Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), popularly known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was an American murderer and federal prisoner who became an ornithologist and author while imprisoned at Leavenworth. He was one of the most notorious criminals in American history.
Born in Seattle, Washington, Stroud ran away from his abusive father as a teenager and later worked as a pimp in the Alaska Territory. In 1909, he killed a bartender and was convicted of manslaughter, receiving a 12-year sentence at McNeil Island. While imprisoned, he developed a reputation for violence, culminating in the fatal stabbing of a prison guard at Leavenworth in 1916. Convicted of first-degree murder and initially sentenced to death, he was granted presidential clemency, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in solitary confinement. At Leavenworth, he became known for raising canaries, published two books on avian diseases, and made several important contributions to avian pathology. In 1942 he was transferred to Alcatraz after prison officials discovered he had been using equipment supplied for his bird research to manufacture alcohol. There he was no longer permitted to keep birds and spent the rest of his life in federal custody. In 1959, with his health failing, he was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, where he died in 1963.
The 1955 biography Birdman of Alcatraz by Thomas E. Gaddis and its 1962 film adaptation portrayed Stroud sympathetically. Former inmates described him as far more dangerous and unpleasant than the fictionalized portrayal.
Stroud was born in Seattle, the eldest child of Elizabeth Jane (née McCartney, 1860–1938) and Benjamin Franklin Stroud (1858–1928). His mother had two daughters from a previous marriage. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and Stroud ran away from home at the age of 13. His prison record on occupations note: riveter and heater one year; waiter and cook 1½ years; peanut vendor 6 months.
At 18, in Cordova, Alaska, Stroud met 36-year-old Kitty O'Brien, a prostitute and dance hall entertainer, for whom he pimped in Juneau. On January 18, 1909, barman F. K. "Charlie" von Dahmer allegedly failed to pay O'Brien for her services and beat her. One report is that von Dahmer allegedly paid O'Brien only $2.00 instead of the customary fee of $10.00.
Stroud confronted von Dahmer, and after a struggle shot him to death. He then robbed von Dahmer of whatever money he had and gave it to O'Brien. Stroud surrendered himself, claiming self-defense on the grounds that von Dahmer had a pistol. According to police reports, he knocked von Dahmer unconscious and then shot him.
As Alaska was then a United States territory, Stroud was prosecuted in the federal courts, where he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington.
Stroud was one of the most violent prisoners at McNeil Island, frequently feuding with staff and other inmates, and was prone to illness. He reportedly stabbed a fellow prisoner who reported him for stealing food, assaulted a hospital orderly who had reported him to prison administration for attempting to obtain morphine through threats, and reportedly stabbed an inmate.
In 1912, Stroud was sentenced to an additional six months for the attacks and transferred from McNeil Island to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas Inmate #8154. On March 26, 1916, he stabbed Corrections officer Andrew Turner, a guard at the prison, through the heart after Turner reprimanded him for a minor rule violation that would have prevented a visit from Stroud's younger brother. Turner was working the day shift and was assigned to the dining room for the noon meal. Stroud asked permission to speak with Officer Turner. He asked Turner if he had reported Stroud's conduct, as Officer Turner had taken his name and number the previous day. Officer Turner informed Stroud that he had not reported him. Nevertheless, Stroud then stabbed Officer Turner once in the heart using a sharpened case knife in the presence of about 1,500 other inmates in the dining area. In 1918, after three trials, Stroud was sentenced to be hanged. Stroud showed no remorse for killing Turner, writing "...the guard took ill and died all of a sudden. He had a heart condition - puncture of the heart - there was a knife hole in it." In an uncommon gesture, inmates requested permission from the Warden to donate $400 to the family of Officer Turner.
Stroud's mother appealed to President Woodrow Wilson, who commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. Leavenworth's warden, T. W. Morgan, strongly opposed the decision given Stroud's reputation for violence. Morgan persuaded the President to stipulate that since Stroud was originally sentenced to await his death sentence in solitary confinement, those conditions should prevail until the halted execution could be carried out. President Wilson's Attorney General, Alexander Mitchell Palmer, saw to it that Stroud would spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement.
While at Leavenworth in 1920, Stroud found a nest with three injured sparrows in the prison yard, and raised them to adulthood. Prisoners were sometimes allowed to buy canaries, and Stroud had started to add to his collection. He occupied his time raising and caring for his birds, which he could sell for supplies and to help support his mother. According to Stroud, he used a "razor blade and nail for tools" and made his first bird cage out of wooden crates.
Soon thereafter, Leavenworth's administration changed, and William Biddle took over as warden. Impressed with the possibility of presenting Leavenworth as a progressive rehabilitation penitentiary, Biddle 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. He also wrote two books, the 60,000-word treatise Diseases of Canaries (1933), which was smuggled out of Leavenworth, and a later edition, Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds (1943), with updated, specific information. 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.
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. Stroud was so involved in his business that this alone required a full-time prison secretary. Additionally, most of the time, his birds were permitted to fly freely within his cells, and because of the great number of birds he kept, his cell was filthy.
In 1931, an attempt to force Stroud to discontinue his business and get rid of his birds failed after Stroud and one of his mail correspondents, a bird researcher from Indiana named Della Mae Jones, made his story known to newspapers and magazines. A massive letter campaign and a 50,000-signature petition sent to President Herbert Hoover resulted in Stroud being permitted to keep his birds. Despite prison overcrowding, he was even given a second cell to house them. However, his letter-writing privileges were greatly curtailed. Jones and Stroud grew so close that she moved to Kansas in 1931 and started a business with him, selling his avian medicines.
Prison officials, fed up with Stroud's activities and their attendant publicity, intensified their efforts to transfer him from Leavenworth. Stroud discovered a Kansas law that forbade the transfer of prisoners married in Kansas. To this end, he married Jones by proxy, which infuriated the prison's administrators, who would not allow him to correspond with his wife.
Prison officials were not the only ones perturbed with Stroud's marriage; his mother was also incensed. They had a close relationship, but Elizabeth Stroud strongly disapproved of the marriage to Jones, believing women were nothing but trouble for her son. Whereas previously she had been a strong advocate for her son, helping him with legal battles, she now argued against his application for parole and became a major obstacle in his attempts to be released from the prison system. After moving away from Leavenworth she had no further contact with him. She died in 1938.