Boarman’s eyes were open, but glazed over by the seawater as Brest tried to maintain his grip on his accomplice’s limp body. Boarman was bleeding profusely from what appeared to be a bullet wound behind his left ear. The Prison Launch McDowell pulled alongside the two inmates, with Officer Sutter aiming his muzzle at Brest’s head. Brest struggled to hang on to Boarman’s belt, but as the officers attempted to latch it with a boat hook, the belt broke, and Boarman slowly disappeared into the green murky depths. Brest was pulled into the launch and wrapped in blankets, then returned to the island. He was immediately taken to the prison hospital and examined. He had sustained only a minor bullet wound to his elbow.

“Little Alcatraz” is seen just beyond the buoy.

Hamilton had been able to swim to “Little Alcatraz” using the large wood plank as a float, but when he heard the bullets whizzing past his head he tried to keep himself submerged for as long as he could hold his breath. He apparently clung to the small rocks of “Little Alcatraz,” and then swam back towards the island, lifting his head out of the water only long enough to take a deep breath. Hamilton made his way back into the island cave where Hunter was hiding. Warden Johnston had already assembled a team of three officers to explore the rocky shoreline in an attempt to locate the stranded inmates. Associate Warden Ed Miller walked the island perimeter, while a boat with a powerful spotlight covered the officers from the water. Standing near the mouth of the cave, Miller noticed a blood smear on one of the rocks. He yelled into the small cavern, demanding that any hiding inmates surrender or be fired upon. When he received no response, he decided to fire a round from his colt .45 pistol into the dark void. Fred Hunter, who was hiding behind some tires and nearly neck deep in water, immediately raised his arms to surrender. Unknown to Miller, Hamilton was still in hiding under several tires.

Officer Johnson had reported back to the Warden that he had fired upon at least three inmates and that Hamilton had probably met his death, as Boarman had. The prison launch patrolled the waters around the island for hours, but when there was no sign of Hamilton, Johnston started to feel confident that the inmate had perished in the downpour of gunfire alongside his accomplice. He was so convinced of this that he released a statement to the press reading in part: “Hamilton is dead. He was shot, and we saw him go under.”

Hamilton would remain in hiding until April 16 ^thbarricaded far back into the cave area. After several days in hiding and many close calls where he was nearly discovered by officers searching inside the cave entrance, freezing and hungry, he decided to seek shelter in the old Electric Shop. Captain Weinhold, who had returned to reexamine the scene of the escape, found Hamilton curled in a fetal position, weak from hunger and exposure. He was admitted to the prison hospital and treated for a multitude of injuries. Hamilton was then moved into the D Block segregation unit, and would remain there until September 1, 1945. Hunter would be released back into general prison population on January 22, 1945. Brest remained in D Block segregation until May 21, 1944.

A letter to the Warden from Harold Brest, asking that he be transferred from Alcatraz.

Hamilton was released from Alcatraz in August of 1952, and was sent back to Leavenworth. He was eventually set free, and returned to Dallas on July 2, 1958. While at Leavenworth, he had enrolled in Otto Lang’s religious training program, designed to help participants become mentors for other inmates. Following his release he started an organization named ConAid, which was eventually credited with assisting over 1,200 inmates. On December 23, 1966, Hamilton received a full Presidential Pardon from Texas native President Lyndon B. Johnson. Hamilton died of natural causes in 1984, at his home in Dallas, Texas. During a lecture he gave on the anniversary of his Alcatraz escape in 1961, when asked what he had learned from his escapades in crime, he stated simply: ...“Happiness comes from within; not from without. Crime always leads to prison, and prison is a void of living bodies in a state of death. Lucky for me, Alcatraz became my birth place and not my grave.”

A closing note on the jacket of Boarman’s inmate file.

ESCAPE ATTEMPT #8

Date:

August 7, 1943

Inmates:

Huron Ted Walters

Location:

Prison Laundry

In August of 1943, Alcatraz was suffering from personnel shortages as a result of the War efforts. The prison industries were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of military clothing being delivered for laundering, and there were barely enough officers to cover the critical posts. Many of the officers assigned to the industries were required to alternate their rounds, sometimes leaving certain posts unattended for brief periods. These circumstances would be contributing factors in a Saturday morning escape attempt by Huron Ted Walters.

Huron Ted Walters

Huron Ted Walters (known to many as “Terrible Ted”) was a habitual criminal and former crime partner of Floyd Hamilton, another Alcatraz inmate. Born on October 25, 1913 in Wylie, Texas, Walters was the youngest of three children. His father died when he was only two years old, and his mother remarried two years later with a gentleman employed as a machinist. Ted’s home life was considered fairly normal, and at seventeen years of age he left his parents’ forty-acre ranch to pursue a career as a truck driver. He immediately began getting involved in criminal activities, and was soon arrested for stealing automobiles. In 1936, after being sentenced to serve time for auto theft, he successfully escaped from a Texas jail, and continued his criminal escapades.

Walters, Floyd Hamilton, and another accomplice named Jack Winn were involved in a series of robberies with targets ranging from banks, stores and beer taverns; to a Coca-ColaBottling Company plant. Their crimes spanned several states, and involved several police chases, as well as other dire scenarios. On August 13, 1938, the day following the Coca-ColaBottling Company robbery, the trio held up a salesman near Weldon, Arkansas, and stole his 1938 green Plymouth Sedan. They were spotted near DeQueen, Arkansas, and after an intense gun battle with Arkansas State Highway Patrolmen, they disappeared into the remote woods on foot. Both men were captured eight days later in Dallas, Texas, when Winn who had been arrested several days earlier, identified his accomplices to the police. Walters had suffered a minor gunshot wound to his right thigh, and Hamilton was also found to have sustained injuries.

On November 3, 1938, both men were sentenced to thirty years in prison for their crimes. When Walters was later questioned by FBI Agents he would be quoted as saying that his only regret was that he had not killed a few of the officers before being apprehended. Walters and Hamilton were both sent to the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas on November 5, 1938. Ever-true to their chosen lifestyle, they would remain outlaws within the prison walls. Associate Warden C. J. Shuttleworth, who had formerly held the same position at Alcatraz, documented an escape plot that would earn the two inmates a cross-country train ride to Alcatraz. He wrote in Walter’s conduct record: