Evening star., 1946-05-06
3Surviving Mutineers
At AIcatraz May Face
Murder Charges
BY the Assoeiated Press

SAN FRANCISCO, May 6.-The
FBI moved into Alcatraz today
to collect evidence against three
survivors of the half-dozen con-
victs whose desperate, vain break
for freedom brought a bloody,
36-hour siege of their cell block
and left 5 men dead and IS
wounded. Not a single prisoner
escaped.
The three may yet die-in San
Quentin's green painted gas cham
ber
There is a good chance that evil
dence will be sufficient to indict the
surviving participants for murder" :"
United States Attorney Daniel c.
Deasy asserted. If it is, he said
the death penalty will be demanded.
Despite the fact there were only
two guns in the entire group in
volved in the furious battle, he
added. where one or more partici-
pants Gn a conspiracy to escape)
actually killed some one, the others
would be part of that conspiracy
and could be charged with murder. y
The FBI is taking statements
from other prisoners as well as
from guards, Mr.. Deasy reported
and "the matter will be presented to
the Federal grand jury here"
Three Surviving Mutineers.
The three surviving participants,
Warden James A. Johnston said,
are Sam Shockley, 80, serving a
life term for kidnapping and rob-
berry in Oklahoma; Miriam Edgar
Thompson, 20, serving SO years for
kidnapping and life for killing a
Texas policeman, and Clarence
Carnes, 10, Oklahoma desperate
serving 80 years for kidnapping and
murder.
Guards broke into the last dark
utility corridor of the embattled
prison wing Saturday to find the
bodies of three others.
Bernard Coy. 46, spry, little Louis
vile bank robber who started the
uprising by clambering up to a
third-tier guards gallery and fore
ing his way into it to slug and dis
arm Guard Bert Burch, was defiant
to the last. Death caught him with
arms extended as though still grip
ping the rifle he has seized from the
guard.
The Other Dead.
Also dead in the narrow, pipe
filled passageWay were:
Joseph Paul Cretzer, 35. Los An
geleS bank robber who had assumed
command and carried on the fight
furiously, despite his quick conclu-
sion that the break had failed and
we're as far from San Francisco
as ever!"
Marvin F. Hubbard, SO, Tennessee
kidnaper, who had lived until Sat
urday morning-outlasting Coy and
Cretzer by one night.
The rifle and pistol which Coy had
Wrested from Mr.. Burch were found
beside the convicts.
Dead were two guards-one, Har-
old P. Sites, shot in a valiant early
assault attempting to free hostages;
the other, w. H. Miller, captured
unarmed and killed when the felons
turned their guns on their seven
hostages. Mr.. Miller had key to
the back door of the wing-but he
threw it into an empty cell and died
without revealing it.
IA Guards, One Prisoner Wounded.
Fourteen guards were wounded
during the siege; SO was one con-
vict, James Groves, described as "a
bystander"
Warden Johnston told newsmen
the full story of the attempted break
as he showed them, late Saturday,
the bullet-chipped, explosive-bat-
tered cell building.
Tell de trut', de whole trut' and
nuttin' but de trut, Johnston" ="
shouted one nervy convict through
the bars.
Hey, Saltwater Johnston" yelled
others, tell 'em how you starved
us for two days"
CThe nickname sprang from the
saltwater iSolution of Johnston's
grimly tight little island; and the
itaunt presumably meant meal
service had been disrupted dur
ing the long gunfight)
There were three principal rea-
sons why the break failed, Warden
Johnston reported:
Cretzer was unable to free some
of the more desperate convicts from
their cells to help in the fight; Mr.
Miller had thrown away the key to
the outside door, and they could not
release Rufus Whitley" Franklin,
Jife-term killer on whose knowledge
of the prison the convicts had great
ly depended Franklin had killed
a guard during an attempt to break
out of Alcatraz in 1886
Warden's Story of Mutiny.
q Warden Johnston gave this ac-
count of the rise and fall of the
mutiny:
Coy, an orderly, was cleaning the
floor in cell block C.
Above him. but apparently un-