A Great Escape - Part 1

Welcome to Red Herrings!

This week, Brittany kicks things off with a daring escape that has haunted true crime fans for decades…high stakes and a prison no one was supposed to leave.

We’re talking about the infamous Anglin brothers. Did their plan really work, or did it all go tragically wrong?

Hosted by: Brittany Warren & Joccoaa Gray

Sound Engineer & Co-host: Christopher Brown

Edited by: Joccoaa Gray

If you would like to get in touch, please contact us at redherringspod@gmail.com.

Sources:

1. Alabama Journal 
2. The Peninsula Times Tribune 
3. Redlands Daily Facts 
4. The Huntsville Times 
5. Oakland Tribune
6. Dark Curiosities Podcast
7. Time Magazine
8. BBC News
9. abc30.com
10. National Park Foundation
11. Science News
12. nola.com
13. Unsolved Mysteries
14. NPR
15. Unsolved.com
16. New York Post
17. FBI.gov
18. The Los Angeles Times
19. Sky News
20. CBS News

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Red Herrings. I'm Jacoa, Master's student in law and human rights, host of True Crime Club Newcastle, and creator of True Crime Forum Newcastle.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hi, I'm Brittany. I have two degrees in history and 15 years experience in genealogy. We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two red herrings and the catch of the day. Don't forget about me.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hi, Chris!

SPEAKER_00 0:27

We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

And Chris.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Are we ready? Yes. We're ready. Okay. Frank Morris was convicted of his first crime at 13 years old.

unknown 0:40

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

He was born in 1926 in Washington, D.C., to a woman named Clara, a runaway who had left home when she was young. She gave him the name of a civil engineer she claimed to have married, though the man was not his father. Morris spent his early childhood moving between a foster home and an orphanage, where Clara visited twice a week. Oh. He was not close with her. She was described as prone to uncontrollable rages and emotionally distant. By six years old, he was stealing small change from a teacher's desk and rifling through children's lunchboxes, often after visits from his mother. Oh, okay. Orphaned at age 11, he spent the remainder of his childhood in foster homes. So she died. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, we don't really know. But it's not important. Morris will later go on to say his parents died in 1937. But it's thought that he just said this. No one really knows. Over the years, the charges accumulated. Burglary, grand larceny, car theft, armed robbery, narcotics possession, and bank robbery.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Whoa. Down.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

His criminal record stretched across multiple states, including Florida and Georgia. Despite his repeated offenses, Mars was considered highly intelligent. IQ testing reportedly placed him at 133, ranking him in the top two percent of the general population. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

He can't be that intelligent if he kept getting caught. In the nicest way.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Eventually, Mars was sentenced to 10 years at the Louisi Louisiana State Penitentiary for robbery and possession of marijuana. In April 1955, he escaped with fellow inmate William Martin. The two hitchhiked and were picked up by a farmer who dropped them near an oil refinery outside Baton Rouge. You don't need to know where these places are, so don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

That's great because we don't have to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

I know because I was like, I'm not even gonna consider putting in a map. Okay. They spent several months in New Orleans before heading north to Kansas City. Mars was recaptured approximately eleven months later while committing another crime. After his recapture, he was again convicted of burglary in 1960. He had numerous tattoos, including a devil's head on his upper right arm, a star on each knee and at the base of a thumb, and the numbers seven and eleven over one knee. Your first photo was that of Frank Morris. Ooh. He looks a little scary.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

That's okay. I love a bad boy. Oh, he's pretty hot though, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Izzy? Is he? I mean it's not giving Ted Bundy. No, it's not. He's got a jawline. That's what I was gonna say. He's got the chiseled jaw for sure, but his eyes are too narrow. Okay. He looks sus.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

He looks like he's posing for his photo, right? Well, it's a mugshot. Well, yeah, no, I know, but he like he like wants to look sexy in his mugshot.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, he's got that smouldering thing going on.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Good hair. We're gonna put Frank Morris aside for a minute. John and Clarence Anglin were born in 1930 and 1931 in Donelsonville, Georgia, into a large family of 14 children.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Jesus, that's a lot of children.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

