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Alcatraz Island has always been a place of isolation, about 20,000 years before it became the most famous prison in the United States. Alcatraz Island was occupied by the Ohlone tribe of indigenous peoples. Their oral tradition points to Alcatraz as a place of isolation. When members broke tribal law, they'd be sent to the island to atone.
Fast forward to the 16th century, when European settlers began exploring the area that would eventually become San Francisco. In 1775, Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, who's credited with charting San Francisco Bay, named the island La Isla de los Alcatraces, or Island of the Pelicans. Its position in the San Francisco Bay made Alcatraz Island the ideal location for a military fort.
Between 1850 and 1907, the island was the most powerful military fortress west of the Mississippi River. Before the Civil War, Alcatraz protected California from foreign invaders. During the Civil War, they used it to imprison Confederate sympathizers. That included soldiers, politicians, and journalists.
But Alcatraz's golden years were between 1934 and 1963, when it operated as America's most secure federal prison. It housed the worst of the worst: bank robbers, murderers, and people with a history of escaping from jail. The most famous names include Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly. The island is a 22-acre rock about one and a quarter miles off the coast of San Francisco.
From its west coast, one could look out and see the Golden Gate Bridge. Beyond that, the endless abyss of the Pacific Ocean. It was thought to be an impenetrable fortress. Nobody got in without permission. Nobody got out that wasn't supposed to. But that didn't stop 41 inmates from trying to escape. Of them, 26 were caught alive, 7 were shot dead, 3 drowned, and 5 were never found.
and of those that disappeared forever, three went down in American history. On June 11, 1962, brothers Clarence and John Englund, along with fellow inmate Frank Morris, escaped through the roof and floated to freedom on a homemade inflatable raft. And to this day, we still don't know what happened to them. The FBI believes they drowned in the frigid waters, waters as cold as 54 degrees on the night of their escape.
The US Marshals have kept the case open all these years later. They'll shut the book in 2030, when Morris and the Englund brothers are over 100 years old. Some say they escaped north to Canada. Others say they fled down to Brazil. Grainy photos have surfaced over the years. Fellow inmates have come forward, saying they played a role in their escape. Handwritten letters came in the mail. Clarence and John's mother kept getting anonymous flowers every Mother's Day.
And as much as we want to believe they made it, there isn't a shroud of definitive evidence. So, what do we know about the famous Alcatraz escape? How did these three men break out of America's most secure prison? And if they survived, what have they been up to all these years? Part 1. Career Criminals
Let's begin with the brains behind the operation. Prisoner number AZ-1441, Frank Morris. Frank was born in Washington, D.C. on September 1st, 1926. His parents abandoned him at 11 years old, and he spent the rest of his childhood bouncing between foster homes. Frank was convicted of his first crime at 13 years old. By his late teens, he'd been arrested several times for armed robbery and drug possession.
He spent his formative years in jail, serving lunch to prisoners twice his age. According to the FBI, Frank spent time at the Louisiana State Penitentiary between 1945 and 1948. Less than a year later, he was locked up in Florida for breaking and entering. In June of 1952, Frank received 10 years for narcotics and armed robbery. He'd bounced between jails in Atlanta, Florida, and Louisiana.
Despite a life of crime, Frank Morris was an intelligent man. He ranked among the top 2% of the prisoner population. His IQ was 133, which is well above average. Frank had a knack for prison breaks. He escaped from a Louisiana prison during his 10-year sentence. They caught him a year later during a burglary attempt. That was the final straw. He was transferred to Alcatraz on January 20th, 1960.
John Anglin was born May 2nd, 1930, in Donaldsonville, Georgia. His brother Clarence came into the world a year later. They were two of 14 children born to George and Rachel Anglin, two seasonal farm workers with about 10 cents between them. In the early 1940s, their parents found steady work on tomato farms in Ruskin, Florida, about 20 miles south of Tampa. Come June, they'd migrate north to Michigan to pick cherries.
It's said that John and Clarence were inseparable as children. They were skilled swimmers who liked to show off by lapping the freezing waters of Lake Michigan. They were considered the MacGyvers of the family long before MacGyver was a household name. They could make something out of nothing, a skill that would come in handy during their escape from Alcatraz. Still, the brothers were inept burglars at best. They were caught and jailed several times between Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.
