Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [116]
In September of 1921 Gardner was transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and he immediately fell into conflict with the prison administration. He was transferred to Atlanta in October of 1925 and in July of 1926, he attempted another daring escape. Gardner and four other inmates secured weapons and attempted to take hostages, but their plan failed, and Gardner was placed in a deep lockdown status where he would remain for several months.
Surprisingly, Gardner volunteered to be transferred to Alcatraz. He claimed that he wanted to go straight, and felt that this would bring him closer to friends and family. Following his unsuccessful escape, Gardner had finally acquiesced under the strict prison rules. He eventually earned the reputation of a model inmate, and was granted his request for transfer to what he would later call “Hellcatraz.” Gardner was destined to do hard time during his twenty-five month imprisonment at Alcatraz. Warden Johnston had assigned him to work in the Mat Factory, and he would later comment that Leavenworth and Atlanta were summer resorts compared to the Rock. He wrote:
The hopeless despair on the Rock is reflected in the faces and actions of almost all of the inmates. They seem to march about the island in a sort of hopelessness, helpless daze, and you can watch them progressively sinking down and down... On “the Rock” there are upwards of three hundred men. One hundred fifty will die there. Sometime – in ten, fifteen, twenty-five years – the others come out into the world. These, too, are dead; the walking dead. The men confined there, to all intents and purposes, are buried alive. In reality they are little more than animated cadavers – dead men who are still able to walk and talk. Watching those men from day to day slowly giving up hopes is truly a pitiful sight, even if you are one of them.
Gardner was transferred back to Leavenworth in 1936, and was finally released from prison in 1938. He drifted back to San Francisco, and set up an exhibition booth at the Golden Gate Pan Pacific Exposition on Treasure Island. Gardner recounted to patrons his murderous stories of violence and torture, and autographed his personal memoir entitled Hellcatraz.
Roy Gardner’s Hellcatraz.
Following his release from Alcatraz, Gardner worked as a guide on a San Francisco tour boat for a short period.
Using cyanide, sulfuric acid, and a bath towel, Gardner created his own makeshift gas chamber, and committed suicide by draping the bathroom sink with a towel and covering his head.
Gardner’s show, entitled Crime Doesn’t Pay, failed to draw large crowds, and it eventually closed. He then spent a brief period working as a narrator on a San Francisco tour boat, but was later forced to take employment as a baker in San Francisco.
Gardner eventually found himself with no friends and his wife had left him and remarried. He finally committed suicide in a small San Francisco hotel on January 10, 1940. Using cyanide, sulfuric acid and a bath towel, he draped the bathroom sink and covered his head, creating a makeshift gas chamber. On the door was a note warning the maid: “Do Not Open Door - Poison Gas - Call Police.” Gardner had also left the maid a small cash tip for cleaning out his belongings. His suitcase stood neatly in a corner of his room and the shower curtain was neatly folded across the floor to prevent any mess. He wrote a note to the San Francisco Call-Bulletin that read: “I’m old and tired and don’t care to continue