Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [163]
The FBI intensified their search, and began a national campaign to bring Cretzer and Kyle to justice. Joe was said to enjoy his notorious high-ranking status as a Public Enemy. Joseph Cretzer was now ranked number four on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. He and Arnold decided to leave the Bay Area, since the FBI would likely be concentrating their search efforts throughout the Northwest. Jim Courey, unable to face the prospect of spending his life in prison, committed suicide in a Los Angeles hotel room when agents sought to arrest him.
In an effort to maintain a low profile, Cretzer and Kyle made a quick journey to Chicago, hoping that they could thus escape the watchful eye of the Bureau. Kyle stayed only a short while, then continued his travels back through Denver, Colorado, and on to Wichita, Kansas. He was finally apprehended on May 19, 1939 in Minneapolis, following another robbery. Kyle would not reveal the whereabouts of his other accomplices. While in Chicago, Joe and Edna had bought and operated another hotel, this time attempting to run a legitimate business. However, they had underestimated the magnitude of the FBI’s search effort and were apprehended in late August of 1939 and extradited back to Southern California to be tried for one of their earlier bank robberies in Pasadena. The FBI reported that Edna would stand charges for harboring a fugitive, and also that she was a suspect in the shooting of a police officer in Michigan City, Indiana, which had occurred earlier that year. She would eventually be sent to Terminal Island in Southern California, where Al Capone had briefly been incarcerated after leaving Alcatraz.
During the preparations for the trial the Federal government intervened, claiming that they held ultimate jurisdiction and would elect to try both Kyle and Cretzer in Washington State before addressing the charges in Southern California. The defendants’ cases also attracted a high level of media attention, with pertinent events regularly reported to the fascinated national public. Arnold Kyle and Joseph Cretzer were put on trial for the robbery of three Seattle banks and both were convicted on February 8, 1940. Both were given twenty-five-year sentences at McNeil Island, a Northwestern Federal Penitentiary located in Puget Sound, Washington. The official conviction report would declare them guilty in the case of “National Bank Robbery.” Cretzer had already started to build his résumé for Alcatraz, when officials caught him with a handcuff key in his mouth, which he had fashioned from a belt buckle. It was noted that the key was almost an “exact duplicate” and “greater measures” would be needed to contain Cretzer in prison.
Both Kyle and Cretzer arrived at McNeil on February 15, 1940, and they maintained a close relationship, just as when they had served time together at Preston. On April 11, 1940 the two were assigned to a labor detail, from which they attempted an escape. Armed with the axes they used for cutting roadside trees, they stole a prison truck, slammed through the yard gate (nearly running down a prison guard) and drove to a remote area. They then fled far into the woods of the four-thousand-acre island (Alcatraz in comparison is only twelve-acres). The duo hid for three days without food or water, attempting to keep cover under heavy brush, until they were finally captured and immediately placed into isolation.
Following the attempted escape, it would almost seem as if Cretzer didn’t feel that he would be convicted of any serious crime. In a letter written to his wife, who had just been released from Terminal Island in Los Angeles on May 27th, Cretzer wrote: “The charge is not serious & nothing to become