Henri Theodore Young (born June 20, 1911 – disappeared 1972) was an American convicted bank robber and murderer[2] who, while serving one of a series of prison terms, attempted to escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary with four other inmates in 1939.

During the escape attempt, two inmates, Dale Stamphill and Arthur "Doc" Barker, were shot, the latter fatally.

Two of the men, Young and Rufus McCain, were sentenced to solitary confinement and served the terms at Alcatraz for a period of three years (until autumn of 1942).

Eleven days after re-entering the Alcatraz general prison population in 1940, Young murdered McCain.

McCain couldn't swim and Barker refused to leave anyone behind so they began trying to hastily make a raft from driftwood.

Young's defense in the subsequent trial put the spotlight on Alcatraz and the penal system, leading to questions about how the prison was run.

On the night of January 13, 1939, Young, with prisoners Rufus McCain, Arthur Barker, Dale Stamphill and William Martin, attempted to escape.

[5][6] At his trial for McCain's murder in 1942, Young and his attorney argued that the harsh system at Alcatraz had brutalized and dehumanized him.

According to the San Francisco Examiner, "Emphasis which [the defense] repeatedly laid on the fact that Young was in isolation or solitary confinement for more than three years—and that he drove his knife into McCain's abdomen just eleven days after release from such confinement, made it clear that the defense hopes to show not only that Young was 'punch drunk' but that the punches were administered by the Alcatraz 'system'.

He was arrested in Kansas City, Missouri on January 9, 1968, after a citizen recognized him from an article in Inside Detective magazine.

He was transferred from Alcatraz to serve the remainder of that murder sentence later in life at a Washington state prison.