Pod Insights American History Tellers Daring Prison Escapes | Fleeing the Rock | 2 About this episode Located amid the treacherous waters of the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was designed to hold the most-wanted prisoners in America, and developed a reputation as an unbreakable fortress. But from the moment Frank Lee Morris set foot on the island in 1962, he was determined to break free. Together, with three other conspirators, he hatched a cunning plan that would become one of the most elaborate attempts at a prison break in history, defying a prison crawling with guards and surrounded by chilly ocean waters, in their unlikely bid for freedom.
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0:24 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's spring 1962. It's the middle of the night and you're creeping along a catwalk deep inside the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Just ahead of you is your friend and fellow inmate Clarence Anglin. The dank clammy air reeks of mildew and clings to your skin, but you're used to it. You've been a prisoner here for nearly two and a half years. Though if all goes according to plan tonight, you'll be a free man soon. You spy an air shaft just ahead of you, and your heart begins to beat faster. Your entire escape plan hinges on being able to make it through this shaft and up onto the roof. Clarence squats down at the shaft, and carefully you climb onto his shoulders. His large hands reach back and grab your ankles tightly. You ready?
1:09 Lindsay Graham? I'm ready. Slowly, Clarence stands up, raising you into the shaft. You peer to the end and inspect it as carefully as you can. Well, what do you see? God damn it. You shake your head, dejected. Lower me down. Slowly Clarence lowers himself and you step off his shoulders. It's no good. We're trapped. What do you mean? What'd you see? Well, this shaft isn't blocked by a fan like the others, but it is blocked by iron bars. There's some kind of cap at the end, too, like a rain hood or something. Well, we can beat that. We can bend the bars and knock the cap off. Not likely. It's riveted into place. We'll use a drill. No, even if we manage to get our hands on a drill and figure out a way to power it up here, it'd make too much noise. Oh, come on. We've gotten this far. We can't give up now.
1:54 Lindsay Graham? I don't know. There may not be a way out. Well, we have to think of something. You stare at Clarence, trying to think of some way to get the cap off, but your mind just races in circles. I don't know. We're not gonna solve it tonight. Come on, let's get back to our cells.
2:10 Lindsay Graham? You and Clarence glumly tiptoe back down the catwalk and shimmy down a pipe to the first floor where your cells are located. But as you step back behind bars and slump onto your bunk, you feel dejected and morose. You can't stand the idea of spending eight more years in this godforsaken place. You have to find a way out because you refuse to let Alcatraz, the inescapable prison known as The Rock, beat you.
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3:27 Lindsay Graham? From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American History Tellers: Our History, Your Story.
3:50 Lindsay Graham? In 1847, during the Mexican-American War, US soldiers seized Alcatraz, an island in San Francisco Bay. The US military first established a fort there, but soon figured out that the difficult-to-access island, a mile and a half off the shores of San Francisco, was better used as a prison. So officials converted it to hold military inmates. It served that purpose until the 1930s, when the Department of Justice purchased Alcatraz from the military, intending to use it as a new maximum-security prison. The buildings on the island were modernized and redesigned to be inescapable, with thick concrete walls, steel doors, and armed guards keeping close watch. By 1962, Alcatraz housed approximately 270 inmates, many considered the most dangerous in the nation.
4:36 Lindsay Graham? Among them were two brothers Clarence and John Anglin incarcerated for armed bank robbery and another man Frank Morris serving a 14-year sentence also for robbing a bank. These three inmates along with a fourth conspirator would soon devise a plan to escape. But their success hinged on an elaborate series of steps, any one of which could go wrong. Nevertheless, they were determined to be the first prisoners to defy the odds and break out of Alcatraz. This is episode 2 in our four-part series on daring prison escapes: Fleeing the Rock.
5:12 Lindsay Graham? On September 1st, 1926, Frank Lee Morris was born in Washington DC. His mother Clara was just 17-years-old at the time. She claimed that Frank's father was a man she had married two months earlier, but by the time Frank was born, the man had disappeared from her life. Nevertheless, she gave her baby the man's surname, Morris. It soon became clear that Clara was erratic and had a violent temper. Authorities worried she would harm her baby in a fit of rage, so when Morris was just six months old, he was placed in a foster home. As a young child, Morris was smart and charming, but also highly energetic and had a penchant for mischief. By the time he was six, he was stealing matches and lighting them just to watch them burn.
