Subs created by: David Coleman.
On this dead files special investigation...
Alcatraz is the most famous prison in the world.
Riots, murders, suicides... where do I start?
Pushing.
Violent men in life...
Pushing people down.
Are usually violent men in death.
- Down what? - The stairs.
It hasn't been a prison for almost 50 years.
I felt a real sharp grab on my shoulder.
But it still has an effect on people that visit.
I don't know what it was in this room, but it just hit me hard.
Oh. I feel sick.
I have no idea what I'm walking into.
He was an arsonist.
We're headed into the one place where everybody else tried to escape.
Holy crap.
My name is Amy Allan.
There's something down there.
I see dead people.
He doesn't want me back there.
I speak to dead people...
She's pissed.
And they speak to me...
She doesn't like the people who live here.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
Someone did hang themselves here.
- Where? - There.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Dischiavi. I'm a retired New York City homicide Detective.
Did you want to kill him?
And I know every person, every house, has secrets.
She did die in this house.
It's my job to reveal them.
Would you be surprised if there were bodies in this basement?
No.
But Steve and I never speak...
We never communicate during an investigation...
Until the very end...
Not good.
When we uncover if it's safe for you to stay...
Will it get worse?
Or time to get out.
- Oh, yes. - Whew.
This is definitely a first for Amy and me.
Normally, Amy doesn't know anything about our location
until the end of our investigation.
This time we had to break the rules.
Because the case we're investigating,
happened inside the most famous prison in the world...
Alcatraz.
Last week, I got a call from a guy named Bob Davis.
38 years ago, something happened to him on Alcatraz Island,
that has freaked him out his entire life.
So I've arranged for us to meet at the prison,
to see if we can come up with some answers for him after all these years.
Normally, Amy doesn't know anything
beforehand about the place we're investigating.
But obviously, we knew we were going to Alcatraz.
Inside, I still covered any photos or displays
with information that may influence her.
What's going on?
Lots of yelling over in here.
I feel sick.
Sometimes when I walk into a location,
the dead people there make me feel their physical pain.
This place was worse than most.
[Bleep].
Holy crap. Okay, just a sec.
Oh.
[Bleep].
In 1963, Alcatraz shut down.
Then nine years later, they opened it up for public tours.
But not every visitor leaves the island with
the kind of memories they were expecting.
- So, Bob, this is D Block... - Mm hmm.
Right? This is part of the tour you were on?
Right. Yeah. That was it. That was, uh, solitary confinement.
Okay, so what happened here?
Well, when I was 13 years old, I came here on a day tour with my mom and dad.
Park Ranger stopped here, and when he asked if anybody was willing to volunteer
to go in one of the cells and see what the prisoners used to experience
when they were put in there and locked down.
So I walked back into the back corner, the back left-hand corner.
And they closed the, uh, inside bars, then the outside door here.
And then once that's closed off, it's completely black in there.
I heard, solitary confinement, [Bleep].
You know, nothing... nothing, uh...
Nothing good about that.
They lock you in, and they close the door, and it's pitch-black.
Right. The ranger asked me if I was okay back there.
And I said, yeah, I'm fine. You know, no problems.
And then right about that same time, I felt a real sharp grab on my shoulder.
And I hear, uh, simultaneously, uh, "you're mine" in my ear.
And you know how somebody, when they talk in your ear, you can...
If they really lean in and, you know, say it in your ear,
you can kinda feel the hairs on your ear vibrate.
And you weren't... you don't think you got pulled on anything in there?
You know, it didn't feel like, uh, a snagging or anything like that.
Um, it... it felt like a definite human grasp to me.
- Yeah. - Okay, and you were in there alone?
Yeah. When I came out, I didn't tell anybody, not even my family.
I was kind of embarrassed and shaken up and didn't know,
you know, what to make of it at all.
And, uh, touching, pulling hair.
Somebody's a hair puller.
He touches, pokes, more like a poke.
And he is...
Torturing the living, basically.