After a failed bank robbery in 1958, the Anglin brothers were sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and then an Atlanta prison. After multiple escape attempts, both brothers were transferred to Alcatraz. John, inmate number AZ-1476, arrived on October 24, 1960. Clarence, inmate number AZ-1485, arrived on January 16, 1961.
But there was a fourth escape artist that many overlook when retelling the story. Allen West, born March 25th, 1929 in New York City, spent more time in Alcatraz than any of them. He was arrested over 20 times throughout his life. His final arrest came in 1955 when he was caught trying to steal a car. He spent time in jails between Atlanta and Florida.
After trying to escape from the Florida facility, West checked into Alcatraz as inmate number AZ-1335 in 1957. All four men knew each other from their time in federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia. Coincidentally, they wound up in adjacent cells during their short stint on Alcatraz. This episode is brought to you by Acorns. Imagine if every purchase you made could help build your financial future effortlessly. Thanks to Acorns,
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Part 2: Morris' Master Plan At the time, Alcatraz's infrastructure was one of a kind. The 500-foot main jailhouse was believed to be the longest concrete structure on Earth.
Retired US Marshal Michael Dyke describes the cell structure as a three-tiered building inside of a building. All cells face outward so the guards can easily look in at all times. They were built so that no cell adjoined an outside wall. Gun galleries sat on each end, allowing guards to shoot whoever they needed to. The jailhouse was surrounded by barbed wire fencing. 20-foot concrete walls and guard towers covered every vantage point on the island.
And, on the slim-to-none chance that you make it over the walls, there's nothing but freezing cold water for miles. Each prisoner lived in a 9x5x7 foot cell. They had a bed, desk, toilet, and sink. Beneath each sink was an air vent measuring 6x9 inches. Behind those vents was a narrow utility corridor full of pipes. Nobody ever used it. In the early days, prisoners weren't even allowed to talk.
This strict code of silence was relaxed in the 1950s. Inmates were allowed to chat quietly in the cell house and dining hall. However, there was no loud talking, shouting, whistling, or singing of any kind. Our escapees arrived during the waning days of Alcatraz, when prisoner restrictions were at their most lax. They also arrived at a time when Alcatraz was beginning to deteriorate. The salt water coming off San Francisco Bay was quickly eroding the exterior walls.
In 1959, a report found that the facility was running way over budget. Back then, it cost the average American prison $3 a day for each prisoner. Alcatraz cost $10 per prisoner per day. To make things worse, the building required $5 million worth of repairs to fix damage from the salty air and water. That's about $52 million in today's money.
That damage found its way inside, especially around the concrete that held the air vents in place. Our inmates figured if they could remove the grates, they could crawl through the openings and escape via the roof. The only problem was finding tools strong enough to chip away at the concrete. They stole spoons from the mess hall and fashioned a homemade drill from an old vacuum cleaner. They even found a few discarded saw blades on prison grounds.
It's unclear how they hid these items in their cells. According to the FBI, they concealed the damage with cardboard and suitcases. Frank Morris masked the sound by playing his accordion. Clarence Englund was the first person to bore a hole wide enough to slip through. Under the cover of night, he snuck into the utility corridor and climbed atop his cell block. From there, he scaled a ladder toward the roof, toward freedom.
But when he reached the top, he discovered an access vent bolted to the wall. The vent was also right above the cell block. If a guard so much as glanced up, Clarence was a dead man. But they weren't going to let this wrinkle foil their plans. According to Alcatraz historian Jamie Clark, the prison was known for having pristine concrete floors. At the time, Allen West's prison job involved cleaning the dust and paint chips off the top of the cell blocks.
One day, he brushed all that dust and debris onto B Block's shiny floors. Then, he planted a bug in the guards' ears. He suggested installing a drop cloth above B Block. That way, they would catch all the debris and not dirty the floors. That drop cloth concealed the ladder and the area our inmates eventually turned into their secret workshop. Breaching the prison was only half the battle. They needed a way to cross over a mile of open water.
They needed a boat. Part 3: Raincoats and Paddles It's cold on Alcatraz Island. One of the few personal items each inmate owned was a heavy-duty, body-length raincoat. They were made of rubber with an interior cotton mesh. This kept them from tearing too easily. It was quality material, ideal for building a makeshift inflatable raft.
As the legend goes, Frank Morris read an article in the March 1962 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. This article dug into life jackets, specifically the different kinds available and how to test them. It mentions a floating coat designed for hunting and fishing in cold weather. This gave Morris a bright idea. If they could gather enough raincoats, they could build their own life preservers. Better yet, they could build themselves a floating raft.
