George DeVincenzi spent seven years guarding some of America’s most dangerous criminals, said John O’Connor in the Financial Times. The former Navy engineer started working as a jail guard at Alcatraz in 1950, when he was 24 years old. “I arrived at 9 a.m., and by 9:30 a.m. I had witnessed my first murder,” he says. “It was in the barbershop, and one inmate, Freddy Lee Thomas, was giving another—his lover—a haircut. All of a sudden Thomas went after the other guy with a pair of shears. He got him in the heart and lungs. That was my introduction to Alcatraz. They went to electric clippers after that.” DeVincenzi soon discovered that the jail’s most infamous residents were among its best behaved. “I knew ‘the Birdman of Alcatraz,’ Robert Stroud, very well. He was a psychopath and a murderer, but I used to play checkers with him through the cell bars. He was very good, I don’t think I ever beat him. George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, the kidnapper, was [also] a model prisoner.” DeVincenzi left the Rock in 1957 for a better job, and now gives tours of the island prison. “An ex-convict named Robert ‘Cold Blue’ Luke works with me sometimes,” he says. “He was at Alcatraz for bank robbery while I was a guard. Now we’re pretty good friends.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.