It sounds like you really haven't come quite to terms about what happened.
When that happened.
You'd better believe, you know, it shook me up.
I hear that, you know, people talk about,
you know, maybe there's inhuman entities and things like that.
And I, you know, I don't know if it's that, if it's just a prisoner that,
died tragically in there, and he just didn't like me in his jail cell.
If somebody annoys him, he has to work up...
This energy.
And poke and/or pull the hair.
I see a man who has a blue shirt on.
I only see the back of him, and he's getting...
Ouch. He's getting bumped, pushed.
Putting his hands and...
And then...
Some people think...
That he was a Satanist.
He would, like, talk about demons and [Bleep] like that.
He would have weird dreams and stuff.
And I'm thinking now, they think that might be true because...
Of what he can do.
After this happened and up until now, do you have problems walking into dark rooms?
There was a lot of years where, yeah,
I didn't sleep well, like, with the lights out.
I mean, as years have gone by, it seems like you're still looking for answers.
That point in my life, prior to walking in there,
I had no belief in anything paranormal or anything of that nature.
After that happened, I fully knew that...
There was something bigger than what I understood.
Through my... the course of my researching and trying to figure out what that was,
you know, I have gone into many different haunted locations and
do hear, you know, voices sometimes.
What do you think that will do for you if we do give you some answers?
I don't know how that would that impact me.
My whole life I really have, you know, went, what was that?
Most of what I know about Alcatraz, I learned from watching movies.
But I need facts.
Before it became part of the National Park service in 1972.
More than 1,500 convicts came to Alcatraz in its 29 years.
Including serial killers and some of the biggest names in organized crime.
This is where they sent the worst of the worst.
28 people died inside. Eight of them were murdered.
I start searching for the names of the dead,
but I'm sidetracked by something really strange.
Other visitors to the island have experienced exactly what Bob did.
And in the same exact spot.
So what happened that day when you came?
We took the tour. I stopped to look at the pictures
on the wall of the inmates that were occupied here.
As I turned, I get a push on my shoulder.
I turn and look, there's nobody behind me because I'm up against the wall.
And in my right ear, I hear, "got a light"?
He says that the guy uh...
When he was alive and he was outside, this poker...
The hair puller...
He used to set fires.
On my left shoulder.
That's a pretty substantial poke.
It takes him a lot of energy and focus,
you know, to get enough physical strength to...
Be able to physically mess with the living.
He... he was an arsonist.
He worshiped the Devil. That was the rumor.
Who is talking about him?
Stan.
Mm. You think you can...
Uh, I'm not gonna push this guy anymore because...
He doesn't want to talk anymore.
He... he was an arsonist.
He worshiped the Devil. That was the rumor.
Who is talking about him?
Stan.
The dead are a lot like the living.
Sometimes they'll talk more about each other.
Than they'll reveal about themselves.
Right now, I'm being guided through the prison by a man who calls himself Stan.
He's telling me all about the inmates who refuse to speak with me.
He... he was an arsonist.
He worshiped the Devil. That was the rumor.
Two men who have never met...
Have almost identical stories that happened in Cell Block D.
I need to find out more about this place...
And, specifically, what happened in cell 14-D.
If you can, I need you to kinda separate prison legend from fact.
And if you can give me a brief history of the prison?
Alcatraz started as a military base.
It was in 1859.
That they started moving prisoners out to Alcatraz.
Alcatraz always has been for the worst prisoners...
First for military prisoners, and then eventually when it became a federal prison.
Its intimidation factor was very significant.
It closed as a federal penitentiary in 1963.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy said that we were spending
way, way too much money on an island prison.
That really was past its prime.
What can you tell me about Cell Block D?
Cell Block D was where they housed the worst of the worst.
The hardest time you could do was definitely in Cell Block D.
What can you tell me about D-14?
D-14 is the one that everyone talks about.
A prisoner was strangled to death in D-14.
Interesting.
There are rumors that the prisoner was strangled by a Demon.
