Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [126]
When he learned that Officer Stites and Officer Stewart had the three men under control on the roof, Associate Warden Miller and Senior Officer Nickelson went up to the top floor of building to see if all of the other prisoners were there and had all of the shops in the building checked.
When they got to the fourth floor where Franklin, Lucas and Limerick had been assigned to work, they found the remaining prisoners assigned to that shop up at one corner and looking around for Mr. Cline they found him in a corner of the storeroom with his head battered in and bleeding.
He sent for stretchers and immediately moved Mr. Cline to the hospital, then went to the roof and removed Prisoner Franklin who still had the hammer in his hand with which he had been trying to hit Officer Stites, and from the blood appearing on it, it appears that this hammer was used in assaulting Officer Cline. Limerick was lying on the roof, shot in his head, unconscious. Lucas was held in corner, apparently in attitude of surrender, kept covered but not fired upon by Officer Stewart while Officer Stites was engaged in the battle with Franklin and Limerick.
Limerick and Franklin were then removed to the Hospital and Lucas was taken to the cell building and locked up. The Associate Warden interviewed both Lucas and Franklin. He secured a statement from Lucas which was reduced to writing and signed by the prisoner and afterwards he turned it over to the F.B.I. Agent.
At the request of Dr. Ritchey arrangements were made to move Officer Cline to the Marine Hospital, San Francisco, and he was moved over there at 5 P.M.
Dr. Creel, in charge of the Marine Hospital, telephoned to me during the evening and said that Mr. Cline's condition was very critical and it was doubtful if he would survive the night.
I telephoned to the United States Attorney and the San Francisco Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and arranged for their representatives to be at the Hospital so that in case Mr. Cline recovered consciousness and was able to talk they might secure a dying statement but he did not show any signs or consciousness during the night.
During the night Prisoner Limerick died and I immediately called the Coroner and arranged to transfer the body to him very early the morning of May 24, 1938. The afternoon of May 24, 1938, Mr. Cline died and the Marine Hospital notified the Coroner and arranged to transfer the body to him.
After autopsies, the bodies were released to the undertaking parlor and the body of Limerick was prepared and shipped to the Woodring Funeral Parlors, Des Moines, Iowa, in accordance with the request of his relatives.
The body of Mr. Cline was prepared for shipment to home in Sweetwater, Texas, in accordance with request of Mrs. Cline. Prior to shipment, services were held at undertaking parlors in San Francisco, about which I will write you a separate letter. On the morning of May 24, 1938, Agents T. P. Geraghty and Orval H. Patterson at the San Francisco office of the F.B.I. came over to the Island at my request and I related what had happened, gave them the names of all of the officers who had any knowledge, names of prisoners who worked in the shop, gave them sketches which one of our officers, George D. Hoag had made of the roof and fourth door of shop building and helped then in the taking of photographs of the roof of the shop building, the window, the barbed wire, and the tower.
They interviewed all persons having knowledge and they tagged with identifying marks all of the missiles that had been found on the roof as well as the hammer and the pliers and the shattered portions of the glass from the tower.
This detailed report has been held awaiting action of the Coroner who held inquest on both cases Thursday, June 2, 1938. In the meantime l had consulted with United States Attorney Frank J. Henessy and after reciting all that happened to him, decided upon the witnesses who could