Coy and his cronies robbed the Bank of New Haven, Kentucky, then took refuge in a cave along the Rolling Fork River. In fact, his last days of freedom had been spent in the hills outside New Haven. Often he had gone off by himself, living off the land and sleeping under the stars. Coy thought briefly of his youth and how he had enjoyed roaming those hills. His gaze lingered on the landscape he had done of the hills near his birthplace of New Haven, Kentucky. He studied the oil paintings he had done over the years, carefully displayed in the rear corner of his tiny cubicle. No more of this roll-your-own Bull Durham shit.Ĭoy glanced around his cell, dimly lit by the ceiling lights in the cell house. Tomorrow, he thought, I’ll be smoking Lucky Strikes or maybe a Cuban cigar and drinking good Kentucky whiskey. Sitting up, Coy crushed out his cigarette and lit another. Would he be cool, or would he go crazy and start shooting? Joe was tough and a bit of a hothead, but Coy believed he could control the dapper San Francisco bank robber. Coy’s only concern about Cretzer was how he would react to a sudden emergency. Edgar Hoover’s list of the ten most-wanted criminals in America. As one of the most violent and successful bank robbers of his time, Cretzer had been Number Five on J. marshal while trying to escape from a federal courtroom during one of his trials. He was an accomplished gunman and had attempted breakouts from McNeil Island and Alcatraz. The fourth man Coy had picked was Joe Cretzer. Coy was satisfied that he could at least count on the youngster to do what he was told. How would he react if things really got tough? Coy had studied the young convict closely for months but had only recently told him of the breakout plans. Joe Carnes was only eighteen years old, doing life for murder and kidnapping. Coy wondered about the Indian kid, though. Thompson, the Texas cop killer, was cool and self-assured, not easily excited or rattled.
Hubbard, in particular, had demonstrated tremendous courage in police gunfights against tremendous odds and in many cases had escaped. Both had shot it out with the police in the past. Buddy Thompson and Marv Hubbard were solid. There was no way it would fail.Ĭoy thought again about his hand-picked gang and how carefully he had selected them. The timing had been planned in great detail. The tools he would need were in place and ready. He knew the numbers and locations of all the critical keys. He knew every move of all the cell-house officers and where they normally were at all times of the day.
His active planning had gone on for months. Tomorrow his name and picture would be on the front page of every major newspaper in America and, given the public interest in Alcatraz, his fame might even reach international proportions.Ĭoy had dreamed about escaping for years.
Today he would lead a blastout from Alcatraz that would overshadow everything he had done in his life and make him one of the most famous inmates in the history of the island prison. As the harsh smoke from the hand-rolled Bull Durham cigarette filled his lungs, he contemplated what was about to become the single biggest event in his long and violent criminal career. Alcatraz inmate Bernard Bernie Coy lay on his bunk, smoking and staring into the semidarkness of his five-by-nine-foot cell 155.
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