Number 12 Breaking “The Rock” Myth From 1934 to 1963, the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
housed some of the most ruthless criminals in the United States. Located on Alcatraz
Island, off the coast of San Francisco, the prison held notorious gangsters such as Al
Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and Whitey Bulger. It was the final destination
for ruthless criminals as well as inmates who were causing trouble at other federal
prisons. Also known as “The Rock”, the maximum security facility had a reputation
of being escape-proof and was regarded as America’s strongest prison. It was not only
heavily fortified but also surrounded by the frigid waters and powerful currents of the
San Francisco Bay. Razor-shark rocks and great white sharks provided an additional line of
security. Out of 36 prisoners who attempted escape, only five were never recovered by
the authorities. That being said, the second escape attempt caused an irreparable dent
to the mythos of Alcatraz. It basically proved that “The Rock” could be broken, thus
planting the seed of hope for future prisoners. Number 11 History Repeats Itself
In December of 1937, convicted bank robbers Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe made it out of
prison and off the island. They’d gradually weakened the iron bars from the window of
the tire repair shop they’d been assigned to. Cole and Roe used grease and shoe polish
to conceal their progress of sawing through the bars. Under the cover of fog, they dropped
down to the beach and presumably went in the water with floats improvised from tires. Nobody
knows what happened to them as their remains were never found. The currents at the time
of their escape would have swept even the strongest swimmers into the open Pacific Ocean.
The thick fog made it nearly impossible for an outside boat to pick them up. Nevertheless,
there were reported sightings of Cole and Roe in the aftermath. It wasn’t long before
history would repeat itself. Roughly 25 years later, Frank Morris, along with brothers John
and Clarence Anglin, escaped Alcatraz. Their 1962 prison break, remembered as one of history’s
most daring, was the culmination of an incredibly elaborate plan.
Number 10 Frank Morris’ Mastermind IQ A closer look at the three men involved in
the June 1962 escape attempt, reaffirms their probability of success. They’d previously
met in an Atlanta penitentiary, so a relationship of trust developed with ease. None of them
were typical hardened criminals. John and Clarence Anglin were keen to ensure that nobody
got hurt when they targeted banks and other establishments. They were arrested for robbing
a branch of the Bank of Columbia at gunpoint. It was reportedly the only time the Anglin
brothers had used a weapon, which had actually been a toy gun. They were eventually transferred
to Alcatraz after repeated attempts to escape from Atlanta Penitentiary. Frank Morris had
a long rap sheet that included stealing cars, narcotics possession and armed robbery. He’d
escaped from the maximum security Louisiana State Penitentiary in the late 1950s, while
serving a bank robbery sentence. Morris was recaptured a year later, as he attempted a
burglary, and sent to Alcatraz. Between the three of them Morris and the Anglin brothers
had the consistent experience and audacity to follow through on an escape. Morris, in
particular, had a measured IQ of 133 which meant that he ranked in the top 2% of the
population. It’s the type of intellect required to mastermind a complex escape from, what
was at the time, America’s most secure prison. Morris was the originator and unilateral orchestrator
of the plot while the others closely followed his lead.
Number 9 Elaborate Plan The scope of Morris’ brilliant design can
be narrowed down to a few key points unfolding over the course of roughly six months. During
the first phase, the men gradually widened the ventilation ducts under the sinks in their
cells. Morris and the Anglin brothers used improvised metal tools and a drill built from
a vacuum cleaner motor. The holes were masked with painted cardboard. They worked during
the prison’s music hour and Morris would also play his accordion to disguise the noise.
