Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [129]
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 eventually 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