In the early 1940s, the family relocated to Ruskin, Florida, just south of Tampa, where truck farms and tomato fields offered steadier work for their parents. Each June, the family migrated as far north as Michigan to pick cherries. The brothers grew up in poverty and were described as inseparable. They became strong swimmers, reportedly astonishing their siblings by swimming in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan while ice still floated on the surface. You can see an undated photo of the brothers.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

So these are the two brothers of that family.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Of 14. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Were they the only boys? No. Right, so they're women okay. I believe they were the two youngest. I could be wrong about that, but I think they were the two youngest.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

And these guys all moved when they were about 10 or whatever to Ruskin, Florida. Mm-hmm. With a family. Cherry picking in. In Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

So you're basically going from you know where Florida is. Yes. And then you're going like as far north as you can to get to Michigan during the summer to go cherry picking. Fine. Because they were seasonal workers, so they just moved wherever the work was. Makes sense. So there we go.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

I have a feeling these are going to be some more bad boys for Chris. Clarence first encountered. We get it, babe.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Clarence first encountered legal trouble at 14 when he was caught breaking into a service station. As teenagers, both brothers were sent to reform institutions after stealing $2,200 as part of a youth gang in Florida.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Oof, that's a lot of money, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

That's a lot of money in I don't know, teenagers 1940s. That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

That was a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. I think it's a lot of money. No.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Possibly.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Dad joke's.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah, I mean. Clarence was sent to the state industrial school for two years, John for one year, and their brother Alfred was referred to probation. By the early 1950s, John and Clarence had turned to burglary and bank robbery, often targeting closed businesses to avoid injuring anyone.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Like they're letting them run around committing more crimes. He gets probation.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

I don't know. But it seems like they were they were trying not to hurt anyone, which is nice.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

That's yeah. Points for them. Maybe they were hot too, so they let them off. I don't know about that. Oh, were they not were they ugly?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

No, no, you'll see not yet, not yet, not yet. You'll see close-up soon.

unknown 6:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Are they ugly though?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Oh no, you tell me.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Oh, we will.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

On January 17th, 1958, John, Clarence, and their brother Alfred robbed the Bank of Columbia in Columbia, Alabama, stealing $19,000. Fuck. The FBI apprehended them, and they each received 35-year federal sentences. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

I can understand that. That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

I get that. What's the point in robbing a bank if you're gonna get caught and spend the rest of your life not being able to spend the money? I know.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Well, you can always escape from prison. Did they bury their money before?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Oh, I don't know. I'm assuming if the F Bag FBI got them, which I think they got them like pretty quickly after the robbery. Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Dumb asses.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yeah. Alfred's wife and John's girlfriend were also arrested in connection with the crime. Your next two photos. The first one is John, and the second is Clarence. I see what you mean. I couldn't get a clearer picture of Clarence. It's a little pinxulated. Forehead is ginormous.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Grand. Fabulous. Who's he looking at in that photo? He's like side-eyeing someone.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I don't know, an officer maybe?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

He looks pissed off. Well, I would be too. Oh god, and the brother, they look alike. I know they're brothers, so I shouldn't be surprised.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

What's that weird dent on his head, the second one?

SPEAKER_00 8:01

The second one.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Yeah, he's got like a weird appendage on his head.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Show me. I think that's just his hair. Yeah, I think that's just his head. He's got a quiff. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

I'll let him off. I like that they've had enough time to do their hair for their mugshow.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Oh, absolutely, as everyone did in the 1950s.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Like they've combed that, put some product in, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Oh yeah. The brother served time at Florida State Prison, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and Atlanta Pet Penitentiary. At the Atlanta facility, Clarence attempted to smuggle John out by cutting the top off of one bread box and the bottom out of another. John hid inside one box while Clarence stacked the second on top and packed loaves of bread around him. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Love it.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

The plan was discovered, and they were caught when a supervisor became suspicious of the box's size before it was loaded onto a truck bound for a prison farm camp.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Devas.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Yeah, they must have been devas because they really wanted to get out because they really needed that dough, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I guess so.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Funny. Funny. Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers shared lengthy criminal histories that began in their youth. But what else did these men have in common? Any guesses?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

A dad. I'm sure they all did. No, the same dad.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

It's like, I guess. They must.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

What else did they do? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Not the same dad.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Not the same father, no. High IQs? No. It's a guess.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

It's a g it's a guess.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Any other guesses?

