The last known living prisoner to serve time in Alcatraz has revealed what the most pursued to him of the infamous island prison that President Trump intends to reopen.
Charlie Hopkins, 93, was shipped to the 22 -hectare island prison in 1955 for causing a problem in another facility while serving 17 years for kidnapping and theft, he told the BBC.
What he remembers the most is the ‘deadly silent’ on the island that is surrounded by the terrible, treacherous waters of the bay of San Francisco – with the only sound the whistle of passing ships.
“That is a lonely sound,” Hopkins recalled. “It reminds you of Hank Williams who sings that song:” I am so single that I could cry. “
Hopkins, now 93, said that his three years in Alcatraz were unbearable everyday – he was bored so that he would clean to pass the time and buffer the floors “until they sparkled.”
“There was nothing to do,” he said. “You could walk back and forth in your cell or do push-ups.”
Although he was locked up in the notoriously strict prison with high security, Hopkins said he still found a way to get into trouble.
“You would not believe the problems I had caused them when I was there,” he told the outlet. “I can see now, looking back, that I had problems.”
Hopkins spent most of his days locked up in Alcatraz in “D Block” – the solitary locking area in which restless prisoners housed who rarely allowed their cells to leave.
His longest time on “D Block” was six months because he was part of a failed escape attempt with various other prisoners – including career -criminal and notorious prison -in -law Forrest Tucker.
Hopkins said he stole a iron saw from the prison for the men to use to cut the prison bars in the basement kitchen to escape.
However, the plan was spoiled when guards found the knives in one of the cells of his henchmen.
“A few days after they locked them up, they locked me up,” he remembered.
After the failed attempt by Hopkins, more and more prisoners tried to escape from Alcatraz over the years, as a result of which prison officials increase safety.
“When I left there in 1958, the security was so tight that you couldn’t breathe,” he said.
Hopkins served the rest of his sentence in a prison in Missouri and was released in 1963 – Alcatraz was closed in the same year.
During his 29 years of operation there were 14 documented escape attempts from the Alcatraz prison, according to the FBI.
Of the 36 men who tried, only three are suspected that they may escape from the island: Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin.
In the early morning hours of June 12, 1962, with the help of the dummy heads they made to make it look like they slept in their cells, the men escaped through a hole in their cell walls, access to a utility and climb to the roof through a ventilation duct.
Although none of their bodies ever appeared in the bay, they were legally declared dead in 1979 after the FBI concluded that they probably drowned. Their story was made notorious in the film “Escape from Alcatraz” with Clint Eastwood, the same year that they were declared dead.
Hopkins, who now lives in Florida, said that San Francisco National Archives told him that he is probably the last remaining former Alcatraz prisoner.
President Trump announced last week that he ordered the Bureau of Prisons and other federal agencies to return to the massive island facility of the San Francisco Bay again to close his own soil, repeat criminals.
Trump, 78, said that the “substantially extensive and rebuilded prison” would serve as a symbol of law, order and justice. “
Hopkins-a Trump-supporter-believed, however, that the idea of the supreme commander to breathe new life into a prison that he calls ‘deadly than the convicts who held it’ will not work.
“It would be so expensive,” he told the BBC. “At the time, the sewer system entered the ocean. They should think of another way to handle that.”
Hopkins believes that Alcatraz remains the best in the past.
“You can’t go back in time,” said Hopkins. “That place is of the past.”
