Alcatraz (75 page)

Within two years, Chase was promoted to foreman of the janitorial crew at the seminary. His work ethic, however, was not shared by some of the other ex-convict workers, who complained to supervisors that he was too demanding. When these negative comments were referred to the San Francisco parole office, Chase was summoned to a meeting to discuss them; he reacted angrily, contending that the parole office wanted to send him back to prison. A strongly supportive letter from his work supervisor to the parole office and a letter of apology from the U.S. probation office for implying that his parole status was in jeopardy calmed the situation. Chase’s statement to the probation office that he just wanted to be treated as “an ordinary Joe” elicited this response:

Due to your past Mr. Chase, it is unrealistic that you expect all to be forgiven and forgotten and to be looked on as just any other “joe” passing by on the street. You will live the rest of your life with others doubting that you have completely rehabilitated yourself and are totally without a propensity for violence.
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Probation office contacts with Chase, who was under lifetime parole supervision, were reduced from monthly to quarterly reports and he continued
his quiet existence at St. Joseph’s until September 17, 1973, when he was admitted to the Stanford University hospital. During exploratory surgery, doctors found terminal cancer. Chase revived briefly but then lapsed into a coma and died on October 5.

After his death, the business manager at the seminary sent this commentary to Chase’s parole officer:

It was very sad to close the books on a man such as John Chase. His transformation from a celebrated underworld figure to that of a near-legend as a gentleman of our community was, well, an inspiration. In 4 years that I have known this man I have admired him, respected him, and am confident that he died as a man who has done his utmost to square his accounts in this life. Even with his death, I would request that this letter be included with his file to reflect the above sentiments of myself and many others. John was a good man.
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John Paul Chase, in prison and out, was a man who commanded respect, but he never achieved his last goal—a presidential commutation of his sentence. He died a parolee. But the supervisor in the San Francisco federal probation office closed the file on Chase with this note to the parole board: “Mr. Chase was always a gentleman and extremely cooperative. This is not a eulogy or an epitaph on the passing of a one time public enemy, but . . . I think one can conclude that John Paul Chase did become a legend in his own lifetime.”
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In 1956 Harmon Waley, who spent seven years at Alcatraz in the disciplinary segregation unit, was recommended for transfer to McNeil Island Penitentiary. It had been almost ten years since he made his last trip to the hole, and Alcatraz authorities concluded that Waley’s conduct had improved dramatically. The classification committee noted, “Although he is far from docile at the present time, he has become much more cooperative and he is an excellent worker.”
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The committee recommended the restoration of 300 days of lost good time and said that a transfer to McNeil Island would allow Waley to receive visits from his aged mother and benefit from “the increased privileges, especially in regard to music and library facilities.” Bureau headquarters expressed concern that Waley’s transfer could provoke “a public relations problem” but agreed to his transfer.
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On February 15, 1957, he finally left Alcatraz after twenty-two years and six months on the island.

Waley adjusted easily to life at McNeil; a year after his arrival he was placed in minimum custody. He worked in the motor pool as a driver of a heavy tractor-trailer truck used to haul construction equipment, and when needed, he drove the island bus. Despite his good behavior, prison authorities noted that Waley’s attitude was not always perfect. “At times [Waley] is rather surly,” prison authorities noted in a special progress report, “and he criticizes governmental agencies due to his feelings that he should have been released sooner.”
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In particular, Waley was upset that his co-defendant, who had received a longer sentence, had already been released. (Waley never agreed that his extraordinary record of misconduct had played a role in extending his prison sentence.) Waley’s time at McNeil was mostly trouble-free, except for a conflict with an officer who wanted to destroy a cat that hung around the motor pool. Waley hid the animal to keep it from being killed and as a result lost his job and his minimum-security housing assignment for six months.