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Oh man, I feel like you haven't told us much. Were they all at the same orphanage or something? Nope.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

No, because they he the two brothers had Family.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had like twelve siblings and their parents worked together and all that.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I don't know if you're gonna get it. Let me think. Okay. No, go on. What were you gonna say? Institutions. What? What?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

You want me to tell you?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

All three will be assigned to five by nine foot cells in Alcatraz. A penitentiary reserved for the most dangerous and persistent offenders. I was never gonna get that.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

I take it back about the lenient punishments by the way.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

That's what I thought. Alcatraz with the death eaters. God, my joke.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

I love it. On January 18th, 1960, Morris was transferred to Alcatraz to serve a 14-year sentence. John was transferred on October 24th, 1960, and Clarence followed on January 16th, 1961. So within a year, all of them were transferred there separately.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Alcatraz is the one that's on the island. And then it's like shark-infested waters, right? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Is it actually shark-infested waters?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Well, you'll just have to wait and listen.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

That's the legend, isn't it? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

You can now see the next photo, it's just the one, but side-by-side mugshots of Morris and the Anglin brothers from Alcatraz.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

I think they could have taken one where he wasn't sneezing.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Right? Ryan I was like, that's such a bad photo of Clarence.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

John looks so mad at everyone.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

You think he looks mad? I think he looks confused. I think Morris looks mad. Who the hell are you?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Morris has the smoldering thing again. Very Henry Cavill.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

He he's got a high IQ. He knows. He knows.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

He knows that his descendants are gonna see this photo and think, damn, what a badass.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Alcatraz sits on a remote island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Known simply as the Rock, it had housed prisoners since the American Civil War in the 1860s. So like a hundred years by that point. Accessible only by boat, it was separated from the mainland by cold, fast moving water and unpredictable currents. In 1934, at the height of America's war on crime, the island was converted into what was seen as the nation's most secure federal prison and quickly became a symbol of the government's crackdown on organized crime and repeat offenders. Approximately 250 of the country's most dangerous criminals were confined there. Is it still a working prison?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

No, okay. It's a tourist place now. Is it? Yes. I want to go.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

That's so cool. I thought it was still.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I did too, Chris.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Because I swear there was like a crocodile Alcatraz thing recently.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Oh, ignore that. Okay. Can you tell me the difference between Alcatraz and Guantanamo Guantanamo Bay? Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

That one is in I'm not sure you want to leave that in Jacob.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Why? Why?

SPEAKER_03 12:43

I think that's gonna cause Anna to laugh at you again.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Oh I it's fine. I'm used to it.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Where is that one local? Guantanamo bay's in Cuba, yeah. Right. I couldn't remember it was Cuba or like Puerto Rico or something.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Prison that they don't have on their own soil, so they can get away with doing bad shit. Yeah. Basically.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Right, so not America at all, anyway. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

These inmates included notorious people such as Al Capone and George Machine Gun Kelly. Whoa! Men with histories of violence and escape attempts, as well as unusual figures like Robert Stroud, later known as the birdman of Alcatraz. I looked this up. I assumed, oh maybe he escaped and he was like a f the the flying squirrels. No, he just really liked birds. Um he wrote multiple books while in jail at Alcatraz on birds, and he um raised birds, not on Alcatraz, when he was outside, um, and he just really liked them and he became known as the bird man of Alcatraz. I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

I mean, everyone needs a hobby, right? Totally. Or a lot else to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I mean, he committed manslaughter, so let's not make that a hobby. So birds.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Mmm, birds.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

And maybe maybe he was nice to the birds.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