5:54 Lindsay Graham? He stole change from his teachers' desks and food from his classmates' lunchboxes, even though he had his own lunchbox full of food. As a result of his acting up, he was bounced from foster home to foster home. Then at the age of 13, he was convicted of theft and sentenced to a juvenile detention center in Washington DC. Although his initial sentence was for six years, he was released on parole after serving just one. But his good behavior didn't last. A year later, he was back in detention. At 16, he escaped from the DC detention center and made it all the way to Miami, Florida, before he was caught. This was the start of a pattern that lasted into his adult life. He cycled in and out of detention centers, escaping and getting caught over and over.
6:37 Lindsay Graham? He racked up a lengthy rap sheet and was convicted of everything from armed robbery to possession of narcotics. By 1955, Morris was imprisoned once again, serving a ten-year sentence in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for bank robbery. At the time, the Louisiana State Penitentiary was considered the most secure prison in the southern United States. But that spring, while Morris was assigned to a work crew cutting sugarcane, he managed to sneak away. No one was exactly sure how he did it. Still, he wasn't out for long. Several months later, in early 1956, the FBI caught him in a hotel room in Baton Rouge. While free, he had stolen over $6,000 in coins from a bank in a small town north of New Orleans.
7:20 Lindsay Graham? He was sentenced to 14 years for the crime, and this time, there was only one prison considered secure enough to hold him: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in the San Francisco Bay. The Department of Justice purchased Alcatraz Island from the Army in 1933 with the express purpose of confining the country's most hardened criminals. A decade earlier, prohibition had sparked a wave of violent crime in the US as bootleggers battled with each other to dominate the black market on alcohol. And as these savvy criminals were caught, they overwhelmed local prisons. The Department of Justice decided a new kind of prison was needed, one that was inescapable, and Alcatraz was deemed the perfect site. Located on a 22-acre island, the prison was surrounded by the frigid waters of the San
8:02 Lindsay Graham? Francisco Bay, which was known for its strong current. And the prison itself was upgraded with all the most modern technologies. The bars at the cells were made using steel that couldn't be cut through with a hacksaw. The ends of the cell blocks were secured with heavy steel doors, armed with automatic locks, tear gas dispensers, and watched over by armed guards. Heavy barbed wire lined the perimeter, and bars were placed over the sewer entrances. The prisoners at Alcatraz were kept under close surveillance. Armed watchmen monitored the ground from gun towers, and inside, guards counted the prisoners every 30 minutes. Strict rules were also enforced. Inmates could be sent to solitary confinement for the smallest of infractions, including not finishing the food on their plate or engaging in small talk.
8:47 Lindsay Graham? It was the country's most secure prison, and throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Alcatraz housed some of America's most notorious outlaws, including gangsters like Al Capone and George Machine Gun Kelly. But over the years, some of the prison's harshest methods came under criticism. An investigation in the 1950s revealed multiple prisoner abuses, including the overuse of solitary confinement. As a result, officials were forced to loosen some of the strictest rules, allowing prisoners to talk during meals and play music in their cells. But the island fortress was still considered inescapable. Since opening, 33 prisoners had tried to escape from Alcatraz, but none were successful. Twenty-three had been caught, six had been shot and killed, and two had drowned.
9:32 Lindsay Graham? When frankly, Morris arrived at Alcatraz in January 1960, he immediately began looking for ways to escape. The bleak track record of failed escape attempts didn't bother him, he was determined to regain his freedom. So he watched the guards closely, he timed how long it took them to patrol the entire cell block, he learned their shift changes, he clocked which ones were unarmed. He also studied the architecture of the prison building, looking for any weaknesses he could exploit. But the place was a fortress. At one point, he considered an air vent built into the base of a rear wall of each cell, including his own, but it was small, only about six by 10 inches. And the metal grate covering the vent was tightly affixed to the concrete wall.
