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I just wish to say here, that anything you can do for him to make his stay in your institution, profitable to him, and as comfortable as possible, will highly be appreciated by me, although we have been separated a large portion of our time, it didn’t take away the love and care I have for him. He was once good and kind and made home a place worth living for. I shall like very much to visit him as soon as possible, as I have not seen him since one year ago, last July 18 th, 1941. Trusting this will be of some help to you in preparing my husband for his stay there.
Yours Very Truly,
Mrs. Lola Belle Hubbard
Hubbard’s involvement with crime had started in his teenage years, with a series of forceful, violent robberies that usually ended in his arrest, and for which he ultimately served several short-term sentences. In late 1942, Hubbard and his accomplices were arrested after robbing a liquor store at gunpoint. His prison record includes a summation of his criminal history:
On August 7, 1942, Marvin Franklin Hubbard, George Kelly Matthews, and Ke
About 7:30 p.m. on August 14, 1942, subjects kidnapped Logan Stroud, traffic officer, Chattanooga P.D., when he attempted to arrest them for not having a safety sticker on their car and by threats of death at the point of a gun they forced him to accompany them from Hamilton County, Te
On September 11, 1942, while being held at the Knox County Jail Marvin Franklin Hubbard, together with others, escaped from said jail by overpowering the turn key and the elevator operator who were locking up the prisoners in their cells for the night. Hubbard was apprehended by the Sheriff's Office, Knoxville, Te
On September 15, 1942, Marvin Franklin Hubbard addressed a letter to the United States Attorney at Chattanooga, Te
In October of 1942, having been convicted of kidnapping and illegal transportation of firearms across state lines, Hubbard was sent to the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, where he reportedly participated in riot activities. Hubbard was deemed incorrigible and in 1944 he received his golden ticket to the Rock.
A request from Hubbard for a work assignment in the prison hospital. This request, dated April 10, 1946, suggests that Hubbard was probably recruited as an accomplice weeks or even days before the mass escape attempt.
Miran Edgar Thompson
Miran Edgar Thompson
Miran Edgar “Buddy” Thompson had been on Alcatraz only since October, a little over six months, but his criminal record seemed endless. At only twenty-nine years of age, Buddy was already a seasoned felon. Before even disembarking from the prison launch, he had accumulated no less than eight successful escapes on his inmate profile record.
Thompson left home at an early age and found himself in a reform school after being convicted of armed robbery before his eighteenth birthday. Reform school failed to curve his delinquency and when he set out to support himself, he immediately began a chain of violent burglaries, targeting almost any establishment that had a cash register. Thompson was arrested frequently, but he had an exceptional ability to escape from his captors. His early crimes included everything from forgery, to drunk and disorderly conduct, to assault, and he ultimately graduated to armed robbery. Thompson traveled through various states committing robberies, up until March 12, 1945. Although historians often dispute the details of the events of that day, it is certain that Miran and a twenty-seven-year-old accomplice named Elmer Day were arrested by a Police Detective Lem Savage. During the course of the arrest, Thompson for some reason was not handcuffed and he pulled a revolver and fatally shot the officer. Officer Savage’s body was then kicked out of the car and the pair fled west, later kidnapping a young New Mexico woman and commandeering her vehicle. They were captured a short time later at the New Mexico-Texas state line, but not before they had crossed the state border. This meant that Federal kidnapping charges would be filed against them.
Miran was tried in Federal court for the kidnappings, but somehow managed to escape the death penalty, receiving a ninety-nine-year sentence with no possibility of parole for the kidnapping and a life sentence for the murder. With his long history of successful escapes and his conviction for the violent murder of a police official, Miran was quickly selected by the Bureau of Prisons to serve out his time on Alcatraz. Thompson arrived on the island on October 15, 1945, as inmate #AZ-729. His reputation as a vicious cop killer had followed him to Alcatraz and this earned him a sordid status among the inmate population.
Sam Richard Shockley
Sam Richard Shockley
Sam Shockley was another resident of the Rock who had truly earned his place there. It was revealed during the trial of the escapees that Shockley had an IQ ranging in the low to mid-sixties, the mental equivalent of a child of eight to ten years. He was considered by all of the correctional staff as “impulsively dangerous,” and many thought that his imprisonment on Alcatraz was inappropriate since he suffered from mental illness, and therefore was unable to blend into the general population. He often suffered hallucinations, which resulted in violent fits directed toward the correctional staff. He had a reputation for throwing articles from his cell, breaking plumbing fixtures, starting fires and viciously attacking officers when they attempted to restrain him. Shockley had become one of the most frequent residents of the strip cell. One of the least disputed facts surrounding the 1946 escape was that inmate Sam Shockley was considered by nearly all to be dangerous and psychotic.