KALW News Kelly Rabe is the daughter of ex-con Bob Schibline. That is, until his step daughter, Kelly Rabe, began researching Alcatraz for a college project. Other than that, he left his bank-robbing days and his time on Alcatraz behind him. He vowed never to lock a door again when he got out, and he’s kept that promise. For the most part, though, he never mentioned Alcatraz again.īut he never forgot how the cell doors sounded when they slammed shut. He told his wife he served time on Alcatraz on their third date, and she told him she was just happy he wasn’t a rapist.
#SURVIVING ALCATRAZ HOW TO#
Instead, he opened a scuba diving shop and taught people how to scuba dive until he retired. Schibline never went back to robbing banks. After five years, he served his time and was released. There were no calendars or clocks, and, Schibline says, the days and the years rolled together in a monotonous jumble. Inmates at Alcatraz were kept in single cells and rarely allowed to leave, except for meals. But once at Alcatraz, he remembers thinking, “There are maybe two hundred people here who think they’re the Enforcer too”. He says he taught other inmates martial art techniques designed to kill people. People at Leavenworth called him “the Enforcer” because he could intimidate anyone. "I was probably two or three of those things."īefore Schibline was sent to Alcatraz, he served time at Leavenworth for robbing banks while he was still in the Navy. "You only got sent to Alcatraz if you were malcontent, a troublemaker, an escape risk, or if you were a piece of sh*t," Schibline says. For most of his life, though, Schibline kept quiet about his time on Alcatraz, only telling people he could trust. But at the Alcatraz Alumni Reunion, being an ex-convict makes Schibline a star. Of the forty Alcatraz alumni here, most are kids and grandkids of former Alcatraz prison employees. When the talk is over, the crowd applauds him, like he’s a hero.įormer cons willing to talk are rare. He describes the prison menu (pork chops, fresh fish, t-bone steaks) and talks about spending time in the hole (a pitch black, soundproofed solitary confinement cell). He talks all about his theories about the prison escapees (he says he supplied them with tide tables but doesn’t believe they survived the ocean).
The con’s stepdaughter, Kelly Rabe, beams with pride from the front row. A park ranger waves his mug shot for the audience, declaring for the crowd, “He’s a pretty handsome guy, don’t you think?” Robert Schibline, an 87-year-old ex-bank robber, calls in from his home in Florida. As the name suggests, a former Alcatraz inmate phones in. In a room down below, tourists gather round for an event called Call-a-Con. The prison is a strange backdrop to all this light-hearted fun.
They share memories growing up on the Rock and stories about the prison. There are about forty alumni, mostly kids and grandkids of old prison employees and others who lived on the island.
#SURVIVING ALCATRAZ FULL#
The final Alcatraz Alumni Reunion is in full swing, and the alumni are eating biscuits and drinking coffee inside the old prison. This year, as surviving alumni dwindle, the tradition is coming to an end. When the National Park Service invited the “alumni” to host the reunions on the island, convicts were invited, too. Shortly after Alcatraz prison shut down in 1963, the people who lived and worked on the island began hosting annual get-togethers.
0 kommentar(er)
