John Stadig's Escape from the Train to Alcatraz (Based on information from Darrel McBreairty's Alcatraz Eel)

           On December 2, 1934, John Stadig was taken from Alcatraz to Oregon to stand trial for additional charges to those for which he was already serving time. The town of Portland, still reeling from the aftermath of the waterfront strike, was hungry for news that wasn’t about unemployment and politics. The press flocked to the courthouse to get a statement from the man who’d come to be known as “the collegiate counterfeiter”. Back when Stadig was arrested on New Years Eve, he’d impressed reporters in Frisco with his educated manner and his claim to have a degree in chemical engineering. The reality was that although he was a genius in many ways, Stadig only had a sixth grade education. On the steps of the courthouse on December 5, he boasted to the press that he would escape, as he’d done in the past.

On December 7, on a train headed back to California, Stadig, in the company of a U.S. marshal and a guard, sat quietly sulking over the result of his trial. He would serve an extra seven and a half years for his crimes, and that time would be spent at Alcatraz.

At 5:58 p.m., about an hour north of San Francisco, just after the guard, Al Davidson went to the washroom; Stadig knocked Marshal John Watson down and jumped on one of the seats.  He kicked and shattered both panes of a window and then leapt head first through the jagged hole.

Davidson came back just in time to see Stadig’s feet go through the window. He pulled the emergency cord to stop the train as Marshall Watson rose from the floor and drew his gun. He shoved his arms, head and shoulders through the small broken window and looked back. It was dusk, but he could see the outline of Stadig stumbling off into the brush. He fired his gun three times at the receding shape as the train lurched to a stop, then he and Davidson went out to find Stadig. With just two of them though, and having no flashlights to cut the darkness, they gave up after eleven minutes. Watson quickly found a payphone and called the police in nearby Richmond so as to round up some help for a thorough search.

            Within an hour, men from all branches of law enforcement gathered in west Contra Costa County and began to search the Black Hills with flashlights for John Stadig. On the rocks that lined the railroad tracks they found a trail of blood which they followed for about one and a half kilometers until it disappeared near some unused buildings on the outskirts of Richmond. Detectives from the FBI concluded that Stadig’s escape had been planned and that someone had been waiting with a car to carry him away from that point of rendezvous.

When daylight came, however, this theory was proven false, as they picked up Stadig’s trail running through the desert brush into the San Pablo Canyon. They searched through the day, then when darkness fell, more electric torches lit up the rugged terrain as they relentlessly continued their quest. The next day the authorities received a call from a rancher who thought he might have spotted Stadig on his property. On the day after that a cattleman near San Pablo reported that a man had knocked on his door and asked if he could spare some bandages, disinfectant and matches. The beggar had explained that he’d been hitchhiking but had fallen off the back of a truck on the gravel road. 

Early Sunday morning searchers discovered what was left of a campfire along with some bloody bandages. On Monday morning bloodhounds sniffed the dressings and began to follow Stadig’s scent. Just before noon on the same day another rancher reported that a weak and weary man with skinned hands and knees came to his door, begging for breakfast.

            On Tuesday the Justice Department moved in to take over the search. Perhaps it was sour grapes, but around this time the local police told the press that John Stadig had probably made it through the dragnet by hitching out of the Bay area.

On Wednesday night a rainstorm hit the San Pablo region, so if Stadig was still hiding in the canyon it would nearly erase his trail.

            On the Friday evening of December 14th, John Stadig stumbled up to a farmhouse in Concord, California. The owner opened the door to a man weak from hunger and cold and begging for food. He had two black eyes, cuts on his hands and his knees and he was wearing muddy clothes stained with blood. The farmer recognized him from a news photo and invited him in for a meal. While Stadig was eating, the man called the police who only took twenty minutes to get there. Stadig saw them through the kitchen window and dashed out the back door, but he came face to face with more armed men. He started running in another direction, but froze when someone fired a warning shot. He then nervously put his hands in the air and surrendered to the posse of deputy sheriffs.

            The arresting deputies tried to get him to confirm that he was John Stadig, but he insisted they had the wrong man. Only after being taken to the county jail and the sheriff’s interview did he relax and admit that he was John Stadig. He was relieved that his week of excruciating, terrifying, almost sleepless freedom in the cold northern California desert was over. He had lost fifteen pounds, and his body was weak from loss of blood. He collapsed gratefully on the bed of his cell and slept for fourteen hours, only to wake up the next day when they came to take him back to prison.

Upon returning to Alcatraz, Stadig was given a check up and the doctor assessed that it was squeezing through the broken glass window of the train that had sliced his hands and ripped into his forehead and knees. After receiving medical treatment for these injuries, Stadig was tossed shoeless into the dungeon.  His cell was pitch black and damp. He could hear the sound of water dripping and it gave him an urge to urinate. He moved forward till he found a wall and began groping his way around in search of the toilet. Everywhere he placed his hands he could feel water running down the walls. After touching his way around the cell John realized that there was no toilet, but what he did find were chains hanging low from the walls. They were thick and rusted, with cold manacles open and waiting to be snapped shut over a prisoner’s wrists and ankles. They’d probably been there since the Spanish American War and Stadig thought himself lucky that he hadn’t been chained with them. Maybe he would have been if not for the injured hand that the prison had just paid someone to bandage.

 At noon the guard came with Stadig’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, which consisted of two slices of bread and some water. He ate while listening to the rats that were scurrying nearby and sometimes he could see their eyes reflecting what miniscule light that had somehow filtered down into his cell.