Henri Young

Henri Theodore Young (born June 20, 1911 – disappeared 1972) was an American convicted bank robber and murderer who, while serving one of a series of prison terms, attempted to escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary with four other inmates in 1939. During the escape attempt, two inmates, Dale Stamphill and Arthur "Doc" Barker, were shot, the latter fatally. All survivors were quickly recaptured. Two of the men, Young and Rufus McCain, were sentenced to solitary confinement and served the terms at Alcatraz for a period of three years (until autumn of 1942). Eleven days after re-entering the Alcatraz general prison population in 1940, Young murdered McCain.

No apparent motive was ever disclosed for the murder. However, according to prisoner 325 Alvin Karpis, Young blamed McCain for the failure of the escape attempt. McCain couldn't swim and Barker refused to leave anyone behind so they began trying to hastily make a raft from driftwood. The dense fog cleared and the guards spotted them. Young's defense in the subsequent trial put the spotlight on Alcatraz and the penal system, leading to questions about how the prison was run. In 1948, Young was transferred to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Upon completion of his federal sentence, he was transferred to Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla to begin a life sentence for a 1933 murder conviction.

After release from Walla Walla, Young "jumped parole" in 1972 and his whereabouts were reported as "unknown". He was portrayed as a fictional character of the same name in the film Murder in the First (1995), in which he was played by actor Kevin Bacon. Young is also the subject of the song "Behind the Eyes of Henri Young", featured on the album Dragonfly (2017), by Australian singer Kasey Chambers.

Life Young was born in Kansas City, Missouri on June 20, 1911. He grew up surrounded by insecurity and poverty with unstable parental figures–his machinist father taught him how to steal at a young age, and his parents divorced when he was 14. When Young's mother remarried three years later, Young set off from home due to issues with his new stepfather. Beginning a life of crime, Young set off on a spree of robberies, burglaries and kidnappings throughout the West.

In 1933, Young was convicted of murder in Washington State Penitentiary. After robbing the First National Bank of Lind in 1935 for $405, he received a 20 year sentence to USP McNeil Island. Barker eventually died from his injuries.

Describing conditions in solitary confinement, Young said:

The jury found Young, who had faced possible execution if convicted of first degree murder, guilty of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. The judge described Young as a "cold-blooded murderer" before imposing the maximum sentence of three years on the lesser conviction. alt=Henry Theodore Young FBI Most Wanted Poster In 1954, Young was transferred to the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla to begin a life sentence for the 1933 murder conviction. He was released from Washington State Penitentiary in 1972, at age 61. He "jumped parole and, according to Washington State authorities, his whereabouts are unknown." No further records exist on Young.

Inaccuracies within the film The film Murder in the First (1995) has a number of inaccuracies compared to the facts of Young's life. It mistakenly presents Young as being arrested for stealing $5 in order to feed himself and his younger sister. It shows that he was tortured by officials after his escape attempt. It shows him killing McCain in the cafeteria immediately after his return to the general population, rather than later. It also showed that he was found dead in his prison cell in 1942, just before his appeal, with the word "victory" on the wall.

As noted above, Young had a prior murder conviction before arriving at Alcatraz. He was transferred from Alcatraz to serve the remainder of that murder sentence later in life at a Washington state prison. He disappeared after jumping parole after being released in 1972 from Walla Walla.