10:13 Lindsay Graham? In the end, he dismissed this vent as too secure and too small for a grown man to fit through. For over a year, he continued to case the prison for weaknesses, but could find none. He was almost ready to give up hope, but then he learned a secret. Imagine it's a cool morning in 1961. You are a prisoner at Alcatraz, assigned to the so-called brush shop for work duty. All day, you make brushes and brooms for a few cents an hour that gets deposited into your commissary account. You wait patiently as the guard finishes his count of the prisoners in the shop. Then, you spring into action, reaching for a half-gallon jug of glue that you use in the workshop to make brooms.
10:55 Lindsay Graham? You're hoping to steal some for a project you're working on back in your cell. You tip the jug of glue, carefully pouring it into a small glass bottle you brought with you. When it's full, you cork the bottle and slide it into your pocket. But when you look up, you notice the man next to you, giving you a leery stare. Hey, man, what was that? That's when you realize he saw what you did. You've never spoken to him before, but you think his name is Morris. He looks at you quizzically. Oh, it's nothing. Mind your own business. Morris is quiet for a moment, and then cocks his head. What about the snitch box? The snitch box is what you and your fellow inmates call the metal detector the guards use to make sure inmates don't sneak anything from the work areas back into their cells. You just shrug.
11:37 Lindsay Graham? Nah, man, it's just glass and cork. There's nothing to set the snitch box off. But what if the guards frisk you? I figured I'd get pulled out to be frisked once every thirty times I go through. The odds are in my favor. Plus, I was frisked last week. I doubt they'll pull me out again so soon. All right, so you've been doing some thinking. Yeah, man, this place isn't nearly as tight a ship as they like to think. You don't think so? Nah, there are plenty of security lapses. I even know a way someone could bust out of here if they had the nerve. Morris raises an eyebrow. All right then, let's hear it. Okay, so a few years ago, this old inmate was working as an electrician when a fan in one of the ventilator shafts above cell block B broke. He removed the broken fan, but no one ever put in a replacement.
12:20 Lindsay Graham? I bet you could climb that shaft all the way out to the roof. Morris stares at you, his eyes flashing with intensity. You say cell block B? Yeah, that's what I heard. But how do you access the ventilator shaft? There's a utility corridor behind the cells. You get to the shaft from there. But isn't that corridor blocked off by like a locked steel door? Yeah, but I guess you could always ask the guard for a key.
12:44 Lindsay Graham? You smile as Morris's face falls. A moment later, the guard reenters the room, and it's time for the next count. So you turn back to your broom. But out of the corner of your eye, you can see that Morris is deep in thought. You can't believe he seriously thinks he can reach that shaft and make an escape. You were just messing with him. He'll never figure out how to access the ventilator shaft, much less get out of this prison.
13:10 Lindsay Graham? After learning about an empty air shaft from a fellow inmate in the brush shop where he worked, Frank Lee Morris spent the next few months mulling over how to reach it. It was somewhere behind the thick cement walls of his cell, and he needed to find a way to get to it. One night, in the fall of 1961, he sat on his bed cleaning his nails. As he used a small nail file with a tapered end to scrape out the dirt from his fingernails, his eyes landed on the air vent on the rear wall near the base of the sink, the one he had previously dismissed as too small to fit through. His thumb grazed over the pointed end of the clippers in his hand, and he got an idea. Slowly, he stood up and peered out of his cell. There was no guard inside, so he hurried to the back wall and got down on his knees.