There are rumors always about Alcatraz.
But a man was murdered in D-14.
Yes.
I'm headed back to Alcatraz to meet with another guy who
claims he had an unexplained experience at the prison.
And it happened just a few steps from where Bob and Sam had their encounters.
Well, the wife and I decided to come here to Alcatraz.
I noticed this cutoff, and as I came in...
All of a sudden, I was just overwhelmed with sadness.
I don't know what it was.
Uh, a lot of...
Depression and despair.
And just...
Like...
Deep, deep, deep despair.
- Were you crying? - Uh, almost, almost.
And that's not an emotion I really want to have, you know?
I don't... cry.
You don't strike me as the type of guy that would get emotional...
- Out of nowhere. - No, I don't.
Uh, so... and you have no explanation for it?
No, I don't.
Grown men being grabbed and pushed, hearing strange voices and crying for no reason.
Rumors of demons killing inmates...
If I'm gonna help Bob figure this out,
I need to speak with someone who was at Alcatraz when it was still a prison.
You did time on Alcatraz.
- Right. - Uh, what years?
I was there from, uh, '54 to '59.
And this is my mug shot.
What... how did you wind up in jail?
Me and another guy was, uh, robbing banks, and we got caught.
Bob, what happens when you first get on the island?
Uh, well, you go up, go in the shower room, and they, uh...
Uh, strip you, take your shackles off, and you get a shower.
What was life like inside the prison?
It was regimented. Uh, you got up in the morning at 6:30.
You had about 20 minutes to get your cell in order,
and then you went in to, uh, breakfast.
Uh, you went in line, stayed in line, didn't talk or smoke.
And then when you were done, you followed the guy back and up to your cell.
And then you went out to work, and you followed somebody and lined up.
They had 12 counts a day.
Like, march... marching.
Marching men. Men marching.
Pushing. Pushing people down.
- Down what? - The stairs.
Pushing, pushing, pushing...
Down the stairs.
Uh, I learned a long time ago, you don't, uh, fight the guards.
You can't win.
If you did something wrong, of course, then they were gonna
take care of you and put you over in the hole or D Block.
Right.
The guards were...
Worse than they were, uh, is what they're saying.
Because...
They did some very, very, very, very bad, nasty...
Somewhat disgusting things to the inmates...
Here.
They did some very, very, very, very bad, nasty...
Somewhat disgusting things to the inmates...
Here.
They would, uh, you know, make it so they couldn't eat.
They, uh, would make their food bad or something,
uh, you know, but it would just be, you know it wasn't, like,
all of the people here, you know, couldn't eat, but, uh, you know,
like, if they got mad at you, you know, you're screwed.
The thing is, because...
People were bad, they... they were... they were treated so bad...
So badly here.
- Well, what about D Block? - D Block... segregation.
Uh, they built that in 1941 just for that purpose,
and they put six cells down there.
They were dark holes where they had a solid door and they'd,
put you in there and turn the light out.
All steel, and it was dark.
Did you ever do time there?
I was 29 days in one of those dark holes.
So they stripped me and searched me, and the Captain said,
"you don't need any clothes, get in there".
Well, they're... some of them are naked. Like, a bunch of naked men at once...
And some are like this...
When they've been bad.
They opened the door in the morning.
Uh, you got bread and water and, every third day, one... a meal made of, uh...
Potatoes, peas, and a raw onion chopped up, and a spoon to eat it with and water.
So that's how I kept track of time.
Robert spent most of his years at Alcatraz inside a 4x9-foot cell.
He's seen a lot, but he never saw anyone die.
So I tracked down a former guard who was caught in the middle of a brutal attack.
I got initiated in the first 30 minutes of my first day.
They put me in the barbershop, and inmate Freddie Lee Thomas is the barber.
He's cutting inmate Joseph Barsock's hair.
Okay.
All of a sudden, the customer who was getting his hair cut, Barsock,
jumped out of his chair, and Freddie Lee Thomas went after him with the scissors.
