Wednesday, August 22, 1934

Straightened up the house a little bit. It is not quite so hot today.

Alcatraz Island
Prisoner Delivery - August 22, 1934

Al Capone arrived on the island on August 22, 1934 along with 52 other convicts from Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Georgia. He had several jobs on the island including sweeping the cellhouse and working in the laundry. Capone was not popular on Alcatraz; he received no special privileges, but his notoriety made him a target for other cons. Capone got into a fight with another inmate in the recreation yard and was placed in isolation for eight days. While Capone was working in the prison basement, an inmate standing in line waiting for a haircut stabbed him with a pair of shears. Capone eventually became symptomatic from syphilis, a disease he had been carrying for years but had avoided treating. In early 1939 the authorities transferred him to Federal Correction Institute Terminal Island in Southern California to serve out the remainder of his 11-year sentence.

Wednesday, July 26, 1933

Pauline and Gweyn and Baby Doll were over. Mother is up today. Today was girl's day at the swimming pool but I didn't get to go.

                                                      

George "Machine Gun" Kelly being led from the
Shelby County, TN, jail for his trip to Oklahoma
City, where his and Kathryn's trial was held

Continued from July 25 ...

In October 1933, George and Katherine Kelly were convicted and sentenced to life
imprisonment. Their accomplices were tried separately but received the same
sentence. The trials were held at the Post Office, Courthouse and Federal
Office Building in Oklahoma City. Eventually all chages against Kathryn
Kelly were dropped, and she was released in released from prison in 1958.

The kidnapping of Urschel and the two trials that resulted were historic in several ways:
 1) they were the first, last, and only federal criminal trials in the United States in
which moving cameras were allowed to film; 2) the first kidnapping trials after the
passage of the so-called Lindbergh Law, which made kidnapping a federal crime; 
3) the first major case solved by J. Edgar Hoover's evolving and powerful FBI.
For that, and for bragging he was going to break out of Leavenworth and get
Kathryn out in time for them to spend Christmas together, Kelly got sent to
 Alcatraz; 4) the first crime in which defendants were transported by airplane.
At the time, it was the largest ransom ever paid in the United States.

George "Machine Gun" Kelly was eventually transported back to Leavenworth,
where he died of heart trouble. After she was released from prison, Kathryn
returned to Oklahoma and worked as a bookkeeper until her death.

The End (of this crime story, anyway)

Thursday, May 11, 1933

Played baseball outside in Gym today. Have a Mathematics test tomorrow. It rained and hailed, also.

Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone - 1931 mug shot
A notorious gangster who ran an organized crime syndicate in Chicago during the 1920s,
 Capone, was both charming and charitable as well as powerful and vicious. He became
an iconic figure of the successful American gangster before being convicted of income tax
evasion and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. His incarceration included a stay at Alcatraz.
In the final years of Capone's life, his mental and physical health deteriorated due to neurosyphilis.
 On January 25, 1947, he died from cardiac arrest following a stroke in Miami Beach, Florida.