Once the vents were wide enough, the men accessed a utility corridor and climbed to the vacant
top level of the cell block. It was there that they set up a secret workshop and built
life preservers as well as a 6-by-14-foot rubber raft. They used about fifty raincoats
with the seams stitched by hand and sealed with heat from the steam pipes. To disguise
the nighttime absence from their cells the men made dummy heads out of a mixture of soap,
toothpaste, toilet paper and concrete dust. They used real hair from the barbershop and
paint from the maintenance shop for a realistic appearance. They placed the dummies on the
pillows then piled towels and clothing under the blankets. On June the 11th, 1962, with
all the pieces in place, the men climbed a ventilation shaft for the roof. They removed
a grille and then slid 50 feet down a kitchen vent pipe. Afterwards, they scaled the 12-foot
perimeter fences which were topped with barbed wire. Morris and the Anglin brothers exploited
a blind spot in the tower surveillance network and used a musical instrument, called a concertina,
to inflate the raft. They then launched it and presumably made their way 2 miles north
towards Angel Island. The dummy head trick was highly effective so the escape wasn’t
discovered until the morning of June the 12th. The official FBI report maintained that their
chances of surviving the bay’s turbulent waters were very slim. However, it’s hard
to imagine that in all his meticulous planning, Morris had failed to account for the currents.
Subsequent investigations and reports seem to indicate that he and the Anglin brothers
made it to mainland and beyond. Number 8 Questionable FBI Report
The Alcatraz escape plot had had a fourth member, inmate Allen West, but he was unable
to join the others on the night they broke out. He’d used cement to shore up the crumbling
concrete around the vent in his wall. The material then hardened consequently making
the vent tighter. By the time he reached the roof it was close to sunrise and the others
had already left. West fully cooperated with investigators in revealing the plan and wasn’t
punished for his role in it. According to him, the men we’re going to steal a car
once they reached Angel Island. The official position of the FBI was that the escapees
had probably drowned since the raft wasn’t recovered and no car thefts were reported.
This was a questionable statement. It could be viewed as a maneuver employed by the authorities
to get the men to relax so they’d be easier to catch. What actually happened was that
a battered raft was discovered on Angel Island on June the 12th, the day after the escape,
with footprints leading away from it. There were boats docked on the other side of the
island, so the men could have stolen one and reached mainland. That same day, a 1955 blue
Chevrolet was reported stolen in Marin County. At roughly 11:00 a.m., a driver in Stockton,
California claimed that three men in a blue Corvette had forced him off the road. Investigative
journalists found that a similar car had been reported driving across the country in the
escape’s aftermath. A few months after the break out, three men matching the fugitives’
description were reportedly trying to obtain a hideout in the woods of North Carolina.
Number 7 Bodies Were Never Found The FBI maintained that the men had most likely
drowned, but for a long time still listed them as “missing”. It’s somewhat common
knowledge that two in three bodies that are lost to the bay’s waters eventually turn
up. However, despite an extensive manhunt, the remains of Frank Morris, John and Clarence
Anglin were never found. All that the investigators discovered was a floating plastic-wrapped
wallet with pictures and addresses of the Anglin brothers’ relatives and friends.
Additional findings included a paddle floating off Angel Island and the battered remains
of the raincoat raft. Number 6 Simulations
Several simulations, one of which was carried out by MythBusters, proved that the men could
have successfully navigated the bay’s waters. The MythBusters team used a raft made from
the same materials and made it to Marin Headlands. They theorized that the men could have strategically
used the bay’s currents to throw the authorities off their trail. That way, the abandoned paddle
would have floated back towards Angel Island as a decoy. A 2014 Delft University study
of the bay’s current patterns suggests that the men would have reached Horseshoe Bay,
if they left at 11:30 p.m. The debris would have drifted to Angel Island. In 2019, award-winning
investigative journalist Christof Putzel, along with two other men, tested a replica
of the raft. The team concluded that, due to the shifting tide, Morris and the Anglin
Brothers wouldn’t have faced great difficulties in reaching Angel Island.
Number 5 Alcatraz Triathlon For a while, the driving force for dismissing
the escape as successful was the idea that to escape Alcatraz by swimming was impossible.
