Alvin “Creepy” Karpis
Other than a brief six-month stint at Leavenworth in 1958, Alvin Karpis called Alcatraz home from August 1936 until April 1962. Karpis was born in 1907 in Montreal, Canada and was raised in Topeka, Kansas by his parents, immigrants from Lithuania. Karpis started his criminal career while still a young boy, associating with unsavory characters around Topeka. He was sent away for the first time for to a reformatory in Hutchinson, Kansas in 1926, but he quickly escaped. Karpis earned the nickname “Creepy” due to his devious smile.
Karpis went on the run, committing crimes wherever he could until he landed in Kansas City. He was arrested there for stealing a car and was sent back to the reformatory in Hutchinson, and then the state prison in Lansing, Kansas. It was behind bars in Lansing that Karpis met Fred Barker of the infamous Barker Gang. After Karpis was released from Lansing in 1931, he joined up with Fred Barker and his gang in Tulsa, Oklahoma and went on a crime spree that included bank robberies and murder, and fascinated the American public.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies hunted Karpis and the Barkers throughout the U.S. Many of Karpis’ partners, including Fred Barker, were caught and gunned down. Karpis was eventually tracked and arrested in New Orleans on May 1, 1936 by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover himself.
Karpis received a life sentence for his various crimes and was sent to Alcatraz. “Creepy” ended up serving the longest sentence of any prisoner ever sent to The Rock. Karpis was transferred to McNeil Island Penitentiary in Washington, where he was behind bars until his parole in 1969. It was at McNeil Island that Karpis met and befriended a young criminal who would later become notoriously famous in his own right; Charles Manson. After Karpis was paroled, the American government immediately deported him to his native Canada. Karpis lived in Montreal until he relocated to Spain a few years later. “Creepy” died in Spain in 1979 at the age of 72.