Escape From Alcatraz: The Prisoners Behind The 1962 Escape Plan

Alcatraz is infamous in the history of US prisons. Its location on a small island in the cold waters of San Francisco Bay made it impossible to escape – at least that was the idea. Any inmate brave enough to try would have to swim over a mile in frigid water with a strong current before they could make it to land.

In 2013, a letter was sent to the San Francisco Police Department. “My name is John Anglin,” the letter began, “I escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris.”

The infamous escape from Alcatraz has stumped officers for many years. After a thorough search, they had to drop it for other cases – leaving it unsolved. Now, decades after the fact, a letter comes in claiming the escapees were successful.

Alcatraz was a federal prison designated for the worst of the worst. Some of the most notorious criminals of the 20th century – men like Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis – spent time confined in its cells.

The plan itself was pretty straightforward – namely, escape from Alcatraz – but the flawless execution of the plan was a lot more complex. It would require a coordinated team effort over a long period of time.

Although three escaped, there were four involved in the original plan. Alongside brothers John and Clarence Anglin, there was Frank Lee Morris and Allen West. All four of them had adjacent cells at Alcatraz – and plenty of prison time to plan an escape!

Frank Morris had a rough life. At the age of 11, he was orphaned. After that, he spent most of his time in institutions – foster homes or prisons. Morris was first convicted of a crime at age 13, and many more came during his teen years.

As seen from above, Frank wasn’t a newbie to prison life. After serving a few stints here and there (mostly Florida and Georgia), he was given a long sentence at Louisiana State Penitentiary, the so-called “Alcatraz of the South.”

Frank Morris’s mind was on escape the moment he got to Alcatraz prison. However, this one would be more difficult, so he decided to team up with the Anglin brothers and Allen West.

While growing up, John and Clarence were inseparable. When the family was up north in Lake Michigan, they learned to become accomplished swimmers – so much so, that they were able to swim comfortably even when there was ice!

The brothers weren’t excited about their 35-year sentence, so they tried (multiple times) to escape from the Atlanta Penitentiary. Eventually, the authorities were fed up and sent them off to Alcatraz – the inescapable prison. They got a cell next to Frank Morris, who was also there because of an escape attempt.

One thing that helped the crew out was the fact that Alcatraz was a factory alongside being a prison. Inmates produced furniture, clothes, shoes, and more for the US military. In other words, there were plenty of tools lying around.

Slowly, the four men implemented their plan – which, to be fair, was quite clever. To trick the guards, they planned on leaving behind fake dummy heads in their beds to make it look like they were sleeping.

Each of the crew members was assigned a task to ensure that everything would get done. John and Clarence Anglin were to make the dummy heads meant to act as decoys for the guards at night doing their headcount.

Alongside the inflatable device and dummy heads, the crew created tools for chiseling through concrete. They did so by stealing spoons from the mess hall and wood from the workshop. Although crude, the tools worked.

Although it might have seemed like an impossible task, the crew was helped along by the fact that the walls of Alcatraz were already deteriorating in many ways. Being located on an island meant that saltwater came through, and saltwater meant rust.

Someone would have heard all that noise, right? Surprisingly, not. In the early 1960s, there were a variety of prison reforms – one of them being a music hour. During that time, inmates were allowed to listen or play music as much as they wanted. Hence, there was a lot of helpful noise!

The design of the prison was perfect for a gang of potential escapees. Behind their cells was an unguarded corridor full of pipes that connected the floors. The inmates planned to climb up the pipes all the way to the roof.

Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers finished chipping through the concrete to the unguarded corridor by May 1962. Although the holes were far from spacious, they were the right size for them to fit through.

Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers finished digging their holes through the loose cement in May of 1962. However, they decided to wait around for Allen West to finish his – perhaps to ensure that he didn’t rat on them.

Would they make it out alive? Historically speaking, escaping Alcatraz was known to be impossible. Plenty of prisoners had tried, and none had escaped successfully. Although it was risky, the group of prisoners thought it was better than spending their lives behind bars.

Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers quickly squeezed through the holes they dug and got to the unguarded corridor. Allen West, however, was having trouble. He assumed the hole he dug was big enough. Unfortunately, it wasn’t – he couldn’t get through.

Although it was a tough decision – considering the four worked together for months – it was a decision that had to be made. Widening the hole would waste too much time, cause too much noise, and increase the risk of guards coming around to check on the cells.

The trio managed the climb up without any trouble. Once they were on the roof, the next challenge was to (quietly) scoot across 100 feet or so. After that, the gang grabbed a hold of some piping and scaled-down the prison walls for 50 feet.

Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers made it to the shore without being seen. Although impossible to know, investigators assume it was around 11:30 or so. After inflating the raft, the three escaped prisoners set off into San Francisco Bay. No one knows for sure what happened after that.