Concealed behind Allen West's drop cloths, the team set up a clandestine workshop atop their cell block. Our escapees gathered dozens of raincoats from fellow convicts. They carefully cut and stitched them into the shape of a 6x14 foot rubber raft. To ensure it was waterproof, they sealed the stitching with liquid plastic available in the prison shop. They used heat from the steam pipes to melt the plastic and seal the raft.
It took our escapees about two months to build their raft. They also constructed makeshift paddles out of plywood and papier-mâché dummy heads to put in their beds. The heads were made of toothpaste, soap, concrete dust, and toilet paper. They painted them with paint from the maintenance shop and used hair from the barber to sell the look. While they worked above the block, the dummy heads made it look like they were asleep in their cells.
A passing guard on a dark Alcatraz evening would never know the difference. To inflate their raft, they stole a small accordion-like concertina from another prisoner and turned it into a makeshift bellows. All the while, each man worked in shifts to file down the rivets on the roof access vent. Once they got it off, their escape plan was on. Unfortunately, it began with a major hiccup. Allen West's concrete hull was crumbling.
The damage was hard to conceal with cardboard and suitcases. So, he reinforced it with cement to keep it from growing. But on June 11th, 1962, the night of their escape, the concrete hardened around Alan's escape hole. It was too narrow for him to squeeze through. By the time he managed to widen it, the others had left him behind.
Meanwhile, Morris and the Anglin brothers put their dummy heads in place, gathered their supplies, and rendezvoused on the jailhouse roof. They sprinted across the roof in clear view of a guard tower. Somehow, the guard didn't see them. They descended a 50-foot wall by sliding down vent pipes connected to the kitchen. On the ground, they scaled two 12-foot barbed wire fences and headed for the northeast shoreline. It was the perfect blind spot.
out of range of the guard towers and searchlights. There, the men inflated their raft and strapped on their vests. The FBI believes they shoved off sometime around 10 p.m., disappearing into a thick fog over San Francisco Bay. Their absence wasn't discovered until 7 o'clock the following morning. It's said that a guard reached into Morris' cell and tapped the dummy head. It rolled off the cot and broke its nose on the floor. The prison went into lockdown.
A full-scale manhunt ensued, the largest since the 1932 kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby. Within two days, investigators found a packet of letters and personal items sealed in a rubber bag. They also found paddle-like pieces of wood and debris from a rubber inner tube in the bay. A homemade life vest washed up on Cronkite Beach. Still, there was no sign of Morris or the Englins.
The bag of letters was found in the water about three quarters of a mile from Alcatraz. It also contained England family photos, money order receipts, and friends' addresses. The FBI believed these were the kinds of personal effects the England brothers couldn't live without. They were convinced the escapees drowned in San Francisco Bay, but they couldn't prove it. Part 4: The Great American Mystery
To this day, nobody knows if Morris or the Anglins survived their escape. It's an American mystery on par with D.B. Cooper. The mystery hasn't stopped people from believing the escapees successfully crossed the bay. Some argue that the swim from Alcatraz to Angel Island is too far. According to the then assistant director of the Bureau of Prisons, "The tides and winds that night were strong. Only a trained athlete could make that swim."
That theory doesn't necessarily hold water. Plenty of young people swim that route all the time. Every July, San Francisco hosts the Alcatraz Challenge, where people swim the famous escape route between Alcatraz and Angel Island. Some of the swimmers are as young as 14. According to one of them, "Anybody can do this. A guy in a wheelchair did it." Some say the water was too cold.
Remember, the Anglins used to swim around Lake Michigan in the freezing cold all the time. According to the US Coast Guard, they could have survived for about two and a half hours in the water, assuming their boat failed. Despite this, the FBI has long maintained that the escapees drowned. They point to a Norwegian shipping boat that spotted a body in the Pacific Ocean about six weeks after the escape. But despite having two phones on board, they didn't report the body for months.
Another piece of the puzzle has to do with their escape route. In exchange for immunity, Allen West told police everything he knew about their escape plan. He said the plan was to paddle north to Angel Island. That route, according to lab tests, would be extremely dangerous, if not impossible. The water was 54 degrees that night. The spring snow had melted, and strong evening tides were passing through. Water would have barreled through the bay as fast as six knots.
