the American gangster. As Hoover described it, the Massacre was a “turning point in the nation's fight against crime.” The savageness of the attack had stripped away the glamour and romantic mystique of the early gangster era, and U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings had used the Massacre as a pretext for proclaiming the Federal government’s “war against crime.”
The Fourth of July would seem an ironic date for Doc Barker to establish his role as a public enemy of the nation, but as fate would have it, on July 4, 1918 he stole a government vehicle in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was quickly apprehended. Doc somehow managed to escape from the county jail and then for nearly two years he maintained a low profile, working as a glass blower and later on a labor detail. On February 19, 1920 Doc was captured and charged in connection with the escape. He pleaded guilty, and was released less than a year later. On January 21, 1921 Doc and his longtime friend Ray Terrill were arrested for the attempted armed robbery of a bank firm in Muskogee – Doc under the alias Claud Dale and Ray under the alias G.R. Patton. Surprisingly, Doc was released in June of 1921 without any formal charges being brought against him. Only two months later, on August 26th, Doc and his old companion Volney Davis allegedly murdered James J. Sherrill, a security watchman at Tulsa’s St. John’s Hospital, during a break-in. On February 10, 1922 Doc and Volney were given life sentences for this crime, and were sent to serve their time at the State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma. Volney would escape in 1925, and he quickly started building his resume for Alcatraz. It was rumored that Doc was innocent of the murder and another criminal would claim responsibility several years later.
Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years Page 29