I hope so. Or maybe he had sex with the birds.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Let's This is reminding me of the crazy person. Um, our first episode with the guy that shot the king.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Uh tried to get away.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Oh, James Anfield. Yeah, that made friends with a squirrel while he was in prison. Yeah. Yes. Yes. While he was in hospital. Hospital. It's kind of a prison though, isn't it? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Arguably worse. Apparently it was worse, yeah. Poor James. Poor James. Yeah. Misunderstood ugly.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Relate to that.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Chris, you're very handsome. It doesn't matter what anyone says.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Were you having like doubts out of the way?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

What is it with a tone that I uh A BBC journalist once described the population as men too vicious and troublesome to be held in an ordinary jail? What do you think of that? Do you think that's fair?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

But they hadn't escaped before.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Who? The 250 bad people.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Uh what do you mean they're too bad to be kept in a normal jail? You know, like or maybe they had escaped before.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

It's just Alcatraz, bad.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

But like why should they be kept in? I don't know. Don't ask me these questions. It's kind of mean.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah, I'm just thinking because like the UK doesn't have anything like that, but we probably have equally as bad men.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Well we have lack security prisons, right? We've got like the got that one oh the Manchester Bone was in. But then he still managed to throw boiling oil at someone in a cooking course. So he was having cooking courses, so it kind of been that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

This was also like 90 years ago, so maybe it was a bit different.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Maybe they weren't having cooking courses.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

I don't think they were having cooking courses.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

But we don't know that they weren't.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Well they were doing other things.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Oh with birds? Oh, no.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Not with birds. These men were surrounded by the turbulent waters, strategically positioned guard towers, and a rigid daily schedule that included multiple headcounts of the prisoners. From 1934 until its closure in 1963, 36 men attempted to escape in 14 different incidents. Nearly all were captured or died. You can now see a picture of Alcatraz from 1932.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Yeah, it is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

I like that they saw an island and like stick a prison there.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

It's interesting to me that the building is sm so small on it.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

I thought that, yeah, it's pretty small, isn't it? When I think of Alcatraz, I think of like a huge complex, but I mean I've never been.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

I have imagined it big as well, so I'm just wondering if it's just the perspective of this photo, maybe. There's like a lot of green areas. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Pretty. On the morning of June 12th, 1962, correctional officer Bill Long began his day as normal. He had breakfast with his wife Jean, later recalling that the only shared memory they both held of that morning was their irritation at the radio station repeatedly playing Tommy Rowe's single hit, Sheila.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Are you gonna sing it for us?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Nope, I haven't even listened to it. I considered listening to it, but I just didn't have time today. Chris, do you wanna go?

SPEAKER_03 17:00

I'm okay. I think it's best from uh from Brittany. It's her case.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I've never even heard it. I don't even know what it goes.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, I wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Carrying his steel thermos filled with fresh coffee, Long made the steep walk up the hill to the prison, beginning his shift.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I can see that steep walk.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Oh yes. After a routine briefing, the prisoner count began. According to Long, one of the inmates did not report, and a sergeant approached him very alarmed. Bartlett was coming in my direction, Long later recalled. He's about twenty feet away and he starts yelling, Bill, Bill, Bill, I got a guy here who won't get up for the count.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Eh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Long went to investigate.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Dead.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

The selling question was B 150, John Anglins. John, okay. I said, Sarge, I'll get him up, Long remembered. I went up to the bars, knelt down, I reached in with my left hand to tap him on the head, and it felt like it crumbled and the head flopped onto the floor. People who are observing me said that I jumped back about four feet. That's when all hell broke loose and the captain started ringing the bell.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

What are your thoughts so far? I have no idea what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Okay, Chris?

SPEAKER_03 18:09

I may have seen the next picture.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Right, don't speak then.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Put that in the bloom.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Just out of context.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah. The prison was immediately placed on lockdown, and officers conducted a full inspection. The situation soon became clear. Three inmates were missing from their cells.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin were nowhere to be found.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Oh my god. So how do they report for the camp?