13:53 Lindsay Graham? Using the pointy file from the clippers, he scraped hard against the wall right near the vent. Tiny flakes of concrete fell to the floor. Morris's hands began to shake with excitement, and his mind raced. He knew it would be a strenuous process to scrape away the concrete to make the opening large enough for him to fit through, but he was convinced this could be the way to the air shaft, and then on to freedom. But he still had a problem. He had to figure out how to hide what he was doing from the guards. At the very least, he needed a lookout. He would never succeed on his own. So he decided to approach his cell neighbor, a 32-year-old inmate named Alan West, who was serving time for car theft. He also considered two bank-robbing brothers who lived in adjacent cells four doors down
14:36 Lindsay Graham? from him, Clarence and John Anglin. Morris already knew these brothers because their sentences had overlapped at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and Morris knew that, like him, they had a history of escaping from prisons. Still, Morris worried that enlisting these three men as accomplices might be a mistake. West liked to talk, and Morris worried that he might let the plan slip, and the Anglin brothers had a reckless streak. But after deliberating, he decided they were his best options. So in early 1962, Morris approached the other three men over breakfast. He pitched them on a plan, and they quickly agreed. Morris explained that the first step would be for each man to dig around the vent in their respective cells, eventually widening the opening enough so that they
15:20 Lindsay Graham? could crawl through to the utility corridor that housed pipes and other infrastructure behind the wall. Once through, they could look for the unobstructed air shaft the other inmate had told them about, then figure out next steps. Clarence Anglin was eager to get started digging on his vent immediately, but Morris warned him to take it slow. To pull this off, they would need to execute their plan perfectly. No detail could be overlooked, and it would take time, at least several more months of careful and patient work, before they actually busted out. Everyone agreed to commit for the long haul, but Morris could feel the impatience emanating off Clarence. Still, there was no cutting him out of the plan now. All Morris could do was hope he'd chosen the right men as his accomplices.
16:02 Lindsay Graham? One slip of the tongue or careless move would doom the mission, and condemn them all to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
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17:22 Lindsay Graham? In early 1962, frankly, Morris and his three accomplices had a plan to break out of Alcatraz, but it wasn't going to be easy. Their ultimate goal was to escape via an air shaft Morris had learned about from another inmate, but to do that, they would each need to gain access to a utility corridor behind the cell block where they were housed. That would require digging into the concrete wall surrounding the small air vents at the back of their cells in order to expand the holes so they could fit through. Each vent was just six inches by 10 inches, and Morris estimated that the smallest area a man could fit through was 10 by 14 inches, meaning they would have to more than double the size of the holes. This meant scraping through a concrete wall that was approximately a foot thick
18:04 Lindsay Graham? with limited tools and without getting caught by the guards. The men agreed that Morris and Clarence Anglin would start digging their holes first while Alan West and John Anglin kept watch for them. It was slow going. The file of a nail clipper was an inefficient tool, even after Morris figured out how to weld it to the handle of a spoon he snuck out of the mess hall. And they had to hide the dust they were generating so the guards wouldn't get suspicious. Every night, Morris and Clarence would dig until the scrapings filled the pockets of their coats without any visible bulge. Then the next day on their way to work detail, they would scatter the debris. Meanwhile, Morris came up with a clever way to conceal the growing hole in the back of his cell from the guards.
18:46 Lindsay Graham? Playing music was one of the few leisure activities the men of Alcatraz were allowed to pursue, so Morris took up the accordion. He positioned the large instrument case in front of the air vent to hide the damage he was doing to the wall from passing guards. Their scheme was underway, but Morris and the other men knew that getting into the air shaft and out onto the unsecured roof of the prison was only part of the plan. They would also need to find a way to prevent the guards from knowing they were gone to give them as much of a head start as possible once they broke out. So Morris came up with another idea. Aware that at night, the guards checked the sleeping inmates' cells every 45 minutes, he devised a way to trick the guards into thinking they were still in their beds. He and the other men borrowed magazines from the prison library
19:29 Lindsay Graham? and carefully removed pages until they had enough to make paper mache, which they planned to use to make dummies of their heads that looked as much like themselves as possible. To do this, John Anglin took up painting as a hobby in order to justify buying paint from the commissary, then snuck the paint to the other men. Meanwhile, his brother Clarence worked in the barber shop, so he smuggled out hair clippings, which they glued to the paper mache heads to give them an even more realistic look. They also used paper mache to create homemade cardboard, which they put over the holes in the cell walls once they were too big for the metal grate to stay in place. They painted it the same color as the wall and then painted on a fake grate. Repeatedly, Morris had to urge his accomplices to slow down. The Anglin brothers were impatient.