At a parole hearing in March 1963, Waley’s role in preventing his accomplice, William Dainard, from killing the Weyerhaeuser boy was acknowledged, and his release was ordered for June 3, 1963. A Tacoma newspaper reported his release with a story headlined “Waley, Weyerhaeuser Kidnapper, Goes Free,” and noted that Waley, then age fifty-two, had spent twenty-eight years in prison for “the celebrated crime that rocked Tacoma and the nation in the ’30s.”
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What was not revealed in the news story was the importance of the communication that had been under way for three years between a friend of Waley, Waley himself, and his kidnap victim, George Weyerhaeuser, by that time a very prominent businessman. If Weyerhaeuser opposed his parole, Waley knew, it would definitely influence the parole board. But contact with the former victim revealed that he did not oppose Waley’s release. From McNeil Island Waley wrote to Weyerhaeuser:

I have been beginning to wonder if, or not, someone has been trying to curry favor with the Weyerhaeuser fortune by knocking me to the Parole Board, for I have served practically a quarter of a century for attempting to separate your father from $200,000 dollars, where your life nor any other’s was placed in jeopardy. Yet, I have seen a number paroled in 17–18 years for first degree murder or raping some 9–10 year old girl or serving life sentences. . . . I am pretty sure that you and your kin do not think it justice either, because I know you are pretty much all “home folks.” So far as I am concerned we are friends as we always were, and I was and am glad to hear that you are interested and think of me kindly.
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Waley was paroled to Portland, Oregon. The choice of this location was based on concerns that Waley might do violence to the operator of a nursing home in Tacoma, Washington, in which his mother had died. During his interview for this project Waley explained that when he had viewed his mother’s body at her funeral, its condition led him to believe that she had been “starved to death” and he became so angry at the nursing home operator who remarked “Doesn’t she look good?” that the guards who escorted him to the funeral had to restrain him. “I was ready to punch him,” said Waley. “They figured that I was likely to kill him.”
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In Portland, Waley went to the offices of the Teamsters Union, signed up as a member, got a room at a nearby YMCA, and bought a wristwatch and an alarm clock. The Teamsters provided enough work that he could support himself for a year and a half, but in January 1964 he decided to return to the state of Washington without waiting for an official transfer of his parole supervision in order to explore the possibility of going to work for his former victim:

I went up to the Weyerhaeuser Building and I told the secretary, “I’m here to see George Weyerhaeuser.” She says, “Who shall I say is calling?” “Tell him Harmon Metz Waley is calling.” She called on the phone and she said, “He said, go in.” So I went in and he met me half way with his hand out for a handshake. So I went to work for Weyerhaeuser. . . . He said, “They gave you an awful way to go.” He didn’t appreciate it. His father said if it wasn’t for the Depression, this wouldn’t have occurred.
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Waley worked as a truck driver for the Weyerhaeuser Company for four years. During this time, Waley’s probation officer wrote to the pardon attorney on his behalf. The letter began with an attempt to explain the improvement over Waley’s earlier confrontational attitude toward all governmental authority:

Presently, Waley can stand considerable more warp and frustration of his ego needs. To say that he has developed more tolerance, more insight, would, I believe, be pure conjecture on anyone’s part. To say that the emotional and intellectual engine that is Harmon Waley is running down might be more accurate. He is considerably less violent in his emotional denunciations of things past and present, although he still denounces with fervor. His reaction now to the rather firm redirection of logic by the supervisor concerning Waley’s bland pronouncements is an abrupt change of subject whereas in the past punctuation during the interview was accomplished by hard looks, a red face and abrupt departure from the interview
situation. The sharp edges are being dulled. . . . He is certainly a different being now than the 24-year-old obstreperous deviant sentenced for kidnapping in 1935. Thus, if pardon in this case would mean a remission of penalty, I would recommend it.
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No pardon followed this recommendation, however.

In January 1968 Waley took a job as an engineer for the Washington state ferry. After June 1972, when he was no longer able to work due to angina and resulting heart surgery, he lived on disability payments and social security.

