How Alcatraz Prisoner Neil McCauley Inspired The Movie ‘Heat’
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary Prisoner IndexNeil McCauley’s mugshot from Alcatraz, where he spent eight years behind bars.
The story of Alcatraz prisoner Neil McCauley is so extraordinary that it inspired a Hollywood film. The 1995 movie Heat stars Robert DeNiro as McCauley, a professional thief who agrees to plan one last heist after a life of crime.
The film is a great exaggeration of McCauley’s true story, but he did spend eight years at Alcatraz, with four of those years being in solitary confinement. However, his time behind bars did nothing to rehabilitate him. As soon as he was released in 1962, he returned to his old ways — and that’s when Heat begins.
Detective Chuck Adamson knew that McCauley would never clean up his act, so he began surveilling him as soon as he was back on the streets. On March 25, 1964, McCauley and a gang of criminals tailed an armored vehicle that was delivering money to a supermarket in Chicago. Once the driver dropped off the cash, the four men rushed into the store, threatened the employees, and took off with the loot, which was equivalent to roughly $129,000 in today’s currency.
However, the gang was unaware that Adamson had set up a trap. When they tried to drive off, they realized their escape routes were blocked, prompting them to initiate a gunfight. McCauley and two others were fatally shot, while the fourth man escaped and was captured several days later.
