On December 27, 1934, Wutke refused to report to his work assignment and was sent to the lower solitary unit below A Block, better known as the “Spanish Dungeon.” He would remain in the damp, dark dungeon for eight days. Wutke made his first suicide attempt in January of 1936. He complained that he was unable to do his time “under the present conditions,” and indicated that the silence and harsh rules had finally become unbearable. Using a small contraband blade, he sliced a prominent vein near the elbow, and bled profusely before a guard was able to intervene. Dr. Milton Beacher, who would later write an exceptional memoir on his experiences at Alcatraz, sutured the inmate’s wound and then admitted him to the hospital for an examination by the prison psychiatrist. Wutke’s unsuccessful suicide attempt would only intensify his hatred of the Alcatraz regimen. He remained incorrigible, and found himself locked in solitary on at least three later occasions.
Deputy Warden E.J. Miller and Dr. Beacher were called to Wutke’s cell on November 13, 1937, after the prisoner was found dead by Lieutenant Weinhold. Miller’s official report read in part:
Approximately 2:40 this morning I was awakened by the telephone. Upon answering the telephone, found it was Lieutenant Weinhold stating that he believed Wutke had cut his throat in his cell and that he had notified the Doctor. Told Lieutenant Weinhold that I would be there immediately.
It was about 2:50 A.M. when we opened the cell door and Doctor Beacher entered with me into the cell. Wutke was sitting on the toilet bowl in a drooping position with his back braced against the corner of the wall. The cell was quite bloody and the sheets and blankets were full of blood.
Doctor Beacher examined the man and said that he was dead and stated that about 2:35 A.M. was approximately the time of death. The body was removed from the cell to the hospital. I then called Warden Johnston stating that the man had committed suicide and was pronounced dead by the doctor and moved to the Morgue.
I had Lieutenant Weinhold search the cell to find out what he had used and he found that Wutke had cut his throat with a small blade from a pencil sharpener fastened in the head of the safety razor.
Wutke was buried on November 17, 1937, at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California. Following his suicide, numerous stories were leaked to the press alleging harsh confinement practices at Alcatraz. Countless inmates believed that the unrelenting torture of strict confinement had contributed to several inmates “going crazy.” Over the span of the island’s tenure as a federal penitentiary, there would be a total of five inmate suicides. Some even claimed that the first escape attempt at U.S.P. Alcatraz by Joseph Bowers was actually an intentional suicide. This was never substantiated, but inmates would later assert that his mental condition had deteriorated as a direct result of the prison’s conditions, because a person of “weak mind” could not survive there.
When James Bennett became the Bureau Director, he made a concerted effort to provide psychiatric services for Alcatraz inmates. He also differentiated between inmate rights and inmate privileges in the official policy of the Bureau. In correspondence to Warden Johnston, he stated: “it is unnecessary to impose such rigorous rules.” As a result, the silence policy was relaxed in 1937, and this would be one of the few policy changes that occurred over the prison's history. However, it should be restated that the track record of Warden Johnston demonstrated his desire to rehabilitate the inmates rather than simply to punish them. In his 1949 memoir, he described his perspective on prison discipline:
Discipline in prisons is frequently confounded with punishment. Punishment or deprivations are sometimes necessary to hold some men in line, but the measures taken to instruct and train men are more important. Discipline is systematic training to secure submission to authority. The value of discipline is the respect it induces in individuals and the resultant good order of the group.
When discussing the discipline for prisoners we should keep in mind the purpose of the prison. Alcatraz is reserved by the government for perplexing problem prisoners and organized on the basis of maximum security with every precaution taken to insure safekeeping of prisoners and to prevent the possibility of escape.
Privileges are limited, supervision is strict, routine is exacting, discipline is firm, but there is no cruelty or undue harshness, and we insist upon decent regard for the humanities.
Stories of inmate suicides, accompanied by media hype based on limited information, eventually earned Alcatraz the unflattering nickname of "Devil's Island." Warden Johnston succeeded in keeping the media at a distance, and this resulted in the dissemination of various misleading stories. The fact that inmates were never directly paroled from Alcatraz added to the mythology of the island. The media had a difficult time finding men who had lived on the inside, because after prisoners were released from Alcatraz, they were sent on to other prisons to finish out their sentences. When the press did manage to talk with former inmates, they usually told horrific stories about the brutalities they had experienced while incarcerated on the island. Most of these depictions were flawed, but the stories of horrid beatings, rigid disciplinary measures, and extreme isolation fueled the media's interest. In July of 1935, the San Francisco Chronicleran a headline article entitled “Alcatraz Silence Awful.” The editorial featured an interview with an inmate who had been released for exportation. He described the tough rule of silence, stating that this was the harshest aspect of confinement at Alcatraz. He said that it created a constant pressure, with only a brief reprieve in the recreation yard on weekends. The article concluded with the inmate stating: “It’s the toughest pen I’ve ever seen. The hopelessness of it really gets to you. Capone feels it. Everybody does.”
A letter smuggled out of the prison to a San Francisco newspaper in 1935, claiming abuse and cruelty at Alcatraz.
John Stadig, one of the inmates referenced in the smuggled letter, who allegedly suffered from psychosis resulting from severe abuse.
Verrill Rapp was the first inmate paroled from Alcatraz as a Federal Penitentiary. The San Francisco Examiner printed news stories that told of horrid conditions at Alcatraz, which were alleged by Rapp.
The stressful regimen of Alcatraz did indeed create a pressure-cooker environment for some of the inmates. The cellblocks were always illuminated, and there was no privacy of any kind. There was a continual sense of mistrust and suspicion among inmates and staff alike. Writer Susan Lamb offered a unique perspective in her book entitled: Alcatraz – The Rock:
Parallel to the regimentation imposed by authority was the conformity demanded of one another by the inmates. Rival subcultures, complete with hierarchies and arcane jargon, left no one in peace. Independence and character had no chance for expression.
In Erwin T. Thompson’s masterful historic reference on Alcatraz, the author quotes a letter sent to Bureau Director James V. Bennett on June 6, 1937 by Burton Phillips, a young convict sentenced to Alcatraz for kidnapping and robbery. Phillips wrote to Bennett claiming that the Bureau had violated his constitutional rights by denying his request for specific legal publications.