June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt Alcatraz. John arrived on October 24, 1960, as inmate AZ1476, and Clarence on January 10, 1961, as inmate AZ1485. Allen Clayton West (March 25, 1929 – December 21, 1978) was born in New York City. He was imprisoned for car theft in 1955, first at Atlanta Penitentiary, then at Florida State Prison. After an unsuccessful escape attempt from the Florida facility, he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1957 and became inmate AZ1335. When West was transferred to Alcatraz, he was 28 years old, and had the education of an eighth grader. West was arrested over 20 times throughout his lifetime.
Samuel Bowers Samuel Bowers Samuel Holloway Bowers (August 25, 1924 – November 5, 2006) was a convicted murderer and leading white supremacist activist in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. In response to this movement, he co-founded the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and became a Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard. Bowers committed two murders of civil rights activists in southern Mississippi: The 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner near Philadelphia, for which he served six years in federal prison; and the 1966 murder of Vernon Dahmer in Hattiesburg, for which he was sentenced to life in prison 32