20:14 Lindsay Graham? John wanted to rip more pages out of the magazines so they could build their dummy heads faster, but Morris snapped at him, warning that missing pages could get noticed and they didn't want to tip off anyone about their plan. Morris hoped that between fake heads and clothes stuffed under their blankets, they could fool the guards into thinking they were still in their beds well after they had left. And if all went according to plan, their escape wouldn't be discovered until roll call the next morning, giving them several hours of a head start. But Morris also had to remind the other men that once they got off Alcatraz Island, they would face the strong currents and icy waters of the San Francisco Bay, known to easily overwhelm even the strongest swimmers. To overcome this challenge, Morris devised a plan to build makeshift rafts.
20:57 Lindsay Graham? The prison commissary sold raincoats for the inmates to purchase to keep them dry while they spent time in the prison yard amid the frequent San Francisco drizzle. And John Anglin happened to work near where the stock of raincoats was stored. So during his work shifts, he would sneak one of the coats on and then wear it back to his cell, and a guard shift change meant that the guard on duty when he left had no idea that he had not worn the raincoat when he arrived at work that morning. Through this method, John was able to steal over fifty raincoats that the men fashioned into two rafts by stitching the coats together. They even waterproofed the seams by holding them up to steam pipes to apply heat. They used similar techniques to make life vests for each of them, as well as waterproof bags for their possessions.
21:41 Lindsay Graham? Finally, by the spring of 1962, after roughly three months of preparations, both Frank Morris and Clarence Anglin had managed to make the vents in their cells large enough to be able to squeeze through. They had access to the unguarded utility corridor behind their cells and to the air shaft that would take them to the roof. Then, one night, after lights out, while Wes and John Anglin kept watch, Morris and Clarence Anglin snuck into the corridor. Morris pulled his accordion case in front of the hole as he climbed through. Then, when they reached the ventilator shaft, Morris climbed on Clarence's shoulders and peered to the end. All the work they'd done so far had relied on the intelligence Morris had learned that this shaft did not have a fan and would give them access to the roof. But when Morris saw the end of the shaft, his stomach sank.
22:26 Lindsay Graham? It was true that there wasn't a fan, but instead there were two iron bars across the end and a cap secured with six iron rivets. He knew there was no way to remove the rivets with the limited tools they had access to. Dejected, Morris and Clarence made their way back to their cells. But Morris wasn't going to let six lousy rivets stop him from getting off the rock. By breakfast the next day, he presented some ideas for how they could remove the rivets to take off the rain cap. He said that stealing a drill might be impossible, but maybe they could build one. Then, one day in the music room, Morris spotted a small fan in the corner. While Wes distracted the guard, Morris crammed the fan into his accordion case. That night in his cell, he took the fan apart and removed the motor.
23:10 Lindsay Graham? Then he attached it to a drill bit he'd stolen from the broom workshop. A little later, he and Clarence went back into the shaft. Morris wrapped a raincoat around the motor to deaden the sound and put the drill up to the first rivet. But the small motor didn't have enough power. Instead, he came up with a new idea. In the prison glove shop, they had a thin cord that was imbued with sharp grains of silicon carbide and abrasive. Morris realized this cord might be thin enough to slide under the top of the rivets, meaning they could potentially use it to saw the heads of the rivets off. So Morris asked a friend who worked in the glove shop to smuggle a length of the cord out for him. Once he had it, he returned to the air shaft to test it. He placed a strong, sharp cord under the head of a rivet and wiggled it back and forth,
23:54 Lindsay Graham? feeling it cut into the metal rod. He was thrilled that his idea worked, but he would take slow, arduous effort to saw through each of the six metal rivets. The men took turns, working in pairs, making a little more progress every night. While one man sawed at the rivets, the others continued to work on the rafts and lifefists. They established a workshop on the roof of their sail block near the air shaft, where they stored their dummies and other supplies. Finally, in June 1962, approximately six months after Morris first approached the Anglin Brothers and Allen West, Clarence managed to remove the last of the six rivets, meaning they could now remove the rain cap and reach the roof. The only question that remained was when to attempt their escape, because they knew that to succeed, the timing had to be perfect.
