Clarence Victor Carnes (January 14, 1927 – October 3, 1988), known as The Choctaw Kid, was a Choctaw man best known as the youngest inmate incarcerated at

Alcatraz Alcatraz Island () is a small island in San Francisco Bay, offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military pris ...

and for his participation in the bloody escape attempt known as the "

Battle of Alcatraz The Battle of Alcatraz, which lasted from May 2 to 4, 1946, was the result of an escape attempt at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary by armed convicts. Two Federal Bureau of Prisons officers—William A. Miller and Harold Stites—were killed (Mille ...

Early life

Clarence Carnes was born in Daisy, Oklahoma, the oldest of five children. He was raised in poverty, and his criminal activities began as a child, stealing candy bars from his school. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the age of 16 for the murder of a garage attendant during an attempted hold-up. In early 1945, he escaped from the Granite Reformatory with a number of other prisoners, but was recaptured and sentenced to an additional 99 years for kidnapping a man, Jack Nance, while he was on the run. He was recaptured in April 1945 and sent to Leavenworth, but made another attempt to escape while in the custody of the

United States Marshals Service The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforc ...

and was transferred to

along with an additional 5-year sentence. There, he was assessed by psychiatrist Romney M. Ritchey and found to have a psychopathic personality, and to be emotionally unstable with an

I.Q. An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term ''Intelligenzq ...

of 93.

Alcatraz

Carnes arrived on Alcatraz on July 6, 1945. On May 2, 1946, Carnes and five other inmates participated in a failed attempt to escape from Alcatraz which turned into the bloody "

", so-called because three inmates and two prison officers died. After the escape failed, he was tried for murder along with the two other survivors,

Sam Shockley Samuel Richard Shockley, Jr. (January 12, 1909 – December 3, 1948) was an inmate at Alcatraz prison, who was executed for his participation in the Alcatraz uprising or Battle of Alcatraz in 1946. Background Sam Shockley was born in Cerro ...

and

Miran Edgar Thompson Miran Edgar Thompson (December 16, 1917 – December 3, 1948) was an inmate of Alcatraz whose participation in an attempted escape on May 2, 1946, led to his execution in the gas chamber of San Quentin. At the time of the Battle of Alcatraz, ...

, and was found guilty of participating in the plot. Shockley and Thompson were sentenced to death, however Carnes was not executed because he had not directly participated in the murders of the officers, instead being given a life sentence. Some corrections officers who had been taken hostage testified that he had refrained from following instructions to kill them. Carnes remained on Alcatraz until its closure in 1963, spending most of the time there in the segregation unit. He claimed that he had received a postcard from Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers,

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

and

Clarence Clarence may refer to: Places Australia * Clarence County, New South Wales, a Cadastral division * Clarence, New South Wales, a place near Lithgow * Clarence River (New South Wales) * Clarence Strait (Northern Territory) * City of Clarence, a l ...

, which read "Gone fishing", which was a code word that their escape had succeeded. No material evidence of such a postcard has been found.

Parole, re-incarceration, death

At the time of Carnes convictions, the federal government still had parole. Consequently, he was paroled in 1973, at the age of 46. However, Carnes's parole was revoked twice due to parole violations and he was sent back to prison with BOP# 61805-132. He died of AIDS-related complications on October 3, 1988, at the

Medical Center for Federal Prisoners The United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP Springfield) is a United States federal prison in Springfield, Missouri which provides medical, mental health, and dental services to male offenders. It is operated by the Federal Burea ...

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...

, and was buried in a

paupers' grave A potter's field, paupers' grave or common grave is a place for the burial of unknown, unclaimed or indigent people. "Potter's field" is of Biblical origin, referring to Akeldama (meaning ''field of blood'' in Aramaic), stated to have been pur ...

. In 1989, Massachusetts

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

figure James J. "Whitey" Bulger, who had befriended Carnes while on Alcatraz, paid for his body to be exhumed and reburied on land in the

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma The Choctaw Nation (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American territory covering about , occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United St ...

. Bulger reportedly bought a lavish $4,000 bronze casket and paid for a car to transport Carnes' remains from Missouri to Oklahoma. Carnes is buried at the Billy Cemetery in Daisy, Oklahoma.

In popular culture

Carnes' life was dramatized in the 1980 Telepictures Corporation TV movie '' Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story''. The film, which aired in two 95 minute parts, starred

Michael Beck John Michael Beck Taylor (born February 4, 1949), commonly known as Michael Beck, is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Swan in '' The Warriors'' (1979) and Sonny Malone in '' Xanadu'' (1980). Early life Beck was born in Memphis, T ...

as Clarence Carnes. The Battle of Alcatraz was dramatized in the 1987 TV movie ''Six Against the Rock'', based on the novel by Clark Howard. While most of the characters were given the names of the real inmates (such as Bernard Coy and

Miran Thompson Miran Edgar Thompson (December 16, 1917 – December 3, 1948) was an inmate of Alcatraz whose participation in an attempted escape on May 2, 1946, led to his execution in the gas chamber of San Quentin. At the time of the Battle of Alcatraz, ...

), Carnes' character was renamed Dan Durando, portrayed by Paul Sanchez. Carnes' life was interpreted in Rolling Way the Rock, a performance piece by

Tim Tingle Tim Tingle is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma an author and storyteller of twenty books. Early life Tingle was raised on the Gulf Coast outside of Houston, Texas. He is an Oklahoma Choctaw. His great-great grandfather, John Carnes, ...

, also a Choctaw man, which premiered in 2006 at the International Symposium of Artists of Conscience in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. The ...

. On 2018, Derek Nelson portrayed Karnes in the film “Alcatraz,” which has Karnes as the central figure of the film, with interiors and exteriors shot at a prison Brighton, England and on Alcatraz Island, now a US National Park site.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Carnes, Clarence 1927 births 1988 deaths People from Atoka County, Oklahoma Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma people American escapees Inmates of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment American people who died in prison custody Prisoners who died in United States federal government detention Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Oklahoma Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government Escapees from United States federal government detention Escapees from Oklahoma detention AIDS-related deaths in Missouri American people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by Oklahoma People convicted under the Federal Kidnapping Act People convicted of murder by the United States federal government People paroled from life sentence 20th-century Native Americans