05/14/2012
Alcatraz Island to Alcatraz History
On your Web site, you offer this tidbit: "How many birds did Robert "Birdman of Alcatraz" Stroud keep while on Alcatraz?"
"None. Stroud had bred and studied birds at the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Stroud was imprisoned at Alcatraz from 1942 until 1959. It was determined that Stroud was abusing his research privileges and sent to Alcatraz. Stroud was widely disliked by many fellow inmates and correctional officers. See other links for more detailed information. See his short biography in the Famous Inmates section here on AlcatrazHistory.com."
While I love your site for many reasons, I'm wondering whether you'd be kind enough to clarify why you claim that Stroud was sent from Leavenworth to Alcatraz for abusing his bird researching privileges -- which is the way they treat it in the famous John Frankenheimer movie starring Burt Lancaster, based on the famous book called "The Birdman of Alcatraz," when, in fact, paragraph three on page two of the Bureau of Prisons records for Stroud at Alcatraz note quite a different reason:
"Stroud is now serving a life sentence for the murder of an employee (guard) of Leavenworth. This incident occurred in the Spring of 1916, in the prison dining room during the noon mess, with several hundred prisoners present. Stroud states he asked this guard, whom he killed, if he had reported him, as the evening before this guard had asked Stroud for his [prisoner] number. Stroud stated that the guard would not answer his question, but that he threatened to hit [Stroud] with his club. Upon this threat by the guard, Stroud pulled a knife which he had concealed on his person and with this knife killed the Guard. Stroud has been in segregation since committing this crime."
One page one, beside his booking photo, the "Reason for Transfer" states the following:
From leav[enworth] Classification Comm[ittee]: "In view of this man's homicidal traits and impulsively dangerous tendencies, he cannot be released with general population.....they feel that it would be possible to confine this man safely at Alcatraz...also wishes to call attention to the need for eliminating the insanitary condition.. from this man's bird breeding activities here...Rec.trans.to Alcatraz"
While it would seem the Rec.trans.to.Alcatraz probably means "requests transfer to Alcatraz," the issue of "insanitary conditions.. from this man's bird breeding activities" at Leavenworth is clearly an afterthought and personal health care issue for him, rather than the reason for the transfer, since they simply had the authority to stop the breeding at Leavenworth, but the well documented reason for the transfer noted on that very record, including both pages, is that Stroud was a chronic/malignant sociopath and psychopath who not only resorted to violence at every turn, but was known to launch unprovoked attacks on others, including having a knife with him when he allegedly approached a guard he believed reported him, and while the account in this document was what Stroud claimed was his motivation, most likely trying to mitigate against a harsher sentence for murdering the guard, the official records of the Bureau of Prisons notes that the guard Stroud murdered had not, in fact, reported or cited Stroud for any such violation, but that someone else, whether guard or convict, might have or did.
So, once Stroud ended up at Alcatraz, he was in "semi-solitary confinement on the otherwise generally vacant D Block, but after six years of utterly psychotic and threatening conduct all around, he was finally transferred into a massive isolation cell in the hospital section of the cell house, where he lived out his time on The Rock in a room the size of a massive conference room, never raising or caring for, by the way, a single bird on Alcatraz. (Except the Looney birds in the windmills of his mind!)
So, he murdered a John for underpaying one of his wh**es by $8, got 12 years at McNeil Island in Washington State, where he arrives on 23 August 1909; and 28 months in, in December 1911, among other interim offenses, Stroud, trying to murder another convict, inflicts numerous stab wounds, but while attempted murder, which gets him only six months more as a conviction for assault, and with 12 1/2 years, at that point, that latter conviction gets him a transfer to Leavenworth, where he arrives on September 5, 1912. Then, after not seeing his brother for nine years, on the eve of a visit, he gets into trouble, as noted above, murders the guard he believes reported him for a violation that lost Stroud the visitation privilege, is convicted, sentenced to death; Stroud's Mom and prison bride wife plead with Woodrow Wilson's wife to convince President Wilson to commute the death sentence, Wilson does so, and not for bird issues, as in the movie, but for his malignant murderous conduct toward guards and prisoners, as the transfer request clearly states, Leavenworth requests a transfer to Alcatraz, adding as a footnote of sorts that they also wish for prison and federal officials considering the request to note that the Committee "also wishes to call attention to the need for eliminating the insanitary condition.. from this man's bird breeding activities here...Rec.trans.to Alcatraz."