In 1975 Waley’s probation officer in the state of Washington appealed to the parole board to end his reporting requirements, citing a letter from George Weyerhaeuser that read, in part:

I have been generally familiar with Mr. Waley’s circumstances and conduct as a parolee for many years during which he worked for the Weyerhaeuser Company, and subsequently with the State of Washington Ferry System, and it is my conviction that he has acted in a responsible manner as an employee and subsequent to employment as a retiree. . . . In light of the fact that it has now been 40 years since he committed the crime for which he is still on parole, and inasmuch as his conduct subsequent to his prison term has proven him to be responsible, it seems to me entirely in order that he be relieved of the onus of reporting frequently. . . . I am sure that anyone looking over his long-term records would come to the conclusion that he has fully paid his debt to society.
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On July 23, 1976, Harmon Waley was discharged from parole. When interviewed by the author in 1980, he was living in a small town in Washington. He commented that he had never been “hassled” by police officers or FBI agents, expressed appreciation for the tolerance and understanding of his probation officers, and described George Weyerhaeuser as “a pretty nice guy,” who provided employment and invited him to “stop by whenever you’re in town.” On several occasions Waley met with other ex-Alcatraz releasees who lived in Washington, to “cut up the Rock”—tell stories and recall incidents and personalities of the prisoners and personnel. He continued to voice complaints about American prisons and noted the lack of safety on the streets (he had been mugged one night in Tacoma).

Due to his “obnoxious attitude,” as one Alcatraz staff member described it, his confrontational style, and his “colossal ego,” none of the inmates or employees who knew Waley on the Rock expected that he would successfully complete parole. What they did not take into account
was Waley’s determination to continue trying to control events in his life and maintain his self-respect, whether that meant years of fighting the regime at Alcatraz or being bold enough to walk into the office of his kidnap victim to ask for help in finding a job.
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Each time he walked through the yard gate at Alcatraz and down the steps to the industries area, Berta looked out on the city where he had lived as a free citizen. He came to Alcatraz with considerable experience doing hard time, having suffered through twenty lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails at the British Columbia Penitentiary, and having spent many months in disciplinary segregation at Leavenworth after he and six other men took Warden White as a hostage and broke out of the prison.

On the Rock, Berta’s defiance of authority and his attempt to assault an officer earned him two trips to lower solitary, the dungeon cells described in
chapter 4
. He accumulated nine additional misconduct reports, two for fighting with other prisoners, and one for “intimidating an officer.” As the years went by, Berta’s conduct improved, due in part, according to Alcatraz personnel, to visits he received from his mother during a ten-year period that ended with her death in 1945. Several months before his release, however, he received two more misconduct reports for “defiance and disrespect of authority.”

Toward the end of 1948 Berta had 3,600 days of good time restored, most of it time lost at Leavenworth. His work at Alcatraz as an institutional blacksmith and welder was so highly regarded that he also earned industrial good time that further advanced his release date. On August 10, 1949, at the age of forty-seven, Berta was released “flat,” at the expiration of his sentence with no requirement to report to a parole officer. One day before he left the island the chief medical officer’s psychiatric report provided a poor prognosis for his release:

This man has a long criminal record, and has been an aggressive, quick tempered and paranoid individual who has not been able to get along too well in prison. He does however have a good work record, and has developed a more tolerant attitude in the past few years of his incarceration. It is my opinion that his chances for civil adjustment are poor.
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When Berta stepped off the prison boat in San Francisco and into the free world, his wife, with whom he had been living before his arrest for train robbery, was waiting—this despite that fact that Berta had corresponded
with her only occasionally during his eighteen years at Alcatraz and had received no visits from her. They would stay together for the rest of his life.

An old friend also greeted him on the dock. “They met me and we all had a nice big dinner at his house,” said Berta during his interview. “I had these friends from the old days to take care of me. . . . I went to work as a plumber’s helper.”
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He and his wife took up residence in Brisbane, a small town outside San Francisco. In a letter to James Bennett several years later, he described his return to the Bay Area and a job he had taken as a bartender—employment that would likely not have been approved if he had been on parole: