Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [145]
A memo from the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, describing the escape attempt by Bayless.
A Telegram describing Bayless’ attempt to escape from a full courtroom in San Francisco. Ironically, he made a second break for freedom during his trial for the first escape attempt.
Bayless would serve his time quietly in segregation, and would eventually earn a transfer back to Leavenworth in November of 1950. He was awarded a conditional parole release on August 19, 1951, and landed himself back in jail on February 26, 1952, after committing another bank robbery. This time he was convicted and sentenced to serve thirty-five years. One year to the day after his release, he arrived for his second term at Alcatraz on August 19, 1952, as inmate #AZ-966.
Bayless would be among the last inmates to depart Alcatraz when it finally closed on March 21, 1963. He was sent back to McNeil Island and would not serve his time idly; once more he would find himself involved in a violent and desperate prison break. On November 8, 1965, Bayless and fellow inmate Dennis Hubbard concealed themselves behind another prisoner as he passed through an electric sentry gate into a minimum-security dormitory. Using a hand-fashioned knife, they overpowered a guard and bound and tied him using duct tape. They escaped through a non-barred window and under the cover of heavy rain, scaled the perimeter fences and disappeared into the landscape.
The duo found a vacant house that belonged to the prison’s physician, who was away on a hunting expedition. They remained inside the house undetected for five days, until the physician returned home. When prison officials came for them, they offered no resistance, and Bayless again stood trial for escape. He was sentenced to another forty-five years, and would again be paroled for good time served on August 20, 1973. But just one month later he was back in prison at Leavenworth for attempted bank robbery. Bayless was re-paroled to a community treatment center in Long Beach California, and died on July 30, 1981. He had finally returned to the city in which he had committed his first crime.
ESCAPE ATTEMPT #7
Date:
April 13, 1943
Inmates:
James A. Boarman
Fred Hunter
Harold Brest
Floyd G. Hamilton
Location:
Old Mat Shop
On the cold morning of April 13, 1943, a densely strewn layer of fog lay over the prison fortress. The escape attempt that was about to unfold would involve four inmates who were assigned to the old Mat Shop, employed in manufacturing cement blocks that were used to weigh down heavy submarine nets during the war. The inmates had each acquired smuggled military uniforms from the prison laundry and had stuffed them in specially made float canisters, which were smaller but nearly identical to those used during the escape of Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe in December of 1937. The four hollow one-gallon fuel containers offered perfect concealment and water protection for their clothing and a seemingly perfect float device with which to swim quietly across the bay. Their plan would also incorporate some of the more successful aspects of the 1941 escape attempt employed by Cretzer, Barkdoll, Shockley and Kyle, which ultimately ended in failure.
James A. Boarman
James A. Boarman
James Arnold Boarman, a small time bank robber from Indianapolis was only twenty-four years old at the time of this ill-fated escape attempt. Born on November 3, 1919 in Whalen, Kentucky, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. His father, who had supported the family as a carpenter, died of