From the roof, their escape route would have looked more like a raging river traveling west through the bay. Marshall Dyke doesn't understand why. After months of meticulous planning, they chose the worst possible time of year, the worst time of night, and the worst possible direction. They could have easily wound up in the Pacific Ocean in under an hour. That's where other theories about the Great Escape take hold.
In 2003, Adam and Jamie, better known as the Mythbusters, tested the Escape. First, they dug into the route between Alcatraz and Angel Island. Was it even possible? To test this, they visited the BMVC, the Bay Model Visitor Center, in Sausalito, California. Inside is a hydraulic scale model of San Francisco Bay. It can simulate a full day's tidal movements in about 15 minutes.
High tide had just turned when Morris and the Anglins hit the water. No matter how hard they tried, the current would have carried them west toward the Golden Gate Bridge. But don't forget that Morris was a borderline genius.
According to the 1963 true crime book Escape from Alcatraz by San Francisco-based reporter John Campbell, Morris wanted to learn everything he could about their route and the channel between Alcatraz, Angel Island, and the Marin Headlands. In case you're unfamiliar, the Marin Headlands are the beaches and land areas under the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. If they could make it there, they'd be in mainland California.
It's reasonable to think that Morris examined their route from the roof, saw how the current was moving, and devised a new plan. Instead of paddling straight for Angel Island, they'd use the current to carry them west to the Marin Headlands. This new plan came with some added risk: if they miss, they'd wind up in the Gulf of Farallones and, eventually, the Pacific Ocean. The Mythbusters recreated the circumstances and rebuilt our escapee's raft.
They successfully paddled from Alcatraz to the Marin Headlands, using the current to push them toward their landing spot. It's entirely plausible that Morris and the Englund brothers survived the trek. On June 21st, 10 days after their escape, investigators found shreds of raincoat material on a beach near the Golden Gate Bridge.
But that doesn't explain why searchers found what they believed to be the remnants of the raincoat raft and paddles on Angel Island. Nothing could make it to Angel in that current. If they did leave around 10pm, any evidence would have been swept into the Pacific Ocean. An alternative escape theory suggests that they secured their raft to a passenger ferry, the last one scheduled to leave Alcatraz Island around midnight.
Instead of paddling across the bay, the men went around the island to the boat dock on the southeast side. There, they stole a 120-foot electrical cord, which was reported missing, and tied themselves to the rudder. The ferry theory comes from Fred Brizzi, who grew up with the Anglin brothers. He also presented what retired U.S. Marshal Art Roderick called "the best actionable lead we have," proving the Anglin brothers are still alive.
In 1975, Fred was allegedly in Rio de Janeiro when he bumped into Clarence and John Englund at a bar. They'd somehow made it south to Brazil and bought a farm out in the country. Brizzy snapped a now legendary photo showing them next to a termite hill. The only issue is that both men are wearing sunglasses. They've grown facial hair and put on some weight.
In 2020, a tech company called iDenTV used artificial intelligence to scan the Brizzy photo in order to compare it to the inmates' mugshots. They fed the AI images of the Anglin brothers along with other people's faces. That way, they could learn how to pick the Anglins out of the crowd based on their facial features. Several brands use iDenTV's tech to scan the internet, making sure other companies aren't using their logos and IPs.
Content moderators use it to detect profanity, nudity, gore, and extremist elements in photos online. Some police and security teams use iDent TV to create unique facial IDs of unidentified suspects to find matches in photos and videos. According to the AI, the men in the Brizzy photo were John and Clarence Englund. The US Marshals discredited Brizzy at first.
He used to smuggle drugs in the 1970s, and his ties to the Englund brothers didn't make him the most reliable witness. Of course, he'd want them to be alive. They were his friends. But when they listened to a recording of Brizzy telling the story, some investigators became believers when they were kids. Brizzy and the Englund boys used to attach rope to boat rudders and bodysurf around the lake.
When he bumped into them in Brazil, he asked if that's how they escaped the island. They said it was. It was too risky to let the boat bring them to shore. The marshals theorized that they let go somewhere in the bay and were picked up by an outside actor. There's a chance that this outside actor was Fred Brizzi. Given his background in narcotics shipping, Brizzi would know how to cross the bay without being seen. But that doesn't mean nobody saw him.
