Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [152]
A closing note on the jacket of Boarman’s inmate file.
ESCAPE ATTEMPT #8
Date:
August 7, 1943
Inmates:
Huron Ted Walters
Location:
Prison Laundry
In August of 1943, Alcatraz was suffering from personnel shortages as a result of the War efforts. The prison industries were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of military clothing being delivered for laundering, and there were barely enough officers to cover the critical posts. Many of the officers assigned to the industries were required to alternate their rounds, sometimes leaving certain posts unattended for brief periods. These circumstances would be contributing factors in a Saturday morning escape attempt by Huron Ted Walters.
Huron Ted Walters
Huron Ted Walters (known to many as “Terrible Ted”) was a habitual criminal and former crime partner of Floyd Hamilton, another Alcatraz inmate. Born on October 25, 1913 in Wylie, Texas, Walters was the youngest of three children. His father died when he was only two years old, and his mother remarried two years later with a gentleman employed as a machinist. Ted’s home life was considered fairly normal, and at seventeen years of age he left his parents’ forty-acre ranch to pursue a career as a truck driver. He immediately began getting involved in criminal activities, and was soon arrested for stealing automobiles. In 1936, after being sentenced to serve time for auto theft, he successfully escaped from a Texas jail, and continued his criminal escapades.
Walters, Floyd Hamilton, and another accomplice named Jack Winn were involved in a series of robberies with targets ranging from banks, stores and beer taverns; to a Coca-Cola Bottling Company plant. Their crimes spanned several states, and involved several police chases, as well as other dire scenarios. On August 13, 1938, the day following the Coca-Cola Bottling Company robbery, the trio held up a salesman near Weldon, Arkansas, and stole his 1938 green Plymouth Sedan. They were spotted near DeQueen, Arkansas, and after an intense gun battle with Arkansas State Highway Patrolmen, they disappeared into the remote woods on foot. Both men were captured eight days later in Dallas, Texas, when Winn who had been arrested several days earlier, identified his accomplices to the police. Walters had suffered a minor gunshot wound to his right thigh, and Hamilton was also found to have sustained injuries.
On November 3, 1938, both men were sentenced to thirty years in prison for their crimes. When Walters was later questioned by FBI Agents he would be quoted as saying that his only regret was that he had not killed a few of the officers before being apprehended. Walters and Hamilton were both sent to the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas on November 5, 1938. Ever-true to their chosen lifestyle, they would remain outlaws within the prison walls. Associate Warden C. J. Shuttleworth, who had formerly held the same position at Alcatraz, documented an escape plot that would earn the two inmates a cross-country train ride to Alcatraz. He wrote in Walter’s conduct record:
Information has come to my attention that this inmate, together with Floyd Hamilton, and inmate Reed were planning and plotting an escape from the institution by concealing themselves in an institutional sawdust truck driven by Lee Barker, No. 53385-L, a confessed conspirator with Steffler and Miles in a similar plot. While definite information is meager, regarding this particular conspiracy, it was upon this same information that the plot was of Steffler and Miles were finally discovered. The plot had also included the fabrication of homemade shotguns, shells, and sixteen bombs that were to be made in the prison factories. An inmate not connected with the plot furnished the information. In talking with Hamilton relative to this plot, Hamilton admits that Reed and Walters were his only trusted associates in the institution. Further, early in December, Walters was observed at about 3:30 PM sitting outside the Shoe Factory, “casing” the East Gate and the general truck