Begin Again
Alcatraz was an infamous prison built to keep society's most dangerous and hardened offenders out. Despite the overwhelming security at the prison, three inmates were able to elude the guards and flee the facility.
The three inmates were said to have died in the freezing water, according to officials. However, in 2013, the FBI was forced to reopen the investigation after receiving a suspicious letter. So, what exactly happened that night?
The Mastermind
Frank Lee Morris was forced to learn how to be independent at 11 years old. He was orphaned and placed in the foster care system. He was constantly being moved from one foster home to another and he had no other choice but to become self-reliant.
Frank was convicted of his first crime at the young age of 13. He made friends with the wrong crowd which landed him in that situation. This was the beginning of a series of events that lead him to be the man who was the mastermind behind the escape from notorious Alcatraz.
Shuffling Between Prisons
Frank had been arrested numerous times and had served time in a number of prisons across the United States by the time he was a young man. He ultimately ended up in Louisiana's state penitentiary, commonly known as "Alcatraz of the South."
After escaping this facility, Frank Lee Morris managed to elude officials for a year before being apprehended. The authorities wanted to avoid Frank escaping again so they sent him to the maximum-security prison known as Alcatraz. During his time at Alcatraz, Frank Lee Morris befriended Allen West and the Anglin brothers.
Thick As Thieves
While serving time in Alcatraz, Frank Lee Morris, Allen West and John and Clarence Anglin became close friends.
Each member of this friendship possessed special skills. The four combined their skills to eventually pull off the greatest escape in the history of America. The group came together to conjure up an escape plan. Frank, their clever commander, was in charge.
The Master Plan
The four men devised a basic plan, but the practicalities appeared to be insurmountable. To pull it off, they'd have to pool all of their resources and work in perfect unison.
These four men, however, were not the first inmates to attempt to flee the inaccessible island prison. Many prisoners attempted to escape Alcatraz, but to no avail. Why would the plan devised by Frank and his friends succeed when other men have failed?
The First Step
Fortunately, the four men were placed in adjacent cells. They had plenty of time to plan together, and they had plenty of time to iron out the kinks in their escape plan.
The first step of the plan was to procure the necessary materials. To their benefit, the facility they were imprisoned at wasn't just a prison, it was also a factory.
Collection Of Materials
Alcatraz detainees were required to do labor as part of their sentence. Alcatraz was a factory where inmates produced items such as shoes and clothes for the US military.
The four had acquired access to a wide range of materials that they could utilize to their advantage. They also had another unique advantage that aided their escape.
In Broad Daylight
The four men were all nonviolent offenders who committed offenses such as robbery, which is unusual in Alcatraz. Because of this the guards were less concerned with them.
The lack of concern from the authorities provided the band of four with ideal and ample opportunities to build the clever props that would be crucial in their plan to escape.
The Duties
The four realized that simply leaving the stronghold wasn't enough. They concluded that they needed a strategy to buy them as much time as possible before the guards realized what they were up to.
They were all given different responsibilities that needed to be completed in a timely manner for the plan to be successful. For example, the dummy skulls that would be left inside the cells were created by the Anglin brothers.
Misleading The Authorities
Soap wax, toilet paper and human hair from the Alcatraz barbershop were used to create the four dummy lookalike heads. The Anglin brothers carefully sculpted these heads with the goal to mislead the guards.
Frank Morris' was responsible for creating a specific accordion-like instrument. All four offenders collaborated to create the instruments needed to loosen the bolts from the vents and tunnel out their cells. The plan was insane but the question was, would it work?
Digging Out
The men fashioned crude picks and wrenches from the materials they found around the prison. The items included spoons from the cafeteria and pieces of wood from the workshop.
Every day from 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM, the men worked relentlessly, discreetly chipping away at their cells and widening the holes so they could fit inside. But what was on the other side?
The Utility Corridor
As the holes in their cells widened, they could see the unguarded utility corridor on the other side. There were bars along the walls that the men could use to climb up three stories, to the wide shafts, and then onto the roof.
