Alcatraz escape of June 1962
Alcatraz escape of June 1962, jailbreak from the supposedly escape-proof maximum-security federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, California, on the night of June 11, 1962. After six months of meticulous preparation, three inmates managed to break out, though it is uncertain if they reached the mainland. The escape is thought by some to have factored into the decision to close Alcatraz prison less than a year later.
A guard making a routine cellblock head count on the early morning of June 12, 1962, came upon three inmates apparently still sleeping in their cells. Further investigation revealed that the “inmates” were in fact dummy heads, made from painted papier-mâché with hair glued on, and that the actual occupants of the cells—the convicted armed robber Frank Morris and the convicted bank-robbing brothers Clarence and John Anglin—were nowhere to be found. The guard raised the alarm, and the warden in charge promptly notified state and federal authorities as well as the U.S. military. An intensive manhunt began.
In the cells of the missing men, guards discovered that grille openings in the concrete back walls, which were 8 inches (20 cm) thick, had been laboriously enlarged with tools fashioned from spoons stolen from the mess hall. Fake grilles—also made from papier-mâché (with paper taken from magazines in the prison library)—had been used to hide the areas of excavation while work was still in progress. Authorities traced the path of Morris and the Anglin brothers through a utility corridor and up the back wall of the cellblock, using plumbing piping as steps, to the cellblock roof. From there the three lifted themselves up through a large ventilation shaft and reached the roof of the building. They next used a large exterior pipe to slip 50 feet (15 metres) to the ground. Then the men cut through the barbed wire at the top of the perimeter fencing and scrambled down a steep embankment to the water’s edge. Their subsequent movements are unclear.
No one was known to have successfully escaped from Alcatraz—located some 1.5 miles (2 km) offshore, in San Francisco Bay—since it became a federal penitentiary in 1934. For this reason, prisoners with a history of successful or attempted escapes elsewhere were often sent there. All three of the escapees fit into that category, and Morris, the ringleader, was flagged as an “escape artist” on prison records. He was also highly intelligent, and his plan made allowance for the difficulty of swimming to shore in the cold water and strong current of the bay. It was his idea to build an inflatable raft by gluing together rubber raincoats that had been stolen from the prison shop where they were manufactured. Many details about the plot were supplied by Allen West, an inmate who was an active participant but had failed to get out of his cell in time to join the others. West helped build both the raft and rubber life jackets, using a makeshift workshop on the cellblock roof, which he had been assigned to paint by guards who did not monitor him. The plotters used the same roof to store other equipment, such as the makeshift drill they used to remove the cover from the ventilation shaft.
It is fairly certain that Morris and the Anglins escaped from Alcatraz Island, but it is not known whether they successfully escaped to the mainland. Fragments of their rubber equipment were found on or near Angel Island, a former immigration station that was their intended intermediate destination. From Angel Island the men had intended to swim to the Marin county mainland, according to West, and then steal new clothes from a retail store. However, no such crime was reported. Some speculated that the men had died before reaching shore. Although no bodies were found in the bay, they could easily have been swept out to sea by the current.
In the ensuing years there were supposedly several sightings of the escapees and messages from them. Reports of their survival were offered to the media by family members and former associates. The Federal Bureau of Investigation remained skeptical and closed its case in 1979, concluding that the three had drowned in the bay. Their story was dramatized in the film Escape from Alcatraz (1979), starring Clint Eastwood as Frank Morris.