Alcatraz - the story of one escape

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Alcatraz - the story of one escape

March 21, 1963 was closed the famous American prison for especially dangerous criminals "Alcatraz", also known as the "Rock". Located on the island of the same name off the coast of California, it was once considered the most protected in the United States. Presumably, over the 29 years of operation of the prison, not a single successful escape was committed. But it’s impossible to say for sure, since three prisoners who managed to escape from the island in 1962 were never found dead or alive. A number of factors indirectly indicate that they survived crossing the bay.

First of all, imagine how crazy the idea itself was to escape from this prison. Alcatraz Island is located more than one and a half kilometers from the coast, ice water and a strong current provide its natural isolation.

Outside, the building was surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire and watchtowers. Three inmates each had one overseer, with each offender held in solitary confinement.

However, in June 1962, three men managed to circumvent all these obstacles. A sophisticated escape was carried out by Frank Morris, convicted of bank robbery, and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, repeatedly tried for theft and theft of cars. Alan West was also in the case, but he was not able to get out of the cell on time. All of them had previously attempted to escape, for which they were transferred to Alcatraz.

Counterfeiters occupied neighboring cells. Having learned that the old ventilation system above their unit, unlike the others, was not flooded with concrete, the prisoners decided to get through it to the roof of the prison.

A narrow service tunnel led right through the wall of their cells to the ventilation. And in each cell there was a ventilation hole measuring ten by twenty centimeters. Morris became the developer of the project, and three others in the first stage were engaged in the manufacture of the necessary equipment.

They soldered a pointed metal spoon with a stolen motor from a vacuum cleaner, using silver from a ten-cent coin instead of rosin. The result was an impromptu drill, which the conspirators almost a year in turn drilled a wall around the ventilation hatch. The noise was drowned out by music that played in the block every day for an hour. They hid the wall damage with a fake lattice, skillfully made from cardboard sheets.

At the same time, the criminals exchanged windbreakers and rubberized cloaks from other prisoners, from which they built a two-by-four-meter raft and life jackets. The oars were carved from plywood.

In order to prevent their disappearance prematurely by overseers who made night walks around the cells, the men made papier-mâché dolls and dummies of human heads with real hair collected in a hairdresser.

On June 11, 1962, after lights out, the accomplices covered the dolls with blankets and climbed into the tunnel through holes in the wall. Only West, as it turned out, did not make a hole of sufficient size, and they decided to run without it. Having straightened the grate, which closed the idle fan, the trio climbed onto the roof and went down to the water through a drainpipe. There they inflated the raft with the help of a prepared little harmonica. At about ten in the evening the fugitives sailed from the shore.

On this, the traces of Morris and the Englins are lost. Officially, they are still reported missing. Two days after the escape, a waterproof bag was found in which there was a phone book, money and family photographs belonging to one of the Anglin brothers. A homemade lifejacket was also discovered with noticeable teeth marks on the valve: the clamp was probably not tight and the swimmer had difficulty holding onto the surface (the water temperature in those days was no more than ten degrees Celsius).

Until 1978, the FBI dealt with the search for fugitives, and then a warrant for their arrest was transferred to the US Marshals Service. Since 2003, the investigation has been conducted by Michael Dick, an employee of this agency. He believes that the criminals managed to escape, as evidenced by almost 250 indirect evidence.

In particular, the mother of the Englins received flowers from mysterious anonymous people for several years as a gift. In addition, it is believed that John and Clarence attended her funeral in 1973, dressed in women's dresses. And the historian Frank Hiney learned from the relatives of the Englins that they allegedly received a postcard from South America, signed by two brothers. Nothing is known about Morris’s fate.

Warrants for the arrest of criminals will be canceled only after they are one hundred years old. In the meantime, the search for fugitive prisoners of Alcatraz continues.

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