One morning when the calendars showed June 12, 1962, the guards were counting as a routine operation. Everything seemed normal. However, when they looked more closely at the rooms of the 3 prisoners, they found heads made of papier-mâché on their beds! The three men were nowhere to be found despite manhunts involving the FBI and the US military.
Some even say that this escape was instrumental in the decision to close Alcatraz Prison almost a year after the event. Let’s take a closer look at the surprising escape stories of 3 prisoners.
There has been no successful escape since Alcatraz Prison, located in San Francisco Bay, USA, was founded in 1934.
Alcatraz in the 1930s; It was an eerie place, surrounded by the cold, choppy waters of the Pacific. Notorious dangerous criminals such as Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly were also found here. It had rigid iron bars, a series of strategically positioned guard towers, and strict rules that included a dozen checks a day of inmates. Escape seemed almost impossible.
Despite everything; From 1934 until 1963, when the prison was closed; 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes. Almost all of them were captured or did not survive the attempt. However, the subject of our case, armed robber Frank Morris and the bank robber brothers Clarence and John, made a successful escape and were nowhere to be found afterwards.
The prison was so secure that anyone who attempted to escape ended up in Alcatraz.
Even inmates trying to escape from other prisons were sent here, as there were no successful escapes in Alcatraz Prison.
The three inmates in this escape case we’re talking about were likewise brought to Alcatraz for attempting to escape from other prisons. Among them, Morris was even known as the “escape artist”.
When that day came, they executed their ingenious plan.
In their beds, deceiving the night watchmen; There were puppet heads made of plaster, tan paint, and real human hair. Noticing this at the count, the guards immediately locked the prison and an intense search began.
The escape, planned for months, was so professional that they built a raft out of stolen rubber raincoats, even taking into account that it would be difficult to swim ashore in the cold waters of the bay and the strong current. There were even rubber life jackets!
Parts of the tire equipment they made were found near the island, but it was never known whether they made it to land. The body was never found in the bay.
Examining the remaining evidence from the fugitives, the FBI combined clues to the escape and concluded:
The fugitives began planning their escape when they found an old saw blade. They had painstakingly drilled holes in the wall using rough tools, including a hand-made drill made from the motor of a broken vacuum cleaner. The fugitives loosened the vents behind the cells, and then hid them with pieces of cardboard.
Using the plumbing pipes as steps, they went up to the roof of the cell blocks and set up a secret workshop here. While escaping, they climbed to the roof again, jumped from a height of 15 meters, cut the barbed wire and descended to the water’s edge. But what they did afterward is still unclear.
There is a movie about the event called ‘Escape from Alcatraz’:
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