24:43 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's Friday, June 8, 1962. You're a prisoner at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, and you're seated at a table in the mess hall during breakfast. All around you inmates shovel down their food. Constant clanking of silverware and the smell of powdered eggs makes you feel like your head's going to explode. For the past six months, you've been carefully preparing to break out of this place, and last night, your brother Clarence completed the last step necessary to leave. Knowing that freedom is so close makes every second you're imprisoned here feel like torture. You want out now. You're seated across from Franklin Morris, the mastermind of your escape plan. You look around, making sure no one is listening, and then lean forward. So tonight's the night, right? We break out? No, no, no, we're not quite ready yet.
25:28 Lindsay Graham? What are you talking about? The rivets are off. We have the decoy dummies, the rafts, the life jackets. What are we waiting for? Getting across the bay is gonna be dangerous. I wanna learn more about the currents and tides. Also, I think it might be possible to make the rafts dirtier. You clench your fists under the table. Damn it luck, the longer we stall, the greater chance we get caught. We've been lucky so far that our cells haven't been searched, but that could change any day. Man, I'm not stalling. I'm making sure every part of the plan is airtight. But it's never gonna be perfect, and you know that, right? Yeah, but we spent six months on this. It'd be a waste if we did all this work and then drowned in the bay because we got impatient. You grit your teeth. Okay, fine. How much time do you think we need to learn about currents and stuff? At least a week.
26:12 Lindsay Graham? Alright, so next Friday, we're outta here. Let's say Monday, the 18th. Alright? But that's the date. You're not pushing it back. Whatever you know about the tides by then is what you know.
26:24 Lindsay Graham? Morris nods, and you finish eating your breakfast in silence. You're glad to have set a date, but you can't stop the gnawing feeling in the back of your head that you're still waiting too long. Your gut tells you that sometime in the next 10 days, your plan will be discovered, and it will all be over.
26:44 Lindsay Graham? Clarence Anglin had a history of being impulsive and rash. In many ways, he was the opposite of Frank Morris, who was thoughtful and detail-oriented. For six months, Morris had kept Clarence in check, but with the promise of escape so close, Clarence began to grow increasingly impatient. Morris managed to convince him to wait just a little longer, but waiting was hard for both of the Anglin brothers. The following Monday night, on June 11th, Frank Lee Morris was in his cell when he heard John's voice whispering to him from the other side of the wall. Checking that a guard wasn't nearby, Morris removed the cardboard covering the hole to find John's head peering out. He told Morris that he and Clarence were leaving that night. They refused to wait any longer.
27:25 Lindsay Graham? Morris pleaded with him to wait one more week like they'd planned, but John said he and his brother wanted the hell out, and they didn't want to wait a single day more. They were determined to leave whether Morris and Wes came with them or not. Then John disappeared, leaving Morris alone in his cell. Morris knew that as soon as Clarence and John's absence was discovered, guards would institute a search of everyone's cells. The holes in his and Wes's walls would be revealed, and they would probably be sent to solitary and have time added to their sentence for attempting escape. They'd also likely get moved off Cell Block B, meaning any chance of escape would be over. So Morris knew he had a choice to make. Either he could leave now and risk death in the waters of San Francisco Bay,
28:07 Lindsay Graham? or he could let the others leave without him and give up the best chance he might ever have at escaping. Whichever decision he made, his life was on the line.