SPEAKER_01 18:37

I don't know. Okay. Oh, maybe they didn't. All lined up. Yes, I imagine it is. All lined up. And it's like, oh, where's John Anglin? Gotcha. He's not here.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, like I've read. And then they realized three of them are missing.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Tell me your theories right now. Tell me your thoughts. What's going on in your heads? Well, I think they've escaped.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Have they dug a hole?

SPEAKER_03 18:55

I don't have to be a big hole.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Not that big. You gotta get from under the under the sea. Oh, like a long hole, you mean? I was imagining earth, not length. I was like, why? Never mind. I love it. Yeah, a long hole. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Sorry. I'll be more precise picture. Yeah. I don't think they dug a long hole. That would have to be a very long hole. Okay. Could they swum?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Don't know.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

How did the guards get there? Did they live on the island or did they take boats each morning? Did they stay on a boat?

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Don't know. We'll get there. We'll answer all your questions soon enough.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Are we right? I don't know. But even if they swam, how did they get out of the building? That's where I'm thinking the hole may come in.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

The long one.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Long holes.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Right. The siren was activated and all inmates were confined to their cells. Armed guards were posted at strategic positions, and officers began searching every structure on Alcatraz, including administrative buildings and staff housing.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Okay, so they did live on the on the hat. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

The island was home not only to prisoners, but also correctional officers and their families.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Oh god, imagine. That's so grim. Yeah. You literally like raising your kids and shit on Alcatraz Island with 250 of the worst people ever.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Yeah, it's not a vibe, is it?

SPEAKER_01 20:32

It's not really. We have uh actually an eyewitness statement from one of the well, when the sho when this happened, uh one of the girls who was living there. Would you not be like scared to go to sleep every night? Probably. But I wonder in a way you just become desensitized to it or like used to it.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Yeah, used to it, yeah. And you're like, uh decompartmentalized, don't think about it, living life.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Bit weird though, isn't it? Yeah, but I hope they got paid well.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Don't we? I hope so too, but yeah, I don't know. Jolene Babyck, whose father was acting warden at the time, later recalled that exact moment. When I woke up, the siren was still going. It was very piercing, extremely loud, it was horrible, it was pretty scary. I was shocked, you know, and my first thought was that can't be an escape attempt. And of course, it was. The discovery triggered an immediate lockdown. Guards moved through the cell blocks inspecting each tier. When officers reached the cells assigned to Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, they found what appeared to be sleeping inmates beneath the blankets.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Pillows.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Kind of. Only upon closer inspection did they realize the figures were decoys. Dummy heads fashioned from soap, toothpaste, and toilet paper, painted in flesh tones and fitted with real human hair swept from the prison barbershop floor.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Oh my god, like pap pampe mache. Paper mache?

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. Paper mache. Beneath the blankets, bundles of clothing and towels mimicked the shape of bodies. You can see the next two photos. So you can see those are I don't know if those are the replicas or the real ones, but those are the dummy heads, and then you can see like the bed as well.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

That's wild. Yeah. I get in the dark, maybe, but that's pretty artistic.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

I mean, you gotta give him credit for that.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

That's that John Anglin one is particularly good. I know.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

And that's the one that's meant to have crumbled under his hand, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yes. Right. It they even did full-on ears. Oh yeah. Those ears look like ears. That's amaz. Would you not just do like a semicircle and attach it to the head?

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Well, Alan just did a fucking huge nose and was like, I'll just pull the covers up, it'll be fine. Yeah, the rest did proper necks and chins.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

It's just it's like a rat with a bit of a neck.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Within hours, the search expanded beyond the cell house. Hundreds of law enforcement personnel combed the island and surrounding waters. A massive land, air, and sea operation was launched involving the Army, Coast Guard, FBI, local police, sheriff's department, and harbor patrol units. Your next photo I clipped from a newspaper. I think it the newspaper was published the day after the escape, or the day of, I can't remember, but it just goes to show like there's the boat and then there's the hero helicopter and there's a helicopter. Yeah. The helicopter, and they were just going for it.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Sorry, what year was this?

