Prisons are supposed to keep convicted criminals securely locked up.
However, even maximum-security prisons have inmates breaking out all the time.
Some of the breakout plans are meticulously planned for years, while others are spur of
the moment.
Regardless of how they escaped, it is still absolutely insane that anyone is able to reach
freedom while being locked up and closely monitored.
So here is the top 10 insane prison escapes.
Breaking out in at number 10 we have the Helicopter prison escape.
This is something that I thought only happened in movies.
Take a look (play clip from 1:37-1:50) This video shows two men attempting to climb up
the rope in order to get onto the roof, where the helicopter was waiting.
There were two other accomplices in the helicopter who were armed and hijacked the helicopter
and forced the pilot to fly to the jail.
Eventually the helicopter takes off with the two inmates attached to the rope and it flew
away.
A few hours later however, police arrested these two inmates and now they are looking
at a pretty long sentence.
Escaping in at number 9 is Daniel Luther Heiss.
He was sentenced to life behind bars because he was convicted of murdering another man.
Well, he was able to escape from jail by making a replica of the master key.
He memorized the shape of the key after seeing it on a prison officer’s belt but the prison
also had a booklet that they handed out to the prisoners that had a picture of the key
on the cover.
I think whoever put that image on the booklet was most likely fired.
So Daniel and his cellmate used this key to escape the prison, jumped over three sets
of razor wire fence and they were on the run for 12 days before being captured.
Threatening his way out with a wooden gun comes in at number 8 John Dillinger was on
a yearlong criminal spree where he and his gang robbed a dozen banks and a few police
stations, killing ten men in the process.
He was finally arrested and he was brought to Lake Country Jail in Indiana.
At that time, the jail was deemed escape proof but John Dillinger changed that.
On March 3, 1934, he escaped with another inmate by using a fake gun that was carved
out of wood and blackened with shoe polish.
They used this “gun” to force their way out and then they took the sheriff’s new
v-8 ford as their escape car.
Later that year, FBI agents shot John Dillinger in Chicago.
Now in at number 7 we are talking about the Parkhurst escape.
Three inmates were able to escape from a maximum-security prison that was on the Isle of Wright.
They made keys to every door and apparently, they were able to replicate each key by using
their sight and memories alone.
While they were in the gym, they unlocked the door to the outside and used a 25-foot
ladder they made to get over the wall of the prison.
One of the inmates was a pilot so the plan was to steal a plane and fly away.
However, the only plane they could find wasn’t big enough and there wasn’t a key so they
were found shortly after their escape.
Yoshi Shiratori escapes his way into number 6.
He was originally arrested in 1933 for a murder and a robbery.
But, in 1936 he escaped from prison by using a wire to pick his handcuff locks.
He was later captured and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1942, he escaped again by climbing up and passing through the ceiling’s air vents
and was captured two years later.
Again in 1944 he escaped but this time he used miso soup to rust and weaken his handcuff
and he escaped.
He was free for two years but then he was arrested and sentenced to death after he murdered
a man.
Well, believe it or not he sawed through his cell’s floorboards with a sharpened piece
of metal sheet and dug his way out with a bowl.
The Texas Seven ironically make it onto number 5.
This group of seven inmates miraculously escaped from a maximum-security prison by a series
of planned events.
First, they pretended that they wanted to work through their lunch hour so they lured
prison guards to a deserted maintenance area and hit them on the back of the head with
an axe handle.
Some of the prisoners put on the guard’s uniforms and stormed a tower in order to steal
some weapons.
Then they phoned the other guard tower to create a diversion.
The others dressed in civilian clothes and pretended that they were there to install
security cameras.
Once the area was clear, they stole a maintenance pickup truck, picked up the other guys from
the guard tower and drove off into the sunset.
Impersonating his way into number 4, Catch me if you can.
Frank Abagnale is a notorious con-man who escaped from a federal detention center in
Atlanta, Georgia in 1971.
He convinced the prison guards that he was a prison inspector and not a prisoner.
He worked with an accomplice on the outside to convince the guards that he was actually
just an undercover prison inspector posing as an inmate who was there to spy on the guards.
Over the next couple of weeks, he built up his fake alibi until the guards trusted him
enough to meet his accomplice outside of the prison walls.
Needless to say, once they let him walk out of the prison, he never returned.
He was able to run from the police for two months before he was arrested in Washington,
DC.
The notorious El Chapo digs his way into number 3.
The world’s most infamous drug lord escaped from a high-security prison in Mexico back
in 2015.
He disappeared into a hole that was in his cell shower and escaped through a mile-long
tunnel to freedom.
The tunnel was very sophisticated because it had lighting, ventilation and it even had
a modified motorcycle on tracks.
It is estimated that the escape plan cost about $50 million which included bribes and
construction and the escape route was placed in a blind spot of his cell which leads investigators
to believe that some prison guards had to be in on it.
The great escape from Stalag Luft III Prisoner of war camp makes it into number 2.
In January 1943, Roger Bushell was the mastermind behind this epic escape.
The plan was to dig three deep tunnels that were about 30 feet deep and each of the tunnel
entrances were carefully selected to ensure that they wouldn’t be detected by the prison
guards.
As the tunnels grew longer, a pump was built to push fresh air into the tunnels and electrical
lighting was installed and hooked into the prison’s electrical grid.
They also built a small rail car system for moving sand more quickly out of the tunnel.
So finally, on March 24, 1943, the escape attempt was underway and 76 prisoners crawled
their way to freedom.
However, out of the 76 men, 3 escaped, fifty men were killed and the rest were captured
and sent back.
Finally in at number 1 is The escape from Alcatraz.
This is an infamous prison that was dubbed as America’s escape proof prison.
This jail was located on an island and it had some of America’s worst criminals locked
up behind bars.
But on July 11th 1962, 3 men escaped.
They made heads out of soap, toilet paper and real hair and put them in their beds to
fool the correctional officers.
They carefully dug a tunnel that led them to an unused corridor, this took over a year
to complete.
They climbed the ventilation shaft and reached the roof where they climbed down and scaled
a fence.
They had a raft that was made out of raincoats and contact cement.
The FBI never found any trace of the men on Alcatraz or the nearby islands.
After a 17-year investigation, the FBI concluded that the three men must have drowned in the
bay but their bodies were never found either.
Well there you guys have it…