In any case, i suppose you could try to dispute the point, but the reasons seem more than clear and "abusing" his birding privileges at Leavenworth was, in no way, going to get him or anyone transferred to Alcatraz, which was closed over deterioration issues and, very much so, as well, the fact that it cost almost four times as much to keep prisoners there. Stroud was no Capone, Karpsi or similar type for whom the prison was taken over by the DOJ and new Bureau of Prisons -- not until he killed the guard and, with Alcatraz not, yet, then, USP Alcatraz, of course, he continued his life of threatening prisoners and guards -- which he continued at Alcatraz. It was for that and not for birding activities he was considered one of "The Worst of the Worst," which was why men were sent to Alcatraz!
Agree?
Disagree?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and reasons!
Thanks for taking the time to consider mine!
All best wishes!
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Alcatraz History
Excellent comments! In my book, historical records trump present day speculations. Another fact, Stroud had been considered a nuisance and abused his privileges by using his bird research to secure items that could be used to produce “pruno” a crude alcoholic type beverage homemade by inmates, as well as fabricating tools used in his research to craft weapons (see next image). The more likely driver behind his transfer was his history of creating friction and strife with fellow inmates and staff. One would expect that they could have easily stopped his activities, but not without major fallout from fellow inmates. When Stroud was finally transferred, numerous contraband items were found in a hollowed table leg, a microscope case and flooring of a few homemade birdcages.
Alcatraz Island
A number of sites claimed he was transferred to end his activities with birds. My view/understanding was, both from documents and simple logic, is that if they could end it by sending him to Alcatraz, they could end it right there in Leavenworth, and that he was, indeed, as his transfer documents reveal, sent to Alcatraz for being a chronic/malignant problem in terms of his violent conduct, anti-social personality and much more having little to do with the birds, except, as you note, using the birds as a latter days cover for other illegal activity! So, they could have simply taken it all away at Leavenworth, but, perhaps, to some extent, his fame amongst naive and ignorant -- or, if they knew and still wanted Stroud treated like a falsely accused or misunderstood or maligned by the system "rock star," which some clearly think he was and considered (even still consider him) something like a Nelson Mandela of ornithology, a political prisoner and martyr to some good thing (which he clearly was not) -- made life a nightmare for the staff and others at Leavenworth. I haven't finished your book, but am close, and find him highly narcissistic, and that he basically never stopped moving for his release after pimping, murder, attempted murders, assaults, the brutal murder of a guard and more seems to betray something like a delusional mind set, as well.
In that sense [referencing Alcatraz History's reply to my post, which reply is at the beginning of this post], I understand the point about abusing the research privileges, but the way it was written on the site, it didn't say that it was for using it to engage in illegal activities and, perhaps like the famous movie, made your comment seem more of one that could be open to endless qualitative dispute, as if "abusing bird research privileges" might have meant he kept "dog earing" valuable books from the library, read at all hours of the night and day in a way that disturbed fellow inmates and things like that, which would have made the pen administrators seem, perhaps, petty and nit picky. So, abuse of privileges versus criminal activity is, as I see it, an important distinction to make, and he was using the research as cover for engaging in discovered and verified criminal activity. Is that a fair assessment and conclusion to draw from your kind follow up comments, Sir?
Also, I'm not entirely sure I understand, nor agree with what I seem to understand, about your comment relating to "fallout from other inmates" should Leavenworth have simply ended Stroud's privileges there. The fact is, fallout or not, they ended his privileges there not just by denying him access to all of it, but by doing so through the decision to transfer him to Alcatraz to ensure that other matters relating to his conduct, as well as the bird related privileges, were addressed, since they note that the hygienic issues relating to the birds was more than a problem in health terms. So, again, it seems they did the very thing you said would have caused fallout, which was to end his privileges, whether by design or default due to the transfer to Leavenworth. My understanding, as well, was that other prisoners despised Stroud, not only for his violent side, but his arrogance and the fact that he got special privileges others didn't get. while those men might have liked, to some degree, that Stroud somehow "stuck it to the man" in some way to both get the commutation from death to life, to twist them into more space -- signs that he could make life crap for the "screws" and government, which other cons would like, to some degree -- the fact is, they tried such things, failed, and, as i understand it, despised Stroud for "lording it over" his fellow prisoners as something or or more than a Penitentiary Prima Donna, so to speak. Again, I'd love to "hear" your thoughts, as your time allows. Thanks, again!