28:20 Lindsay Graham? By 1779, Benedict Arnold had sacrificed more for the revolution than almost any other man in America. One of George Washington's most effective commanders, he had nearly lost a leg in the Second Battle of Saratoga. But in return, Arnold believed he had been humiliated by Congress and cheated of his glory by lesser men, so he decided to make them pay. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of the podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history: presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, Benedict Arnold turns his back on his comrades in the Continental Army and secretly defects to the British. With the help of his wife, he plots to hand over the most important colonial fortress
29:04 Lindsay Graham? to the enemy and doom the revolution he once served. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of American Scandal early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
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30:29 Lindsay Graham? Just past 9pm on Monday, June 11, 1962, frankly Morris paced in his cell at the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, listening intently to the voices just a few feet away. Morris could hear his fellow conspirator Clarence Anglin talking to Allen West. Clarence was laying out the same ultimatum that John had given Morris only moments earlier: "Come with them now, or be left behind forever." But West didn't have the doubts that Morris did. He was eager to go too. So Morris listened as John and Clarence Anglin left to shimmy up a pipe to the top level of the cell blocks. He removed the cardboard from the hole in his wall and climbed through himself, pulling the accordion case behind him. He tiptoed down the catwalk as fast as he could, climbing up the pipe behind the Anglin brothers.
31:13 Lindsay Graham? He knew they were heading to the secret workshop they had set up on the roof of the cell block where they kept their supplies for the escape, including the dummies they would use to trick the guards. He caught up with the brothers just as they were coming back down, their dummy heads in hand. Morris tried one more time to reason with them not to rush the escape, but the brothers weren't having it. They told Morris as soon as the lights were out, they were going. Then they headed back to their cells to stage the dummies. Morris hesitated yet again, then made his decision: he would go too. He climbed up to the workshop and grabbed his own decoy, but as he returned to his cell, he heard an odd sound that made his heart race.
31:55 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's the evening of June 11, 1962, and you're in your cell in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. You're desperately scraping a sharpened spoon against the concrete wall of your cell. Sweat drips down your forehead, and you can feel your breathing growing increasingly shallow. After months of preparing, you've just found out you're escaping tonight, but something is wrong. Your cell neighbor and the mastermind of your plan Frank Lee Morris hisses through the wall. What the hell's going on in there? Why aren't you getting your dummy? Man, I messed up. What do you mean? I was having trouble with the cardboard. It kept falling out, so I stole some cement powder and closed the hole up a little. Okay, so what? Well, I did too good a job. I can't get the cardboard out. I'm sealed in. I'm trying to reopen the edges so I can get out. Are you kidding me?
32:40 Lindsay Graham? Well, I don't know what else to do. If the guards discovered the hole, the plan would be ruined. So you decided to do a top-quality masonry job? What's the matter with you? It'll be fine. I just need a few minutes. All right, well, hang on. At least let me stand watch. You don't want a guard catching you. You stop scraping and wait as you hear Morris squeeze through the hole in his wall and back into his cell. All right, coast is clear. You start scraping the wall again. You have no time to waste. It took you three months to scrape through the wall the first time, and now you need to get through it in minutes. At least you don't have to worry about the dust. The next time you go through the hole will be the last time. You take a quick break to wipe the sweat from your brow. You barely made any progress. How's it looking? I need more time.
33:24 Lindsay Graham? Well, if you're not done by lights out, we're going without you. Your throat constricts. Lights out is at 10 in less than an hour. You barely made a dent in the wall. You push at the cardboard, but it doesn't budge. All right, all right, I'll get through in time. Don't worry. You hope you're right. You can't get left behind, so you narrow your eyes and focus on scraping the wall as fast as you can. On the night they intended to escape, Frank Morris was distressed to learn that his cell neighbor Alan West had accidentally sealed up the hole in his wall a few days earlier. West began to desperately try to chisel his way through the cement he had poured, but as the lights went out, he still hadn't gotten through.
34:09 Lindsay Graham? In the next cell over, Morris took one last look around. His dummy head was in place, looking disturbingly lifelike with its real human hair. All of his personal effects looked the way they always did. A guard walking by, doing a cursory bed check, would have no reason to think anything was amiss. Meanwhile, West could hear the Anglin brothers shuffling by on the other side of the wall. He scraped faster and begged the others to wait for him, but John Anglin just hissed at him to stop making so much noise. In the next cell over, Morris crawled through the hole in his wall for the last time. And as he pulled the accordion case in front of the hole, he told West to hurry up and that he'd see him up top. Then West heard each of his three accomplices shimmy up the pipe without him. West scraped and scraped and scraped.