Got him in the heart, the lungs, and the throat.
And I landed on top of both of 'em, only he kept giving him the scissors.
So did the guy die?
He was dead within the next 20 minutes, and he landed in a big pool of blood.
A rapist guy. Like, I think he raped and killed a lot.
Two men are fighting.
One was stabbed, was... was... was killed.
And I'm, like, I'm seeing, like, a red comb, like, an old red comb...
And then I'm feeling, like...
Pain. Like, it's almost like...
Like... this.
Oh, and it does... it hurts.
Oh.
Ow. Well, I'm getting a pain right here, and then it makes my arm hurt.
A sharp pain right here. And then my arm hurts.
That's Joseph Barsock, the deceased.
He was like, Joey said...
Which one's Joey?
The one...
Who died.
There's craziness going on here...
And I'm getting homosexuality.
Freddie Lee Thomas... a very strange thing happened.
He said, I love you, and he went down and he kissed him on the cheek.
- This is after he stabs him to death? - Yeah.
There were lovers, homosexual affairs.
Okay. Did you get hurt?
I got cut, but not bad.
With a pair of scissors, they kinda sliced me down a little, but yeah.
Consequently, that was the end of the barber shears in the barbershop.
Alcatraz was full of maniacs and murderers, the worst of the worst.
And I found a guy whose job it was,
to transport those convicts to the island for the first time.
Maybe he can help me put a name or a face,
to whoever's tormenting people like Bob and Sam.
They were scared.
They didn't know what they were going into when they seen that rock,
maybe all shrouded in fog, and it just scared the hell out of 'em.
Did you have any run-ins with any dangerous prisoners?
Yes. The Birdman was a very, very dangerous convict.
They certified him as, uh, a psychotic.
He was in this big cell by himself.
There was, uh, some rapist here, too.
- What do you mean? - He's like a monkey.
That's what he acts like. Like a monkey.
The guy is, like...
He was just, like, sick.
Like, I think they... they took him away.
They were like, [Bleep], you know, this guy is, like, really crazy...
So they... they removed him, because the guys around him hated him.
And they wanted to kill him because he was disgusting.
When he would come out and take a bath, they'd lock the other convicts up.
- He was that dangerous? - Well, he would try to rape 'em, yeah.
When he would come out and take a bath, they'd lock the other convicts up.
- He was that dangerous? - Well, he would try to rape 'em, yeah.
All I remember about the Birdman Robert Stroud,
is what I knew from the Burt Lancaster movie.
That showed him as some kooky old man who liked birds.
I was surprised to find out that the real Birdman was a pretty sick individual.
A rapist guy.
Like, I think he raped and killed a lot, and, like, seriously, the guy is, like...
Yeah, he was just, like, frickin' crazy.
Well, he would, uh, act like an animal.
He killed one in Alaska, one in McNeil Island.
And then two and then an officer in, uh, in Leavenworth.
He was a very aggressive convict.
Patrick got me wondering about the Birdman of Alcatraz.
So I'm going to do some research on my own.
It sounds like Stroud was a nightmare for guards and inmates.
Everything I find points to Robert Stroud being a homicidal maniac.
But in my research of the Birdman.
I'm surprised to find that another famous Alcatraz prisoner,
was also locked up in D Block.
Kristine, what can you tell me about Al Capone?
This guy spent his whole time at Cell Block D.
He actually did not die at Alcatraz, but it was some of the roughest time he ever did.
No luxuries, nobody bringing him anything.
Supposedly, in other prisons, he had... every guard was on the payroll.
And he kept big stashes of cash in his cell.
That didn't happen at Alcatraz.
This guy here. Here.
Who's this?
Uh, this is Stan.
That's a nice bed with nice sheets.
A nice pillow, and a nice blanket.
- It wasn't like that. - How was it?
Um... Um...
Just...
Little... little... a few springs...
Mm... some round...
And metal.
Spring, spring, spring.
A little mattress.
