charged under a recently passed law making it a federal crime to kill a federal agent. On March 24, 1935, Chase was tried and convicted for the murder of agent Sam Cowley and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was officially sent to Alcatraz on March 31, 1935. Chase had earned the ire of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, presumably for his involvement in the murder of Cowley and Hollis, and once referred to him as "a rat with a patriotic sounding name". Hoover personally intervened in his first parole hearing in 1950, which was rejected on the basis of his objection, and ordered the surveillance of the prison chaplain who supported his parole. In a memorandum to his field agents, Hoover wrote "Watch closely and endeavor to thwart the efforts of this priest who should be attending to his own business instead of trying to turn loose on society such mad dogs". John Paul Chase was the first person sent directly to Alcatraz prison where only Alvin Karpis was there longer than Chase's nearly 20 years (March 31, 1935 - September 21, 1954). While incarcerated at Alcatraz prison corrections officer Frank Heaney would later recall in his autobiography, Inside the Walls of Alcatraz, that Father Clark, the prison's Catholic chaplain, first got him interested in painting. At one point during his stay, the prison had an art instructor who came over from San Francisco to teach the formal techniques of painting. He made a famous painting of a boat, the "J.P. Chase" leaving for San Francisco, with the viewpoint being from the island. He had paintings displayed in the prison and small art galleries, and often sold them. At Alcatraz he worked as a cobbler and was put under the personal guard of Frank Heaney, the youngest corrections officer at the prison during its operation. In September 1954, Chase was transferred to Leavenworth where his second appeal for parole was once again rejected due to Hoover's efforts. Hoover had announced that he would prosecute Chase for the murder of Hollis were he to be released, but this was vetoed by a federal judge who ruled that a 21-year delay in prosecuting the crime clearly violated Chase's constitutional right to a "speedy trial". Chase remained in prison for another decade before he was finally released on parole, despite Hoover's protests, on October 31, 1966, after 32 years, and moved back to