That supposition was swiftly brought down by the inmate named John Paul Scott. In December
of 1962, months after Morris and the Anglin brothers had escaped, he was found unconscious
at Fort Point. A group of teenagers stumbled upon Scott under the southern end of the Golden
Gate Bridge. He was suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia but had managed to swim roughly
3 miles from the island prison to the San Francisco shore. Scott had improvised water
wings from rubber gloves and had been carried by the current for a brunt of the way. He
swam in the winter, in more unfavorable conditions than Morris and the Anglin brothers. Scott
was also was using inferior means of flotation but, still, he survived. He recovered in a
hospital and was promptly returned to Alcatraz. His attempt changed the line of reasoning
for the June breakout. Even if the raft had failed, the three men, all in their thirties,
were strong swimmers. Nowadays, the swim is performed by many athletes as part of triathlon
events. The original Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon has been held since 1981 and includes
a swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco, a bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and a running
course over Mount Tamalpais. Number 4 Alternative Escape Theory
A story from Fred Brizzi, a childhood friend of the Anglin brothers, put forward an alternative
escape theory. Brizzi said that he’d recognized the brothers in Rio de Janeiro, in 1975. They
went to a farm the brothers were renting and the men supposedly told him they hadn’t
paddled their raft across the bay. Morris and the Anglin brothers had actually taken
their raft around the island, to the boat dock. They attached an electrical cord to
the rudder of a ferry boat that was set to leave from Alcatraz Island after midnight.
They were thus towed behind the ferry towards mainland and untied the cord when they were
close enough to resume paddling. Brizzi had a reputation as a conman so his story was
seen as questionable. Nevertheless, a length of electrical cord was, indeed, reported missing
from the prison’s dock on the night of the escape.
Number 3 Anglin Brothers Photograph Fred Brizzi also claimed that, while in Brazil,
he took a photo of the Anglin brothers as they were standing next to a termite mound.
The infamous photo was analyzed by forensic experts who confirmed that it had been taken
in 1975 and added that the men were “more than likely” John and Clarence. In 2020,
a facial-recognition AI from Accenture Interactive agency Rothco, confirmed their identities.
The facial matching system used a deep neural network and its algorithm was fed millions
of images along with previous pictures of the Anglin brothers. The AI steadily optimized
its models and concluded that the 1975 photo was genuine. Moreover, journalist Christof
Putzel travelled to Taubate, Brazil and found the farm in the photo. It had been rented
by two American men from 1965 to 1975 and known as “The Farm of the Americans”.
Putzel even went to the site where the photo had been taken and found the large termite
mounds. Today's topic was requested by DaBunting and
Luca M. If you have any other topics you'd like to learn about, subscribe & let us know
in the comments section below. Number 2 Alleged John Anglin Letter
In 2013, the San Francisco Police Department received a letter from someone claiming to
be John Anglin. Its existence was confirmed by the FBI in 2018. The author said that he,
his brother and Frank Morris “made it that night but barely”. The alleged John Anglin
wrote that he was 83 years old, had cancer and was in “bad shape”. He offered to
turn himself in, in exchange for medical care and if the authorities promised on TV he wouldn’t
serve more than a year. The letter mentioned that Clarence had died in 2011 while Morris
had died in 2005 and was buried in Alexandria. The authorities analyzed the letter for a
potential link to Anglin but the results were inconclusive. When asked about the handwriting
on the letter, a nephew of the Anglin brothers claimed that, after the escape, his grandmother
received roses with cards signed by John and Clarence. The potential lead offered by the
letter ultimately faded away. Number 1 Still “Wanted”
The FBI closed the case on the escapees in 1979, concluding that they’d probably drowned.
All three men are still on a wanted list for the U. S. Marshals Service. Deputy U.S. Marshal
Michael Dyke claimed in 2012, on the escape’s 50th anniversary, that he still received sporadic
leads regarding the case. The investigation will remain open until the 100th birthdays
of all three escapees. The mystery and fascination surrounding their ultimate fate has outlived
the very prison they’d been sent to. Alcatraz was closed in 1963 and now mainly operates
as a museum. Visitors to the former fortress are often treated to the story of Frank Morris,
John and Clarence Anglin, and of the most daring escape in its history.
Thanks for watching! What do YOU think happened to Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers? Let
us know in the comments section below!