Not really... not much in it.
Very uncomfortable.
Oh, he looks nice.
A nice suit. He's got his hat on.
He's got his hair done.
It might seem strange that...
An inmate is wearing a suit.
But Stan still sees himself that way,
and that's how he wants to represent himself.
He's got a belly. He's stocky, though, you know?
It's not all fat, he says.
Well, he did a lot.
Of what?
Robbing people.
Gambling joints, you know, wherever there was money...
A lot of it.
That's what he says... money collecting.
It wasn't really robbery. It was owed to them.
Did he die here?
No.
So why is... why is he here?
He doesn't know. He says, well...
You know... I'm in hell.
I'm in hell. This is... this is... this is hell.
Two people stood out most to me during my walk.
I'm going to sketch Stan because he took me around Alcatraz,
and he showed me different people and events that he wanted me to see.
This man... he's got long... long eyelashes.
Kind of full lips.
You know, a kind of round face.
I'm also going to sketch the man the other inmates called the monkey man.
Because he was so dominant during my walk.
He was a...
Like, thin wiry...
Petite male.
He had very bad skin on both sides of his cheeks.
Really bad.
Okay. How are we doing?
Can you tell me if that looks like the person?
Yeah, that looks like him.
Well, Bob, it's good to see you again. Uh, this is Amy, my partner.
- Hi, Amy. Nice to meet you. - Hi. Nice to meet you.
Bob came to Alcatraz when he was 13 years old.
And, uh, had an experience that basically changed his life.
I felt a real sharp grab on my shoulder.
And I hear, uh, simultaneously, uh, "you're mine".
I don't want to tell you just yet what happened with Bob,
because I don't want it to influence anything you've
encountered during your walk, so we'll wait for that.
How did it start with you when you got there?
When I went into the building...
There was a lot of violence...
And killing.
Alcatraz had guys that have actually tried to escape from other prisons.
Or murdered other prisoners and were sent there.
So it wasn't just a regular prison, it was maximum security.
And it had the worst of the worst in the country.
I also, um, got, in one certain area, a lot of depression.
Very, very sad here.
I interviewed a guy.
He said he walked into this one section of this enclosed area.
And out of nowhere, he felt like he was about to cry.
He got to the point where he was just about to burst out crying,
and he knew he had to get out of that section.
And as soon as he walked out, he felt better.
All right. So how did the rest of your walk go?
I encountered a really big fight between two guys.
And one of them stabbed the other one.
I know that I picked up on...
Homosexuality?
With the guy getting stabbed.
There's craziness going on here.
And I'm getting homosexuality.
You know, I kept getting the name Joey.
And I was also seeing a red comb.
He was like, Joey said...
Which one's Joey?
The one...
Who died.
I interviewed a former prison guard.
His first day on the job, he got assigned to the barbershop.
Where you're describing where you felt that about homosexuality.
It's about 10 feet from where the homicide happened.
Wow.
What happened was, this guy Freddie Lee Thomas...
He worked at the barbershop, and he was a lover with this guy Joseph Barsock.
So Freddie Lee and Joseph get into a fight in the barbershop,
and Freddie Lee stabs Joseph multiple times and kills him...
Wow.
But then Freddie Lee Thomas bends down, kisses Joseph Barsock,
and says, I love you.
During my walk, I also came across a guy,
that the other dead people were calling the monkey man.
This is the guy who would make noise in his cell constantly.
He was, uh, thin and white, and he would keep his hair pretty short or bald.
He came from somewhere else, like the Midwest, Kansas or something.
There was, uh, some rapist here, too.
- What do you mean? - He's like a monkey.
That's what he acts like. Like a monkey.
They were like, [Bleep], you know, this guy is, like, really crazy...
So they... they removed him.
Is that who you sketched?
Yes.
All right. Does the name Robert Stroud mean anything?
Wow.
All right. Does the name Robert Stroud mean anything?
No.
How about the Birdman of Alcatraz?
Sorry. No.
