Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years

Critics declared Birdman of Alcatraza masterpiece and Lancaster reined an Academy Award Ònomination for his portrayal of Stroud. Meanwhile, Stroud himself continued his legal battle for his own release. Attorney General Robert F. Ke

Stroud being led to court in Topeka, Kansas in 1959, to appeal his sentence.

Fellow prisoner Morton Sobell became a close friend of Stroud’s at Springfield. Sobell would later write that several of the other inmates hated Stroud because of his eccentric behavior. Stroud himself would never see the classic film that had shaped his character in the public eye. However, it was rumored that he was able to watch Lancaster receive his Academy Award ®nomination on TV, as well as a short clip of Lancaster’s performance as the Birdman.

On the morning of November 21, 1963, Morton Sobell went to check on Stroud, who had failed to show up for their regular breakfast meeting in the small dining hall. Upon entering his cell, Morton discovered that Stroud had died peacefully in his sleep.

Stroud’s burial site at the Masonic Cemetery in Metropolis, Illinois. He is buried between his mother and his sister.

Stroud’s death was overshadowed in the national consciousness by the assassination of John F. Ke

Stroud, 73, was discovered dead at 5:45 a.m., at the center where Stroud had been confined for the past four years. Stroud was a former resident of Metropolis, and his sister, Mrs. Mamie Schaffer, still lives here. A brother, Lawrence Marcus of Honolulu, is the only other immediate survivor. Several cousins, nieces and nephews also survive him.   Arrangements for the funeral are incomplete. The body will be brought to the Aikins Funeral home, and the services will be private. Prison officials said his death was due to natural causes.

At the time of his death Robert Stroud had spent over fifty-four years in prison, until then the longest federal prison sentence ever served. Throughout his prison term, he never once expressed any remorse for his killings and was said to have bragged to other inmates about the crimes he would commit if he were ever released back into society. Despite his external associations with affluent celebrities who believed he was no longer a threat, it is clear today that even some of his own peers looked upon Stroud as dangerous and unfit to return to society. One insight into Stroud’s character was buried deep in his inmate case file, in a letter he wrote March 1942, impounded by the mail room at USP Leavenworth. Stroud wrote:

"Regardless of what we think of Hitler, and I had his number, completely, back in the 20's, before he gained power even in Germany, he is the best possible illustration of the effectiveness of a fix purpose. For, regardless of his personal qualities, he has a very effective single-mindedness. And if I have one good quality, it is the same kind of single-mindedness."

During an interview conducted for this book, I asked former Alcatraz inmate Jim Quillen if he had any final opinions on Stroud and passed him an original copy of Stroud’s Digest on Bird Diseases. He asked me if I’d like him to sign it and rather than offer any spoken opinion, Quillen pulled out a pen and wrote a small inscription on the inside cover, which read: “Knew Bob Stroud and think he was a smart man but a psycho.” Perhaps the famed Public Enemy Number One and fellow inmate, Alvin Karpis said it best in his 1980 memoir chronicling his twenty-five years on Alcatraz. He simply wrote:

“... If I had the responsibility of deciding whether or not to release Robert Stroud I would have reached the same conclusion of the parole board.”

Alcatraz on Trial

The Life of Henri Young

(Author’s Note: There is a long ru