Our Arklahoma Heritage: Convict who wound up in Alcatraz after McCuratin County crime spree fell to prison stabbing

Rufus Roy McCain

Rufus Roy McCain came into the world on July 7, 1903, in New Boston, Bowie County, Texas.

His father, James Newton McCain, worked as a farmer and laborer, while his mother, Nancy E. Nelson McCain, managed the household. The family relocated to the Goodwater community in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, by October 1907, where Nancy died that month at age thirty-nine from complications related to childbirth.

Rufus, then four years old, grew up as the eighth of ten children in a rural setting marked by poverty and hardship. His siblings included six brothers: Fleak, based in Boswell; Newt, in Magnolia, Arkansas; Lawrence, Bob, Gus, and Jimmie, all in Broken Bow. Two sisters survived into adulthood: one married K.M. Parmer and lived in Shreveport, Louisiana; the other married John Roby and stayed in Broken Bow.

Rufus also had three half-sisters from his father's previous relationships: Martha Dickey in California, Nina Cress in Broken Bow, and Imogene Farley, also in Broken Bow.

No records indicate Rufus married or had children of his own, though extended family ties persisted in the region, with some relatives later recalling him as a distant cousin who hid out on local properties during his criminal years.

Rufus spent his formative years in McCurtain County's forested landscapes, where economic struggles pushed many toward manual labor or opportunistic ventures. By his late teens, he drifted into petty crimes, escalating to more serious offenses by the 1920s.

His first documented conviction came in Oklahoma for interference with a place of burial, stemming from looting a Native American grave site in McCurtain County, an act that reflected the area's historical tensions over indigenous lands. He served time in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary before relocating to Arkansas, where authorities convicted him of robbery and assault with intent to kill.

Incarcerated at the Tucker Prison Farm, Rufus orchestrated his first escape in the early 1930s, fleeing back to familiar territory in McCurtain County.

His return to the county culminated in a brazen robbery on May 14, 1935, at the Idabel National Bank, located at East Main and North Central avenues in Idabel. Partnering with Samuel Marion Day, Rufus entered the bank mid-morning, armed and demanding cash.

They collected between two thousand six hundred and two thousand seven hundred dollars while taking two employees, Chester O'Neal and Bryant Clegg, as hostages to shield their exit. A bystander spotted the crime and alerted local lawman Sam Sellers, who quickly gathered armed men from a nearby hardware store.

The posse confronted the robbers outside, opening fire despite the hostages. Day fell dead from multiple gunshot wounds, and Rufus sustained injuries to his leg and abdomen but surrendered after O'Neal urged him to give up.

Captured and tried in Durant, Rufus received a ninety-nine-year sentence, with federal judge Robert L. Williams criticizing the jury for sparing his life. Initially held at Leavenworth Penitentiary, his history of escape and violence prompted a transfer to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1936, where he became inmate number AZ-267.

At Alcatraz, Rufus aligned with other hardened prisoners, including Arthur Barker, Dale Stamphill, William Martin, and Henry Young. On January 19, 1939, the group attempted an escape from the isolation unit by cutting and bending metal bars in their cells. They reached the island's west shoreline but faced guards who ordered surrender.

Barker and Stamphill refused and died from gunfire, while Rufus, Martin, and Young submitted without resistance.

The failure bred resentment, particularly from Young, who later claimed Rufus hesitated at the water's edge, admitting he could not swim and delaying the group for forty-five minutes.

Young stewed in isolation, where a search uncovered a makeshift shank in his cell. Released to general population in November 1940, Young took a job in the model shop, granting access to tools.

Henry Young

On December 3, 1940, after a verbal exchange with Rufus during morning routines, Young retrieved two planer knives from a lathe, taped one for a handle, and slipped into the tailor shop where Rufus worked. He stabbed Rufus once in the abdomen, twisting the blade to inflict maximum damage.

Guards arrived to find Young rinsing the knife at a sink, offering no fight. Rufus, clutching his wound to contain protruding stomach, reached the prison hospital in agony. Surgeon Romney Ritchey noted a five-inch penetrating injury causing internal bleeding and shock, with damage to the colon's hepatic flexure.

Despite initial signs of stabilization, Rufus died hours later from surgical shock and organ trauma.

Authorities shipped his body by train to the Frisco Depot in Idabel, where James Newton McCain signed for it. Coffey Funeral Home handled arrangements, and Rufus found his final resting place in Philadelphia Cemetery, a small graveyard in the Goodwater community of McCurtain County, near where his mother lay buried.

The site remains a quiet marker of his turbulent path, drawing occasional interest from historians tracing the county's outlaw past.

His story lingers in local lore, with relatives like those in the McCain and Florence lines preserving tales of his brief hideouts on family land, underscoring how his crimes intertwined with the area's rural isolation and economic woes.