Hubbard stood at attention, slightly lifting his arms so that Miller could start his head-to-toe search. Suddenly Coy grabbed Miller from behind with the quiet skill of a silent assassin, pinning his arms around his back. Hubbard started delivering violent and rapid blows to Miller’s head using his clenched fists and Miller slumped over into unconsciousness. The East Gallery had been left unmanned as a result of budgetary cuts from the previous year and no one was at this post to monitor activity at the east end of the cellhouse. Bert Burch had rushed into the D Block side of the gallery to assess the disturbance that Shockley was causing. Officer Miller was thus left helpless, with no other prison guard aware of his plight. Hubbard and Coy each grabbed an arm, and starting dragging him around to cell #404 at the end of Seedy Street,which was used by guard staff and cellhouse workers as a common bathroom. Coy pulled the large key ring from Miller’s belt clip, and opened the control box that housed the cell access levers. Having carefully watched the correctional staff open and close the various inmate cells, Coy was able to rack open #404 without a hitch. The inmates pulled Miller into the cell and Hubbard removed his pants and jacket. Miller was then gagged and tied to the cell bunk.
Cells #404 and #403, located at the end of C Block, were used by the escapees to lock up their hostages. This would the site of a cold blooded and vicious murder.
Joseph Moyle
Bill Montgomery
Earl Egan
Joseph Moyle, an inmate who had just happened to pass through the main gate less than a minute before, was shocked to witness Coy and Hubbard pulling Miller into cell #404. Joseph Moyle and Bill Montgomery were both assigned as Warden Johnston’s “passmen.” This was the most coveted work assignment on Alcatraz as these men were allotted the most freedom of all the inmates, in order to serve as the Warden’s personal stewards. The passmen worked directly in the Warden’s house and often spent several hours each day outside of the normal confines of the prison. The inmates who worked as the Warden’s stewards were handpicked and were generally nearing their release date. Though it may seem hard to believe, the passmen did most of the Warden’s cooking and cleaning, and some reported that the Warden’s wife would put on the radio (allowing them to listen to baseball games), leave out newspapers (which were prohibited inside the prison) and give them special treats like homemade cookies. Though the assignment came with many great perks, these men were generally not trusted by the general inmate population, as they spent so much time with “Old Saltwater” himself. Therefore as Moyle approached the escape accomplices, Hubbard motioned him to enter the cell with Miller to ensure that he didn’t “rat them out” to an unsuspecting guard.
At about the same time two other inmates who were assigned to painting details, Earl Egan and George Pichette, were walking up Park Avenuewhen they witnessed the activities that were transpiring just ahead. As Coy motioned them forward, Egan apparently indicated that he didn’t want any part of the escape. But the men weren’t taking any chances and Egan was also directed into the cell. Pichette had turned at the end of the cellblock and disappeared. The door of cell #404 was quickly racked closed, and Coy started running to the block control boxes and opening the cells of his other accomplices. Thompson, Cretzer, and younger inmate named Clarence Carnes all emerged from their cells in a state of near disbelief that Coy’s plan had actually succeeded, even to this point. Carnes seemed an unlikely type to participate in the escape, as he was the youngest inmate ever to be sentenced to the Rock at only eighteen.
When Coy had released his accomplices, he made a swift dash down the C Block utility corridor to where his tool set was hidden. Coy emerged from the passageway with a cotton pouch of the type that inmates generally used to carry their dominos into the recreation yard. While the other inmates stood watch for Burch in the West Gallery, and for any other correctional officers who might enter the cellhouse, Coy quickly stripped down to his underwear and with Cretzer’s help, smeared axle grease over his chest, head and extremities. He then briefly inventoried the tools in his sack and started climbing up the West End Gun Gallery from the juncture at Times Squareand Michigan Avenue. Hand-over-hand, he scaled the barred cage until he reached the top.
An officer looks up toward the area where Bernard Coy scaled the gun galley. Using plumbing fixtures that had been fashioned into a makeshift bar-spreader; Coy quietly entered the Gallery and secured weapons.
The makeshift tool used by Coy to spread apart the bars at the top of the Gun Gallery.
Clenched in Coy’s teeth was the small bag containing his crudely fashioned bar-spreader device, which had been made from toilet fixtures in one of the prison workshops. He set the tool firmly between the two bars (which were approximately five-inches apart), and using pliers or some type of gripping wrench, he was able to exert enough force to create an opening nearly ten inches wide. With Cretzer eagerly watching his progress from below, Coy painfully squeezed his body through the opening and slipped into the West Gun Gallery.
Without delay, Coy secured a riot club and positioned himself in a low crouch so that Officer Burch couldn’t see him when looking through the window in the door. On Coy’s signal, Cretzer sharply tapped the recreation yard access door with Miller’s key ring, a standard indication to the gallery officer that the cellhouse guard needed a key for access. Burch was unknowingly being lured straight into an ambush. By now, Shockley had ceased his staged screaming fit and Corwin was sitting at his desk talking casually with D Block orderly Louis Fleish, the famed onetime leader of Detroit’s “Purple Gang” of the early 1930’s.
D-Block Orderly Louis Fleish.
When Burch passed through the doorway, Coy forcefully hurled the wooden door forward, throwing the unsuspecting guard off balance. With brutal force, Coy clubbed the officer and forced him to the floor, then strangled him till he lost consciousness. Inmate Jim Quillen later recalled that all of the residents of D Block could hear the struggle in the gallery, and the first rumor to travel down the row of cells was that the “hacks” were fighting among themselves. But the prisoners quickly realized that an inmate had amazingly managed to infiltrate the gun gallery.