"Birdman of Alcatraz" redirects here. For the 1962 film, see Birdman of Alcatraz (film). Robert Franklin Stroud (
January 28,
1890 –
November 21,
1963), known as the
Birdman of Alcatraz, was a
prisoner in
Alcatraz who supposedly found solace from segregation by raising and selling
birds. Despite his nickname, he actually kept birds in the penitentiary in
Leavenworth until he was transferred to Alcatraz.
Early life According to Stroud, on
January 18,
1909, while he was away at work, an acquaintance of theirs,
F. K. "Charlie" Von Dahmer, viciously beat Kitty. That night, Stroud confronted Von Dahmer and a struggle ensued, resulting in the latter's death from a gunshot wound. However, according to police reports from the time, Kitty had continued to engage in prostitution after arriving in Juneau, with Stroud acting as her
pimp. The reports stated that Stroud had knocked Von Dahmer unconscious and then shot him at point blank range.
Stroud was later arrested with Von Dahmer's wallet in his possession. Although Stroud's mother Elizabeth retained a lawyer for her son, on
August 23,
1909, he was convicted of
manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in the federal
penitentiary on
Puget Sound's
McNeil Island. (Stroud's crime was handled in the federal system, as Alaska was not yet a state with its own judiciary.)
Arrest, trial and imprisonment While at McNeil Island, Stroud assaulted a hospital orderly who had reported him to the administration for attempting to obtain
morphine through threats and intimidation and also reportedly stabbed a fellow inmate who was involved in the attempt to smuggle the narcotics.
On
September 5,
1912, Stroud was sentenced to an additional six months for the attacks and transferred from McNeil Island to the federal penitentiary in
Leavenworth, Kansas. While there, Stroud was reprimanded by a guard in the
cafeteria for a minor rule violation. Although the infraction was not a serious one, it could have annulled Stroud's visitation privilege to meet his younger brother, whom he had not seen in eight years. Stroud stabbed and killed a guard, Andrew Turner, on
March 26,
1916. He was sentenced to
execution by
hanging on May 27 and was ordered to await his
death sentence in
solitary confinement. The trial was later invalidated. In a later trial he was given a
life sentence. That trial was also invalidated, after reaching the
U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered a new trial, set for May 1918. On June 28, he was again sentenced to death by hanging. The Supreme Court intervened, but only to uphold the death sentence, which was scheduled to be carried out on
April 23,
1920.
At this point, Stroud's mother appealed to President
Woodrow Wilson and his wife,
Edith Bolling Wilson, who halted the execution. Stroud's sentence was again
commuted to life imprisonment. Leavenworth's
warden, T. W. Morgan, did not approve of the decision, and ordered that Stroud was to be held in segregation for the complete duration of his imprisonment.
Prison life While at Leavenworth, Stroud found three injured
sparrows in the prison yard and kept them. He started to occupy his time raising and caring for his birds, soon switching from sparrows to
canaries, which he could sell for supplies and to help support his mother. Soon thereafter, Leavenworth's administration changed and the prison was now directed by a new warden. Impressed with the possibility of presenting Leavenworth as a progressive
rehabilitation penitentiary, the new warden furnished Stroud with cages,
chemicals, and stationery to conduct his ornithological activities. Visitors were shown Stroud's aviary and many purchased his canaries. Over the years, he raised nearly 300
canaries in his cells and wrote two books,
Diseases of Canaries and
Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds. He made several important contributions to
avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic
septicemia family of diseases. He gained respect and also some level of sympathy in the bird-loving field.
Soon, Stroud's activities created problems for the prison management. According to regulations, each letter sent or received at the prison had to be read, copied and approved. He was so involved in his business that this alone required a full-time prison
secretary. Also, most of the time, his birds were let free to fly in his cells. With the very high number of birds he kept, his cell was dirty and Stroud's
personal hygiene was reported to be gruesome. In 1931, an attempt to force Stroud to discontinue his business and get rid of his birds failed after Stroud and his future wife, Della Mae Jones, made his story known to newspapers and magazines and undertook a massive letter- and petition-writing campaign that climaxed in a 50,000-signature petition being mailed to the president. The resultant public outcry allowed Stroud to keep his birds and he was even given a second cell to house them, but his letter-writing privileges were greatly curtailed.
In 1933, however, Stroud took out an advertisement to publicize the fact that he had not received any royalties from the sales of
Diseases of Canaries. In retaliation, the publisher complained to the warden and, as a result, proceedings were initiated to transfer Stroud to
Alcatraz, where he would not be permitted to keep his birds. Stroud, however, discovered a legal loophole, according to which, he would be allowed to remain in
Kansas if he were married there. He therefore married Della Jones in 1933, though he infuriated not only prison officials, who would not allow him to correspond with his wife, but also his mother, who refused any further contact with him and died four years later, in 1937. However, Stroud was able to keep his birds and his canary-selling business until it was discovered, several years later, that some of the equipment Stroud had requested for his lab was in fact being used to create alcohol with a home-made
still.
Alcatraz Initially, Stroud had a close relationship with his mother. She helped him with legal proceedings on many occasions, even managing to elicit sympathy from the president over her son's death sentence. Stroud kept busy with his bird enterprise and had numerous bird-loving
pen-pals. He started a regular correspondence with a woman named Della Mae Jones, a bird researcher, resulting in her move to
Kansas in 1931 and starting a business with Stroud, selling his medicines. Stroud's mother strongly disapproved of the relationship and moved away from the Leavenworth area. She also argued against her son's application for parole, which became a major obstacle in his attempts to be released from the prison system.
The book and film According to those who knew Stroud while he was in prison, the mild-mannered characterization of him, as presented in Gaddis's book and the subsequent film was largely fiction. In
Full Circle with Michael Palin, one of his fellow prisoners said, "He was a jerk. He was a guy that thrived on chaos, turmoil, upheaval. He liked other people to be involved in these kind of things, but he was never a participant." When asked by Palin what he thought of the movie, he replied, "Fantasy." Some have challenged the claim that Stroud's transfer to Alcatraz was due to some of the equipment he requested being used to make alcoholic beverages (which was depicted in the film though not shown as the reason for his transfer). There were also allegations of sadism and pedophilia which were raised by short stories allegedly written by Stroud and submitted to magazines for possible publication.
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