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In memory of

Samuel Richard Shockley

McCurtain, OK

January 12, 1909 - December 3, 1948

Jan 12, 1909 - Dec 3, 1948

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1. SAM SHOCKLEY
Samuel Richard Shockley, born January 12, 1909, Cerro Gordo, Caney Township, Little River, Arkansas, from who was assumed to have a share in the Alcatraz uprising or Battle of Alcatraz, May 1946, in which two prison guards died. Custodial officer W.A "Bill" Miller was shot by Joe Cretzer and Custodial Officer Harold Stites was mistakenly shot by the officers who were posted on the hillside during the revolt.

There's also a story about Stites being shot by an overeager, drunken officer. The officer was quickly removed from Alcatraz and never charged with the crime. Three inmates, Barney Coy, Joe Cretzer and Marv Hubbard, were killed by countless rounds of rifle fire, grenades, tear gas and deck gun shells of the Coast Guard, US Marine Corps, Prison and Police Department.

It was assumed that six prisoners had been able to obtain automatic rifles, Clarence Carnes, Bernard Coy, Sam Shockley, Miran Thompson, Joseph Cretzer and Marvin Hubbard, were the six designated instigators of the uprising. The unfounded assumptions of James J. Johnston, also nicknamed "Saltwater Johnston", Warden of Alcatraz, age 72, led to a drama. His staff tried to change Johnston's mind to intervene immediately, but Johnston refused. He wanted to use all the available force and therefore bring in the US Navy Center, Police Department, Gunboats, Alcatraz, Mc Neil Island, Leavenworth, Atlanta, San Quentin and Folsom Officers. Also, the US Marine Corps experts, armed with flame throwers, grenades, tear gas and demolition charges.

Associate Warden Miller tried several times to stop this exaggerated action, but couldn't talk Johnston's delusion out of his head the inmates had obtained automatic rifles. Miller was aware it would get total out of hand. Warden Johnston refused to consider a different approach. As soon as the press and media got wind of what was happening in Alcatraz, the guilt of the six men was accepted as a fact and the discussion focused on the dead penalty for the surviving rioters.
The six inmates were immediately branded and convicted by the bias of the sensation-loving press and media and already labeled "The Killers". Once the battle was over it became clear that the three leaders in this riot were only armed with one 45-caliber pistol, one rifle, 71 rounds of ammunition and a knife.

2. CHILDHOOD.
Samuel Richard Shockley was the son of Richard Samuel "Dick" Shockley, and Annyer Eugenia Bearden, who died in January 1916, when Samuel was 7 years old. Sam was born in Cerro Gordo, Caney Township, Little River, Arkansas. His father was a poor sharecropper with eight children; Bryant Lunsford 1889, by his first wife Norma Josephine Bearden, who died in 1891. By his second wife Annyer E. Bearden: Myrtle Lee 1898 - Frank 1901 - Anna Belle 1904 - Patrick 1907 - Samuel Richard 1909 - Ruth 1913. By his third wife Sally Barton, a 40-year-old widow, Richard Samuel 1918.

As a newborn baby Sam survived an accident when his eleven-year-old sister Myrtle looked after the children during the day, because mother Anna and father Dick worked the land.

The girl had Sam on her arm when she came too close to the fireplace and her long dress caught fire. In panic, she ran out of the house still holding Sam. Here she threw Sam clear and collapsed. Both children were lying outside for six hours without help, covered in burns. Baby Sam had taken a hard blow.
Sam was taken out of school when he was twelve years old and strong enough to work the fields with his father. His formal education ended at the third grade. In his early puberty he exhibited signs of serious instability. His father was a hard man with little understanding or patience for his strangely behaving son.

Sam started running away after the death of his stepmother Sally Barton, who died of Malaria fever in 1920, after three years marriage to his father. Sam had enough of the hard work, the eternal poverty and his hard-faced father. He didn't have many reasons to stay at home, his mother adored him and his stepmother had been good to him as well. Both were death now, the only people who really cared about him. Sam started looking for the company of criminals, bad men, native women and prostitutes, and with the age of 19, he got Gonorrhea, because of his frequent contacts with prostitutes. He left his family in 1927 and became a transient.

3. PRISON AND MARRIAGE.

Sam was arrested in 1928 for stealing chickens, automobile tires and accessories in Garvin County. He was convicted and sent for a year to Granite State Reformatory in Oklahoma. Released end of July 1929, and lived in a boarding house in Frisco, Mc Curtain County, from 1929 to 1930.

While in prison he was beaten by a fellow inmate, resulting in severe brain damage and numerous scars on his head and neck. He was released the following year, but soon he sustained a second heavy beating, this time by a police officer, which inflicted further head-trauma. He was arrested twice in Birmingham, Alabama in 1931. In the second arrest Sam managed to escape from jail the next day. Curiously, the police never went after him, forgot about him and didn't even bother to file a wanted notice. You want to read more about Sam's life? Please go to:
Biography. Sam Richard Shockley: https://samshockley.blogspot.… and about Sam and his siblings:
https://theshockleyfamily5611…

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