After getting off his shift, Alcatraz officer Robert Checkey enjoyed a cigarette at a yacht club overlooking the bay. Around midnight, he remembers seeing a white boat sitting in the water. There was no fishing rods or sails. It just sat perfectly still for 30 minutes. Then, it began moving toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The FBI discounted Checkey's account, as they'd already determined the escapees had drowned.
If they did make it to the mainland, the question becomes: where did they go next? Allen West said they planned on stealing clothes and a car once they reached the mainland. According to the FBI, no such items were ever stolen. The 2011 National Geographic documentary "Vanished from Alcatraz" says otherwise. Not only did investigators discover a makeshift raft on Angel Island, but they also found footprints leading away from it.
On June 12th, the morning after their escape, a blue 1955 Chevrolet license plate KPB 076 was reported stolen in Marin County. This report was corroborated in the Humboldt Times and the San Francisco Examiner.
On June 13th, a driver in Stockton, California claimed three men in a blue Chevy forced them off the road. Later in 2011, an 89-year-old man claiming to be Frank Morris' cousin said that, on eight or nine occasions, he delivered envelopes of money to Alcatraz guards. His daughter claims she was present shortly after the escape and met dad's friend, Frank.
Then there's the account of Alcatraz inmate Thomas Kent. He told America's Most Wanted that he helped plan the escape, but didn't participate because he couldn't swim. He said Clarence Anglin's girlfriend met them on the shore and drove them to Mexico. Many are skeptical of Kent's claims, as he was paid $2,000 for the America's Most Wanted interview. The Anglins' family members have reported several strange instances since the 1962 escape.
On Christmas of 1962, the family received a postcard that said, "To Mother, from John. Merry Christmas." Robert Englund, one of John and Clarence's brothers, said the phone would occasionally ring, but all he'd hear was breathing on the other side. "I suppose all that could have been pranks," he said, "but maybe it was my brother's." Every Mother's Day, Rachel Englund received an anonymous bouquet of flowers until she died in 1978.
At her funeral, two tall, unusual-looking women in heavy makeup were seen at the service. When their father died in 1989, Robert said that two bearded strangers showed up at the funeral home. He said they stood over the casket, wept, and walked out. In 1993, a new theory arose saying the escapees didn't die in the water. They were murdered. On his deathbed, a man wanted to come clean about his alleged role in the Alcatraz escape.
He told his nurse that he and an accomplice waded in the bay and plucked the escapees out of the water. He claims they painted the boat white days before the prison break. This corroborates Robert Checkey's sighting of a white boat idling in the water. The dying man claims he sailed the men up towards Seattle. Then, he betrayed them. He and his accomplice murdered the men and buried their bodies near the highway.
As the story goes, our escapees' family members had raised about $40,000 for them to use after their escape. Sources say this dying man and his accomplice killed the inmates and stole the money. Police investigated his claims but never found any bodies. The case remained a mystery.
That is until the best piece of evidence emerged in 2018, when the FBI confirmed the existence of a five-year-old letter. It allegedly arrived on the doorstep of the San Francisco Police Department in 2013. It read: "My name is John Englund. 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. The letter says that Frank died in 2008 and Clarence died in 2011. The writer, believed to be John Anglin, said the escapees went to Seattle after breaking out. He spent eight years in North Dakota before moving to Southern California, where he's been living ever since. Now that he was sick, he wanted to strike a deal with the police.
He'd tell them where he was if they agreed to one year in prison and free medical treatment. He concluded the letter by saying, "This is no joke." The FBI investigated the letter for DNA, fingerprints, anything they could use to prove this was really John Englund. He would have been 83 years old when he wrote that letter, 88 years old when they finally went public with it. The FBI's investigation into the letter was inconclusive.
The US Marshals had little faith that John Englund actually wrote it. They said, "There is no reason to believe that any of them would have changed their lifestyle and become law-abiding citizens after this escape." And they make a good point. All three men were repeat offenders. They had no formal training or education. Their faces were printed in every American newspaper. They weren't the kind of guys who could just walk into a job interview.
As of 2023, Frank Morris would be 97 years old, John Anglin would be 93, and Clarence would be 92. Law enforcement believes they drowned in the San Francisco Bay on the night of their escape. Their fans think they went on to lead long, crime-free lives. If Morris and the Anglins did escape Alcatraz, it would be the greatest prison break story in American history. An odd tale of human resilience and desire.
They wanted freedom so badly that they were willing to risk their lives to taste it. In the end, they may have tasted nothing but salt water as they drifted out to sea, never to be seen again.
