Henri Theodore Young (born June 20, 1911) was a convicted bank robber and murderer who, while serving one of a series of prison terms, attempted a 1939 escape from Alcatraz Federal Petinetary with four other inmates. Two escapees were shot, and one died of his wounds; all surviving were quickly recaptured. Two at least, Young and Rufus Mc Clain, received sentences of solitary confinement, and served them at Alcatraz for a period a few months (until autumn 1939). A little over a year after his reentering the Alcatraz general prison population (December 1940), Young murdered fellow escapeeMc Clain; no apparent motive was ever being disclosed. Young's subsequent trial featured a spirited, creative defense that put Alcatraz and the penal system on trial, leading to questions about how the prison was run. Young was transferred from Alcatraz to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield, Missouri, in 1948, and then to Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla on completion of his federal sentence, to begin a life sentence for the 1933 murder conviction. Young "jumped parole" in 1972 after release from Walla Walla, with his stated whereabouts reported as "unknown". Were he still to be alive at end of 2015, he would be 104 years old. Henri Young is perhaps best known in relation to the highly fictionalized character of the same name appearing in many newspapers.
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Henri Theodore Young
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