I'm really not surprised that Amy doesn't know about the Birdman of Alcatraz.
If I hadn't seen the movie when I was a kid,
I probably wouldn't know who he was either.
Oh, my gosh.
- That's pretty amazing. - The same guy.
Mm-hmm.
Wow. Okay.
I mean, it's pretty uncanny.
Now Robert Stroud came from Leavenworth, Kansas.
He was there for murder. They thought he was crazy then.
They brought him to Alcatraz, where he exhibited the same psychotic behavior.
He was isolated from everybody.
He was so dangerous, all the other prisoners had to be put away...
Before he could be let out.
He was obviously dangerous. He was crazy.
Did he talk to you directly?
No. Stan, another dead guy there...
Was the person who took me around and was talking about...
- Monkey man? - Monkey man or the Birdman, whoever,
and, um, that's how I saw him, was through Stan's eyes.
Tell me about Stan.
He feels like this is his... his hell.
This is his own hell.
He says, well...
You know... I'm in hell.
He is dressed very well, though, for it being his own hell.
He's got a nice suit on, got his nice shoes and his nice outfit.
His hair is nice and neat and...
- You did a sketch of Stan? - Yes, I did.
- That's Stan? - Mm hmm.
Another guy that did time on Alcatraz that I think he looks like...
Wow.
You know who Al Capone is?
I mean, this is the guy who was with me.
I had an idea of who Al Capone was, but I didn't know what he looked like.
Or that he spent time in Alcatraz.
I also don't know why he lied to me about who he was.
The thing is, with Al Capone, everywhere else he went in the jail system.
He lived a cushy life because he was able to pay off the guards.
He couldn't pay off the guards in Alcatraz.
He was a charismatic guy. Everybody loved him.
You know, he was considered the dapper don back in the day.
- Mm hmm. - He was a bootlegger. He was a gangster.
Gangsters are known to use aliases...
- Mm hmm. - Especially back in those days.
And in 1929, Capone was arrested at the Stanley Theatre,
in Philadelphia and sentenced to a year in jail.
- Mm hmm. - Oh.
Some say that that was the beginning of the end for him.
Probably now is a good time to talk about D Block...
Mm-hmm.
So, Bob, if you can tell Amy what happened to you...
I came, uh, to Alcatraz when I was 13 years old with my family.
We finally stopped in front of cell 14-D.
The Park Ranger asked if anybody would volunteer to go into the jail cell.
So I volunteered, and I stood there with my back kinda to the wall.
So he closed the bars and then the door,
and then by that time, it's just pitch-black.
And right about that time, I got grabbed on my shoulder,
and whispered into my ear, "you're mine".
I interviewed a guy named Sam Neil.
The guy got poked, and there was nobody behind him, and he got startled.
But he felt it through three layers of clothing.
Oh.
Yeah, that's where, um, Stan told me about the...
Inmate he thought was a Satanist...
Wow.
And he can do things that the other dead people there can't do.
There was an inmate in that cell who was screaming that there was a Demon in here.
He was screaming to get out, and the rumor was,
the next day, they found him strangled to death.
Oh, my gosh. Wow.
This is why Bob came to us, because this has been eating at ya for all these years.
Mm-hmm. That's obviously not somebody you want following you around.
Does he have anything to worry about?
No.
They're stuck.
They're stuck right there.
They're stuck in there. They are stuck in there.
The entity that touched...
Bob is stuck there.
I don't know why he's stuck there,
but I know that he feels like he cannot leave Alcatraz.
The visitors wouldn't have anything to worry about?
Well, you know, they could be pushed, their hair pulled,
- or, you know... - Yeah.
That can happen.
So does any of this stuff make sense?
It gave me more insight as to maybe who's in there,
and I think it makes me feel better that she said, he's there, and he stays there.
Yeah, he can't go anywhere, so that's really good.
I don't know who grabbed Bob, because he wouldn't reveal himself to me.
But I know that it was not the Birdman.