Birdman of Alcatraz
| Robert Franklin Stroud | |
|---|---|
Robert Stroud in 1951
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| Born |
January 28, 1890 Seattle, Washington, United States |
| Died |
November 21, 1963 (aged 73) Springfield, Missouri, United States |
| Other names | "Birdman of Alcatraz" |
| Occupation |
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| Criminal charge |
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| Criminal penalty |
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| Criminal status | Deceased |
| Spouse(s) | Della Mae Jones |
| Parent(s) | Benjamin Stroud Elizabeth Stroud |
Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was an American federal prisoner and author who has been cited as one of the United States' most notorious criminals. During his time at Leavenworth Penitentiary, he reared and sold birds and became a respected ornithologist, but because of regulations, he was not permitted to keep birds at Alcatraz, where he was incarcerated from 1942 to 1959. Stroud was never released from the Federal prison system.
Born in Seattle, Washington, Stroud ran away from his abusive father at the age of 13, and by the time he was 18, he had become a pimp in the Alaska Territory. In January 1909, he shot and killed a bartender who had attacked one of his prostitutes, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in the federal penitentiary on Puget Sound's McNeil Island. Stroud gained a reputation as an extremely dangerous inmate who frequently had confrontations with fellow inmates and staff, and in 1916, he killed a guard. Stroud was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to hang, but after several trials, his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment.
Stroud began serving life in solitary confinement at Leavenworth, where in 1920, after discovering a nest with three injured sparrows in the prison yard, he began raising them, and within a few years had acquired a collection of some 300 canaries. He began extensive research into them after being granted equipment by a radical prison-reforming warden, publishing Diseases of Canaries in 1933, which was smuggled out of Leavenworth and sold en masse, as well as a later edition (1943). He made important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic septicemia family of diseases, gaining much respect and some level of sympathy among ornithologists and farmers. Stroud ran a successful business from inside prison, but his activities infuriated the prison staff, and he was eventually transferred to Alcatraz in 1942 after it was discovered that Stroud had been secretly making alcohol using some of the equipment in his cell.
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