SPEAKER_01 23:34

662.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

62, damn.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

I know. The FBI office in San Francisco alerted field offices nationwide, instructing agents to check records on the missing prisoners and review details of their prior escape attempts. Investigators interviewed relatives, compiled identification records, and asked boat operators throughout the bay to remain alert for debris or suspicious activity. You can now see the FBI wanted poster for John Englin. Patrick Mahoney, one of the boat operators involved in the search, later recounted, We were ordered to go out on the bay and of course start looking around the island. Then over at Angel Island, scanning the beaches, it became evident that we weren't going to find them.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Why? I don't know. I can't get any more on his quiz. He just I think he just thought like, well, I don't know what to do. Like there's I don't know. But just wait, like, there's more.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

And how far would they have had to have swum?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Oh, I do say this later. I think Angel Island was like just under two miles north.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

So that's doable.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Oh no, I don't like swimming, man.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

Yeah, well, you you're not a hardened criminal though.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Trying to escape. Oh, could you? I mean, fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

I don't really like swimming. I'll just stay here, you guys.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I don't like exercise.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

It's not really me.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I'll drink my cosmo instead. At one point, a fishing raft was reportedly spotted along the shores of Angel Island. 300 armed soldiers were dispatched only to discover that it was a fishing net. As investigators pieced together how the men had escaped, a meticulous plan began to emerge. Oh my god. Assigned to adjoining cells, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers had begun preparations months earlier. The Anglin brothers shouldn't have been put together.

unknown 25:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

I don't think they were in the same cell. I think they were in adjoining cells, and then Frank was like three or four cells down, but still. Opposite sides of the building, man. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You would think.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Or maybe different prisons.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Maybe different prisons. But who are we to judge? The groundwork had started the previous December when they obtained fragments of discarded saw blades from the prison workshop. Morris, known for his intelligence, took the lead, working with inmate Alan West, who was supposed to escape with them. We will come back to that.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Okay. Morris Is this to do with why Alan's head looks like a rat?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

No. Remind me when I get to him, because I think I know something. Okay. Morris had also befriended Clarence Carnes, a participant in the 1946 Battle of Alcatraz. I didn't look this up. I think it was an escape attempt, and then armed forces had to get involved. I don't know. Carnes was at Alcatraz for like 17 years. Carnes informed him of an access tunnel beneath their cells. This discovery inspired the escape.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Long haul.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

According to West, the operation took approximately six months to execute.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Very long haul.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Uh-huh. Don DeNevi, a pre Don Tanabby? Don Devi, a professor at Merritt College in Oakland, California, who co-wrote a manuscript about the escape with Carnes, Late provided insight into the planning. Carnes, who spent nearly 20 years on Alcatraz, described Morris as the mastermind. He was the thinker. Anything connected with this escape that had any real brains behind it can be credited to Morris.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Are we just basing that on like because he done this IQ test?

SPEAKER_01 27:14

No, I do think like a lot of the other inmates at Alcatraz were interviewed or interrogated. And I do think this was kind of the consensus that came from everybody.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Especially West. Alan West.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Oh, okay. So West didn't make it.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Well, obviously we know West didn't make it. Because we said earlier that it was only Morris and the Anglin brothers that were missing.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

So we knew we knew that West didn't make it. Yeah, we did. Yeah. So we knew that.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Leave that in.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Leave that in. According to Denevi, and what we can see from their childhood, the Angland brothers were expert swimmers and raftsmen from the Florida swamps. Yes. A skill set that proved critical. Over time, the men widened the ventilation ducts in their cells using saw blades, spoons, and an improvised electric drill made from an old vacuum cleaner motor. They concealed the holes with painted cardboard. You can now see a picture from one of their cells and how they dug out the vent and would pull it out and then put it back. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Imagine making a drill out of a vacuum cleaner.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

It still looks like that today, the cell. You can go and see everything.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Isn't it so cool?