Although Allen West was left behind as the three others climbed up the pipes to the roof, he didn’t give up so easily. He was determined to widen the hole in his cell until he could make it through.

It must have been a tough decision to make. Allen was out of his cell and on the rooftop, yet too far away to know if the others were still on the island. If he took the risk to find out, he could get caught – or shot. 

When the officers went to investigate stolen cars on Angel Island, they found that none had been reported in the last twelve days. Although that was the plan for Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, it didn’t seem to work out that way.

Authorities searched the San Francisco Bay over the next few days. They didn’t find any bodies – only some personal belongings. The nightly water temperature around that time, however, hovered around 50 to 54 degrees (by contrast, most swimming pools are in the 70s).

The prison escape continued to get investigated. About a month later, a passing boat spotted a body a few miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. Supposedly, the body had the clothing of an Alcatraz prisoner, but when investigators went to look for it, it was never found.

In 2015, The History Channel looked into the unsolved case. It turns out that the Anglin family had received signed Christmas cards over the years. The handwriting was confirmed to be that of John and Clarence, but the delivery date was unknown.

Alongside the Christmas cards and family photos, another piece of tantalizing evidence came in the form of a deathbed confession. Robert Anglin, one of the 13 Anglin siblings, claimed that he was in regular contact with John and Clarence from 1963 to 1987.

The 2013 letter from (allegedly) John Anglin continued,  “Yes we all made it that night but barely! … I’m 83 years old and in bad shape. I have cancer.” Furthermore, Frank Morris apparently died in Argentina in 2008, and Clarence Anglin died in 2011.

After that bombshell admission, the letter writer continued on by saying that he was in terrible health and needed help. He was willing, if law enforcement was willing, to strike a deal if he was guaranteed medical treatment.

Before they made any guarantees or public announcements, law enforcement was keen on examining the letter itself to see if it was the real deal. They scrutinized the writing itself and the physical form of the letter to gather all the facts that they could.

After all that analysis, the results were anti-climactic, to say the least. KPIX, the San Francisco-based TV station that published the letter, announced to an excited audience that, “the FBI’s results were inconclusive” – they didn’t have a certain answer.

Shortly after the infamous letter was published in 2018, a representative of The U.S. Marshals Service said they believed the letter wasn’t legitimate. Despite that, the Marshals would still follow any leads that came up – at least until the men were 99 years old or proven to be dead.

The U.S. Marshal Service thought it was pretty unlikely that the men survived the frigid waters. However, a team of researchers showed through computer analysis that the water currents around Alcatraz would have been favorable to the men if they left around midnight. 

In March 2018, a local San Francisco TV station was filming a special about Alcatraz. It had been 55 years since the prison was closed, and the station managed to secure an interview with Jim Albright, one of the last prison guards at Alcatraz.

Despite all that time and intrigue, the fates of John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris are still unknown. Did they perish in the cold waters of the bay way back in 1962, or did they successfully inflate the raft and make it out alive?

The island and prison itself has a peppered and interesting history. Since its opening in August, 1934 and its closing in March, 1963, a lot has gone on behind those walls.

The infamous gangster and mob boss, Al Capone was among some of the first prisoners to be sentenced to Alcatraz the same month it opened in August 1934.

Alcatraz apparently got Al Capone so “licked” that he eventually became cooperative. The number 85 inmate became so cooperative that he was allowed to play his banjo in a band in the prison.

Before prison inmates occupied its shores, the island was home to large colonies of brown pelicans. A Spanish Lieutenant named Juan Manuel de Ayala became the first known European to sail through the Golden Gate in 1775.

Six years after the prison shut its doors, 100 Native American activists took over the Island in November 1969. They cited a treaty that granted unoccupied federal land to Native Americans.

During the Civil War prisoners were put onto Alcatraz Island. Prisoners included Union deserters and Confederate sympathizers. The cells were also used to imprison Native Americans who had land disputes with the federal government.

In 1854 a small lighthouse was activated on the rocky island of Alcatraz, becoming the first of its kind on the West Coast of the United States.

Although legend goes that the worst of the worst were sent to Alcatraz, that was not necessarily the case. It was the convicts who were in most need of an “attitude adjustment,” the most disobedient inmates in the penal system.

It was assumed by Federal officials that escaping inmates could not survive the swim to the mainland. The water was cold and violent, so the assumption had merit.

While John Paul Scott did make it to shore, he was “close but no cigar” as the old adage says. He was so exhausted that upon reaching the shore he became unconscious.

In a triathlon called “Escape From Alcatraz,” 1,700 people swim from the island to the San Francisco mainshore. The event is grueling and also extremely hard to get into.

The one-man-per-cell set up of Alcatraz appealed to some inmates as they felt safer from attacks from other inmates. Furthermore, the first warden, James A. Johnston knew that food was often terrible in other prisons and the cause of prison riots.