Alcatraz Special
All I can say is WOW! Alcatraz was something to see, I was also fortunate enough to have great access to most of the prison. I have been to many prisons across the country to interview inmates in the process of conducting an investigation. Alcatraz was a unique prison to say the least. The island itself was incredible to see, it had an odd feeling of total isolation even though the mainland was so near. It was unlike any prison I have been to, due in most part to the size of it and the fact that it was on an Island. The jail blocks that housed the prisoners were much smaller than I had anticipated and after spending some time in the actual cells itself, I appreciated my bedroom at home a lot more…. Lol. The hole and the isolation block of the prison gave a real insight as to what these men went through while incarcerated. It’s a tourist attraction I would definitely suggest to friends and family to see, even though I’ve never even been to the Statue of Liberty myself and it’s practically in my backyard, go figure.
This was an investigation unlike anyone Amy & I had done before, it was a known location and even though I thought I knew a lot about Alcatraz, a lot of what I thought was true turned out to be false. I was lucky enough to have been able to interview not only two former guards that worked on the island, but, I was also able to interview a former inmate who spent five years on Alcatraz and who had spent 29 days in the hole at one point during his time there. My investigation led me to a lot of documentation and so much information that it was actually a little tough to digest it all. I actually had to break protocol with Amy and view footage of her walk to decipher what actually applied to what I was uncovering. Some of the witnesses I interviewed that had experiences in the prison when they were visiting the prison had life changing experiences. As it turns out, Amy was able to bring light to what was going on there and saw some pretty disturbing things that go along with prison life. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did conducting the investigation.
