Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [81]
Associate Warden E.J. Miller described the episode:
When we opened cells for mess this morning at breakfast time, Capone #AZ-85 came out of his with his blue clothes on. On being sent back to his cell to put on his coveralls, he returned, put them on and got in line and came in and drank some coffee.
After the meal was over and men went back to cells, Capone started up on the upper gallery instead of going to his own cell. Officers sent him back to his own cell and being locked in, he proceeded to get sick and threw up what he had eaten for breakfast and then appeared to be all right.
After we let the men go out to work, I went up to Capone’s cell and talked to him to see what was the matter with him and what explanation he had for his actions. He was sitting on the toilet and in response to my questions all I could get were indistinct, incoherent mumblings.
At about 8:15, Mr. Amende, Cell House Officer, called me and said that Capone had thrown a fit in his cell. I went to Capone’s cell and found he was laying on the floor and appeared to be in a hysterical fit of some sort. I immediately sent for the doctor and when Dr. Hess came and put him on the bunk and examined him, he said we had better take him to the hospital.
Capone was checked into the Hospital.
Capone had developed symptoms of syphilis, a disease that he had evidently been carrying for years. He was committed to the prison hospital, and would remain there for the duration of his imprisonment at Alcatraz. The prison doctors attempted a variety of treatments with no success. Capone was frequently restrained for rants of yelling “at the top of his lungs” and other irrational behaviors. At one point, Capone was located in the “A-Ward” hospital section and locked in what was termed a “bug cage” for mentally unstable or at risk patients. It was a stiff wired cage that sectioned off the large hospital wardroom, typically housing multiple patients. Inmate Alvin Karpis later recounted a fierce fight that ensued between Capone and an inmate named Carl Janaway.
Carl Janaway
Janaway shared one of the adjacent beds, separated by steel-mesh wire enclosures, and it is claimed that the two men constantly argued like small children. Their fighting climaxed in an event that would have them both separated, and would finally convince the administration of the need to transfer Capone to a facility that could better care for his medical condition. The altercation stemmed from Janaway’s insults, which were reciprocated by Capone using names such as “Bug House Janaway.” At the peak of their exchange, both inmates started hurling the contents of their bedpans at each other through the wire caging. They would end up so saturated with urine and feces that they had to be hosed down before being removed from their enclosures to shower. In Another incident, Capone got into an altercation with inmate Phil Ryan (AZ-134) assaulting him with a bedpan. In a prison report it stated in part:
Capone has been turned into ward “A” by the guard on-duty in the Hospital, to empty his bedpan. He was in the toilet cleaning it perhaps with a towel which the Ward patients used to clean the table in Ward “A.” Ryan who was mopping in front of the toilet, asked him not to use it. Capone flew into a rage and struck Ryan in the temple with the bedpan inflicting a small laceration. Ryan then struck Capone over the head with the mop. Capone grabbed the mop out of Ryan’s hands and when the Guard, Mr. Comerford and Mr.