On that fateful evening in 1962, the men pried one of the shafts open with their homemade wrench, got onto the roof, and disappeared into the night. But they had left one man behind.
Facing The Cold Waters
They had to leave Allen West behind when he couldn’t widen his hole in time. The men had made life vests and a raft by gluing and stitching more than 50 raincoats together, and Frank’s accordion instrument was used to inflate the raft and the life vests.
After that day, Frank Lee Morris and John and Clarence Anglin were never seen again. Because no car was reported stolen in or around Angel island, it was presumed that they had never reached the shore. Until now.
The Letter
In 2013, the FBI was forced to reopen the case after the San Francisco Police Department received a shocking letter signed by a man claiming to be John Anglin. However, the letter’s contents weren’t disclosed to the public until 2018.
The letter begins: “My name is John Anglin. I escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris. I’m 83 years old and in bad shape. I have cancer. Yes we all made it that night but barely!”
Alive In California
The letter continued: “Frank passed away in October 2008. His grave is in Argentina under another name. My brother died in 2011.”
“This is the real and honest truth. I could tell you that for seven years of living in Minot, North Dakota and a year in Fargo, North Dakota until 2003. Living in Southern California now.” But that’s not the only claim out there. There was another escape attempt that ended in the prisoners considered missing. But did they ever make it out?
Theodore Cole And Ralph Roe
Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe were partners in crime so naturally they became partners in prison too. The two were infamous bank robbers that eventually got caught and ended up in Alcatraz just like Frank Lee Morris, John and Clarence Anglin, and Allen West.
But who were they and how did their escape attempt differ from our previous escapees?
Before Alcatraz
Both men lived in Oklahoma and became good friends before deciding to get into the life of crime. Not much is known about Theodore Cole or Ralph Roe before they started breaking the law.
The two started robbing banks in the mid 1930s and were eventually caught. But they didn’t go straight to Alcatraz.
Not Severe Enough
The two men had robbed many banks by the time they had been convicted but it seemed that the judge was relativley lenient, not booking them a boat straight to Alcatraz. You’d think the men would be grateful.
But the men would take their chances in their new prison and test the warden’s patience far beyond its limits.
McAlester Prison
The two men went to Oklahoma’s state penitentiary - McAlester Prison. The prison seemed suitable for what they had done but soon the judge would be proved wrong. The men would try their luck to get out.
But their attempt ended in them getting caught, their first escape attempt. But nobody knew they’d try again.
The Road To Alcatraz
After their first escape attempt the men were sent to a high-security facility Leavenworth Prison. There they were listed as escape risks and were only held there temporarily. It seemed the judge and the state had better ideas for them.
They would be sent to the infamous “escape-proof” prison - Alcatraz.
Ralph Roe
Ralph Roe was originally caught by police after a shootout in 1933. This resulted in his partner - Wilbur Underhill passing away. This was the first time he was caught by the police. Records are not clear how Roe got out and started robbing banks with Cole.
But it seems Cole’s punishment for getting caught would be far more severe.
Theodore Cole
Not much is known about Theodore Cole before he was convicted other than that he was born in April 1899. He is only famous for his escape attempt with Ralph Roe.
But after being convicted Theodore got a dooming sentence which explains why he was desperate to escape - a death sentence.
The Escape Attempt
The two men had planned the escape months in advance.and used their unique jobs to orchestrate the plan. They worked stripping old tires into rubber matts. The men spent months in the workshop grinding down the window bars and hiding the damage with tire grease.
But how did they leave the island once the plan was in motion?
Plans In Motion
Cole and Roe disappeared between the 1:00AM and 1:30AM headcount when the night was pitch black and the fog around Alcatraz was at its thickest. The men broke the bars they had weakened for weeks and dropped down to the beach below.
But it was there that their trail went cold.
Escaped Or Disappeared?
The tracks on the beach disappear and officials assume the men used makeshift floats made out of tires to swim off the island. The problem was that the current could easily have swept them into sea. But over the years there have been many eyewitness accounts of the men being sighted.
So that begs the question - did the men make it off the island alive or did the current sweep them to sea? No one can be sure until more evidence shows up.