SPEAKER_03 28:27

I don't think I could fit down there.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

I'd need a girthier one.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

To mask the sound of scraping and grinding, Morris played his accordion during the daily music hour. Oh my gosh. His evening practice further covered the noise of their labor. Once through the vents, they entered a seldom used utility corridor and climbed plumbing pipes to reach a large unused space above the cell block.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

My God.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

There, partially hidden by a tarp, they established a makeshift workshop and constructed a homemade periscope to monitor guard movement and took turns keeping watch. Wow. You cannot make this up.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

You think that's crazy? Like, wait till we get to the rest of this. Whoa. It's insane.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

I'm taking they improved their prison design after this. Let's not put a huge access tunnel like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Well, it actually shut down the year after the they like did all this. So then yeah. Crazy. Using more than 50 prison-issued raincoats, they built a six by fourteen foot raft and multiple life vests. Steam pipes in the overhead space generated sufficient heat to fuse the rubberized material, while a heavy plank provided pressure, effectively vulcanizing the seams together.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

This is like so many things had to be just right in order for them to pull this off. Like if one of these things hadn't been there, they they couldn't have done it. Do you know what I mean? Oh yeah. So many things had to fall into line.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Mm-hmm. Like even just the heat thing being sufficient.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Although I'm getting the vibe that this guy could have come up with something no matter the circumstances, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

True. Yeah, I didn't think about that. But yeah, he definitely could have. He'd have made anything out of anything, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

It seems like it.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Do you mean Morris? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

How how did they figure this out? Did they is it like conjecture or did they find them and and we'll get there. Interrogate them.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

That's actually two paragraphs from now, we will get there. Okay. Oh. They converted a concertina from the prison band into a device to inflate the raft and built paddles from scavenged plywood reinforced with brass bolts. I looked up what a concertina was, and then I got distracted at work, so I don't actually know what a concertina looks like, but it's a it's not a reed instrument. I thought it was like a brass thing. I don't know, look at that.

SPEAKER_03 30:49

Isn't that like the little old accordion thing? Oh no, Google it. Jacob is on it.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Yeah, you're right, Chris. Ah. I thought it was similar to this as well. So yeah, it's like, yeah, like imagine. Yeah, like it's an accordion.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

An accordion without keys, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Oh, one of those.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

It's got keys. Oh. Well, it's no, it's not keys, it's more like buttons. Buttons. Oh, interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

It is believed they drew inspiration from an issue of sports illustrated in the prison library, which included a feature on low-cost water sports and improvised flotation devices. Oh how whee. I'm not even kidding. So funny. Yep. To conceal their absence during the guards' periodic nighttime checks, they used the dummy heads and blankets. On the night of June 11th, they climbed through a hole cut into the ceiling of the upper utility space. After prying open the vent at the top of the shaft, they temporarily secured it with a fake bolt made of soap. The next photo is the utility corridor that was actually behind their cells, and then they climbed the pipes to go up.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Insane, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 31:57

I can't believe that they maybe they just thought the sea around them was enough, but it seems like they built a high security prison, then built tunnels behind the cells, and then gave them like escape manuals as reading literature.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah, it's insane.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

What are they doing?

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Giving them all the answers. Using plumbing pipes as steps, they climbed nearly 30 feet. So this is I I put that photo in the wrong place. So they've now gone through the corridor, gone up to that utility space, gone up through a vent, and now gone up another thirty feet and emerged onto the cell house roof, carrying their folded rubber raft and life vest with them.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Love it.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

From there, they descended nearly fifty feet down an exterior kitchen vent pipe, crossed the yard, scaled two twelve-foot barbed wire fences, and moved down a steep embankment to the northeastern shoreline near a power plant, a blind spot in the prison's searchlights. How did they know that?

SPEAKER_00 32:55

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

How long were they there for? Like where i in the prison. Did they have time to wander around and see the blind spots? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

At this point they all would have been there. Morris would have been there a year and a half, and then the other two like just over a year. Damn. Clarence would have been there.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

But this thing must have taken time. They were having to drill out with spoons. Spoons, yeah, sharpen spoons. They must have been on it immediately pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

That's insane.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

They have to they had to have been. At the water's edge, they inflated the raft, launched it, and pushed off into the San Francisco Bay sometime after 10 p.m.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

It would have taken ages to inflate that raft with a constant teen or whatever as well. They'd have been there for ages doing that. But I guess they had the time because they'd done the dummies, so no one knew check till like 6 a.m.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

