Al Capone (FBI history page)

This is the FBI’s history page on Capone, an agency narrative with a bibliography of published books. It is cited here as the federal statement of his release and death. It is not a death certificate, and no Florida death record is filed in this archive.

On custody it says that after his appeals were denied “he entered the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, serving his sentence there and at Alcatraz,” and: “On November 16, 1939, Al Capone was released after having served seven years, six months and fifteen days, and having paid all fines and back taxes.” It says he then entered a Baltimore hospital and went on to “an estate on Palm Island in Biscayne Bay near Miami, which he had purchased in 1928.” The page does not name Terminal Island or Lewisburg.

On his death it says: “Capone resided on Palm Island with his wife and immediate family, in a secluded atmosphere, until his death due to a stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947.” The National Archives catalog entry for his Alcatraz case file gives the same date, 01/25/1947, with Miami Beach, FL as the place.

The page also covers earlier years: his birth in Brooklyn in January 1899, the Bureau’s 1929 inquiry into his failure to appear before a federal grand jury, his arrest in Philadelphia on May 17, 1929 for carrying concealed deadly weapons, and his conviction on October 18, 1931 and sentence on November 24 to eleven years. Its account of the 14 February 1929 killings is quoted on the Saint Valentine’s Day spoke. The verdict and judgment in the court file are dated 17 and 24 October 1931. Those passages are the essay’s; the court papers and Vault records filed elsewhere in this archive are the records.

The image shown is the page’s lead photograph, captioned by the FBI “Mug shot of Al Capone on May 16, 1929”; it was downloaded from the FBI image repository on 12 October 2026, and its date is discussed on its own page.