After the sympathetic portrayal by
Burt Lancaster in the
motion picture
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), members of the public
wrote letters asking that Stroud be released. The real Robert Stroud
was not a model prisoner. Although highly intelligent, he was regarded
as a difficult, scheming, violent sociopath. He killed two additional
people while in prison. It is believed that he may have actually been a
psychopath. He was transfered to the federal prison at Alcatraz where he
spent the first year in isolation.
