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SAN FRANCISCO - George DeVincenzi entered the shower room of the former Alcatraz prison and vividly recalled seeing one inmate killing another a half century ago when he was a guard.
"He killed him right here within 10 minutes of when he was released from segregation," the 80-year-old former prison guard said. "He was naked, getting ready to take a shower, and he killed him right there."
DeVincenzi was one of the dwindling number of former guards and inmates who visited the infamous island prison off San Francisco on Monday to mark a major renovation designed to give tourists a better look at "The Rock."
The US$3.5 ($4.78) million project adds new exhibitions and displays, a significantly expanded store and a revamped audio tour that includes the voice of DeVincenzi and several others who visited.
The story of the murder in the shower, which followed a homosexual tryst gone bad, according to DeVincenzi, was a bit too graphic for the official audio tour. But the new presentation does help bring to life the notorious penitentiary that was once home to hardened criminals such as mobster Al Capone.
"It looks better than when I was here," DeVincenzi, who worked at Alcatraz from 1950-57, said of the renovations.
During his visit, he stopped to say hello to Darwin Coon, a former inmate seated in the new gift shop selling his memoir of Alcatraz, where he spent four years before its closure in 1963.
"I'm glad he's gone straight," DeVincenzi said of a man who had robbed five banks.
Coon, 74, was not unfriendly. "Why should I have anything against George? He was making a living," he said, adding that in recent years he had earned a living with his memoir.
Coon does not glamorise his 1959-63 years at Alcatraz.
"So many guys on this island actually need to be in a mental institution," he said.
Rich Weideman, an Alcatraz expert at the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, said most visitors found it fascinating to meet Coon when he visits but said a few complain that he is profiting from his crimes.
Former guard Pat Mahoney, who narrates the new 42-minute audio tour, nostalgically recalled his Alcatraz apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and friendly relations among guard families.
"We had big parties here," he said in an interview. "If there was a problem on the hill, we'd go up there and take care of it and come back to dinner.
"We had a bowling alley over here," he said. "If they hadn't closed it down, I would have done 20 or 30 years here."
Mahoney's son Steve lived on the island for his first 6 1/2 years and recalled taking a boat to school in San Francisco every day. "It was a beautiful place," he said.
During a visit to the badly decaying laundry area closed to the public, Pat Mahoney recalled the darker side of prison life.
"We had very serious things -- down here we had a stabbing," he recalled of a prison factory incident. "I had just passed him very big scissors."
Later, he recalled extracting an inmate from solitary confinement after the prisoner had covered his body with excrement -- a story not included on the audio tour.
US officials first used Alcatraz, located in the heart of San Francisco Bay, as a fort. In 1934, it became a maximum-security federal prison and the island opened to tourists in 1973. Last year it attracted 1.3 million visitors.
- REUTERS
