Henri Young

Henri Theodore Young (born June 20, 1911 – missing since 1972) was a convicted bank robber and murderer who, while serving one of a series of prison terms, attempted a 1939 escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary 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 McCain, received sentences of solitary confinement, and served them at Alcatraz for a period of a three year (until autumn of 1942). A little over three year after his reentering the Alcatraz general prison population (in December 1942), Young murdered fellow escapee McCain; no apparent motive was ever 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 alive in 2016, he would be 105 years old. Young is perhaps best known in relation to the highly fictionalized character of the same name appearing in the 1995 film Murder in the First (1995), in which he was portrayed by Kevin Bacon. The story of Henri Young is also the subject of the song "Behind the Eyes of Henri Young" by Australian country singer Kasey Chambers. The song features on her 2017 album "Dragonfly".