About a year and a half ago I visited the old prison in Bautzen, which was variously used by the Nazis, Soviet Secret Police, and Stasi for political prisoners. The visit was immensely interesting, but I felt no discomfort at all.
The only thing that really weirded me out when I did the walking audio tour of Alcatraz was when the inmate described solitary confinement. IIRC, he said that before they stripped you, the inmates would rip a button off of their clothes. Once in the hole, where it was pitch black, they’d toss the button into the air and then spend their time trying to find it. 16 hours a day of playing “Find the button” would drive me insane.
As another update, this list should include both ISAIAH X. ANDREWS, AZ-1530, b. 20 Apr 1938 and CHARLES EDWARD HOPKINS, AZ-1186, b. 17 Mar 1932, both of whom were stated to be living from news articles last year.
article 1, article 2
Interestingly enough, Isaiah Andrews and Harvey Louis Carignan (AZ-935) are the last former inmates to still be doing time as of March 2020. Both are convicted murderers serving life sentences.
I’ve been a bit interested in ex-Alcatraz inmates since back when I learned that Whitey Bulger was one.
Thanks for putting together and maintain this list.
My “favorite” Alcatraz con would be Alvin “Creepy” Karpis. Did more time there than anyone else- 26 years.
It’s the contrast of his death being in 1979 and yet there are several of his cohort still alive that surprises me.
Isaiah X. Andrews (AZ-1530, 1961-63?), one of the two last former Alcatraz prisoners still doing time, is now out of prison. Though he was released in 1973 after serving his first murder sentence (convicted in 1958), he was convicted again in 1974 after his wife was found murdered. It is due to this conviction that Andrews has, up until May 2020, remained in prison. He was released after initially suppressed evidence in his case was uncovered by the Ohio Innocence Project which had tied another man to the crime rather than Andrews. You can read about it here: "After 45 years, he thought he'd die in prison. Now he's free, thanks to UC's OIP" | University Of Cincinnati
This now means that Harvey Carignan (AZ-935, 1952-60) is now the last former prisoner to still be doing time. His first murder conviction came in 1950, for which he spent ten years being incarcerated. He has been in prison since 1976 when he became a convicted serial killer.
We really only have single-story prisons around here (except for the remand centre in the CBD, which I’ve never been in). And when you look around, what you see is the wall. And it’s everywhere – there isn’t a single direction you can look, where you aren’t looking toward the wall. There’s no hills, no horizon, no trees, nothing far away or different you can focus on — just the wall.
Not since 1990 at least.
UPDATE: There’s a group on Facebook named “Alcatraz History and Escapes Group” and last month a list was shared on it which had been compiled by former prisoner and extremely helpful contributor to the group Robert Schibline and included the 21 known surviving prisoners as of May, 2020. The list reads as follows:
575 TIPPETT, ELLIS MATTHEW 24 Oct 1917
935 CARIGNAN, HARVEY LOUIS 18 May 1927 (Doing life in Minnesota)
1115 HARBISON, HENRY LEE 22 Jul 1934 (On the run since 1976)
1186 HOPKINS, CHARLES EDWARD 17 Mar 1932
1259 BAKER, WILLIAM GARNETT 25 Jan 1933
1297 LAWRENCE, WILLIAM Jr. 4 Apr 1931
1323 QUARLES, WILLIAM JEROME 24 Oct 1930
1339 CLYMORE, JERRY WAYNE 10 Jun 1934
1355 SCHIBLINE, ROBERT JAMES 23 Aug 1931
1395 KRITSKY, STEPHEN 22 Aug 1928
1398 GOMEZ, GUMERSINDO 3 Oct 1930
1404 HALL, JOHNNIE LAMAR 8 Jan 1931
1456 CRYMES, VIRGILE ALLEN 25 Feb 1928
1473 HOWARD, PRESTON LAVERN 3 Aug 1933
1475 ALARCON, VINCENT RODRIQUEZ 12 Apr 1930
1514 HESS, DONALD KILSMUTH 22 Mar 1935
1526 O’BRIEN, JAMES JOSEPH 13 Feb 1934 (Doing time in Arizona)
1530 ANDREWS, ISAIAH X. 20 Apr 1938
1538 CARPENTER, RUSSELL WAYNE 22 Feb 1936
1543 NEAL, JAMES RAYMOND 19 Dec 1936
1563 PUMMILL, WALTER HAROLD 2 Jun 1933
I have visited and toured Fremantle Prison, in Western Australia. The tour took us through the regular cellblocks, the exercise yard, the chapel, and such. And the solitary block, death row, and the death chamber itself–yes, the room where they hanged the condemned.
It wasn’t discomforting, but neither was it comforting. It was simply bleak. The most cheerful place in the prison (if any place in a prison can be cheerful), was the chapel, which, perhaps surprisingly, had no bars on the windows. Otherwise, it was high walls topped with broken glass, bars, more walls, and more bars. Certainly interesting, and worth the visit, but just … bleak.
Hi Hingle,
Ellis Tippett, James O’Brien, Walter Pummil and more recently Jerry Clymore (this year) and Robert Schibline (this year too) were passed away.
In my knowledges, Harvey Carignan, Charles Hopkins, William Baker, Isiah Andrews and Virgil Crymes are alive.
No idea for the other names of the 2019 Bob Schibline’s list.