No one was expecting someone to break out, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

It's unbreakotable blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Right. But the best part, guards reportedly heard a loud crash that night. But nothing was investigated.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Brilliant. Love it. Oh, even that, even that, you're saying, you know, this Morris guy could have done anything out of anything. But even that had to go right for them. Right. That's true. The stars aligned crazily for these people.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

John just fucking fell off the pipe.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Crash. There goes the rasp.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Nope. No one's investigating. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Alright, well, thunder. Do we know what the crash was? Okay. No. I wonder what that was.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

I don't know. I wonder if it was just completely something just completely different. Yeah, it may not have been. I don't know, a crash in the kitchen or something. Who knows? The nearest point of land to Alcatraz is Marina Green in San Francisco, just over a mile south. Slightly farther north lies Angel Island, just under two miles away. Alan West was part of the original group who planned the escape. However, on the night of June 11th, he was unable to get through his vent in his cell. The surrounding concrete had hardened around the edges, preventing him from removing the vent cover in time. And also, because I read somewhere that before the escape, like the concrete wasn't holding or there was something wrong, and he had to put more concrete on it and essentially hardened so much that the hole became too small and he couldn't get through it. Devas.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

He would have been devas.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yep. While the others climbed to the roof and disappeared into the night, Wes was forced to abandon the attempt.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

So sad.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

I didn't put it in here. I realized today, and I don't know why, I just there's so much information as you'll see. One of the Anglin brothers and Morris basically were like, well, whoever escapes in time, escapes in time. And then one of the other Anglin brothers was like, no, it's an all or none deal. So West has to come with us, but clearly he was like overruled by his brother and Morris.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Understandable. I mean, once you're going, you're going, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah. And once you're on the roof, just go. Like, you're out, go. Absolutely. West later cooperated extensively with authorities. He was transferred to a lighter security prison and eventually received a sentence reduction for assisting the U.S. Marshals.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

I thought you were going to say he eventually escaped from that one.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

That'd be really funny. His testimony became the foundation for much of the official reconstruction. Carnes later confirmed he had seen Morris and the Anglins working in the ceiling area prior to the escape. Family members of the Anglins were questioned and authorities monitored their correspondence and financial activity. Over the next few days, debris was recovered. A homemade ore was found floating between Alcatraz and Angel Island. Seven days after the escape, remnants of the raft washed up near the Golden Gate Bridge. Sorry, things are a little out of order. The following day, a homemade life vest was discovered at Cronkite Beach. One deflated life jacket was located roughly 50 yards from Alcatraz itself.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

As if they had life jackets.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Well, they made them.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

They made the life vests. But it's just so like much thinking is so much landing.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Oh my god, what if you fall overboard?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, you need to swim. Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Make sure they're fluorescent.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

I know. Insane. One deflated life jacket was located roughly 50 yards from Alcatraz itself, while another surfaced past the Golden Gate Bridge. A paddle was recovered on Angel Island leaning against a rock just over a mile from Alcatraz.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Can I just say, sorry, if these people are never found, I think that boat went down and they died in the waters, because otherwise why would the life jackets be in the water? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Okay. I think the fact you're telling us about this means they did survive.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

But I yeah. So that means they made it to Angel Island, or did it just wash up on Angel Island?

SPEAKER_01 37:52

From everything I've read, it said it was leaning against a rock.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

I don't think water is gonna have a paddle lean against a rock.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

The brass bolts used in its construction were identical to those found in a similar homemade paddle recovered at the prison. Fragments of rubberized raincoat material consistent with prison-issued gear and the described construction method were also found in the water. As news spread, hoaxes and alleged sightings followed. Phone calls, letters, and claimed communication surfaced, including a postcard reading, Ha ha ha, we made it, Frank, John, and Clarence.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

I don't think that was real. Nah.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

The escape prompted the largest full-scale manhunt in US history up to that point. And this is where we're gonna leave it for now. Tune in next time for part two to find out what happens in the story.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Tune it in next week for a real good tale.