34:54 Lindsay Graham? Then, finally, sometime after midnight, he'd chipped away enough of the cement that he could get through to the utility corridor. He climbed the catwalk and shimmied up the pipe and into the workshop where the men had stored their rafts, dummies, and other supplies. One of the rafts, the panels, and several of the life vests were gone, but his fake head was still there. Still, he'd wasted so much time reopening the hole in his cell, he decided not to bother putting the dummy head in his bed. He just needed to go. So he grabbed the remaining raft, folded it up, and hauled himself up the air shaft. At the end of the shaft, he took a deep breath and popped his head out. A light blinded him, the security beacon, and then suddenly, a flock of seagulls shrieked right next to him.
35:36 Lindsay Graham? Terrified that this commotion had attracted the attention of the guards standing watch in the nearby gun towers, West ducked his head back down, his heart pounding. After a moment, he had a horrible realization: he was not getting out that night. He was sure the guards were now watching the roof, thanks to the seagulls, and he couldn't afford to wait. Without his dummy head in place, the guards inside would soon notice he wasn't in his cell. Defeated, he climbed back down and returned. Not knowing what else to do, he went to bed. The next morning, Tuesday, June 12th, in the light of day, the guards discovered the dummy heads in the beds of Frank Lee Morris and John and Clarence Anglin. The prison was immediately put into lockdown and searched extensively.
36:17 Lindsay Graham? The FBI, the US Marshals, local law enforcement, the Coast Guard, and other branches of the military were all notified. The hole in Alan West's wall was soon discovered, and West quickly agreed to cooperate fully, sharing with the authorities all the details of the plan. In exchange, he was not charged with attempting to escape. West told officials that the plan had been to use their rafts to cross the bay, make landfall north of Alcatraz Island, then steal a car. Over the coming days, law enforcement investigated every car theft and home break-in in Northern California, but in the end, nothing could be traced back to the escapees. Next, authorities looked into the men's contacts, but determined that none of their friends or family had been in a position to aid them in their escape.
37:01 Lindsay Graham? Then on Wednesday, June 13th, one of their homemade oars was found bobbing in the bay. The following day, an Army Corps of Engineers boat picked up a waterproof bag made out of a raincoat. Inside were family photos and a money order made out to Clarence Anglin. With no evidence to indicate that the three men ever made it to shore, Alcatraz authorities took this as proof that the men had drowned in the bay and the case went cold. Then, in March 1963, less than one year after the escape, the Bureau of Prisons closed Alcatraz. Many people theorized that it was because of the escape, but the timing was coincidental. The closing had been in the works long before the three men disappeared. A report in the late 1950s indicated that Alcatraz cost three times more to operate
37:46 Lindsay Graham? than the average American prison, and authorities had decided it was no longer worth the expense. Sixteen years later, in 1979, the FBI officially declared Clarence Anglin, John Anglin, and frankly, Morris dead. But some believe that the men made it to safety and disappeared into society, arguing that if they had died, at least one of their bodies would have been recovered. Because of the ambiguity, unlike the FBI, the US Marshal Service kept the case open, and frankly, Morris and the Anglin brothers are still wanted to this day for escaping Alcatraz. Alcatraz's history of housing some of America's most famous criminals and its reputation as escape-proof has allowed it to live on in the country's collective imagination. The name itself has become a shorthand for harsh and impenetrable prison.
38:31 Lindsay Graham? But today, Alcatraz is a popular tourist attraction, with roughly 1.5 million visitors a year buying tickets to get inside. A far cry from when prisoners would do anything to get a ticket out.
38:45 Lindsay Graham? From Wondery, this is episode two of our four-part series on daring prison escapes for American history tellers. On the next episode, in 1910, six inmates at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas hijack a train and crash it through the prison gates, leading the young Bureau of Investigation to begin their search for one of American history's most elusive fugitives.
39:10 Lindsay Graham? American History Tellers is only possible because of listeners like you, so thank you. And don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow American History Tellers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. And to find out more about me, including my other podcasts, my live show, the history tours I'm arranging, and all sorts of other things, go to historyishuman.com. That's historyishuman.com.
39:46 Lindsay Graham? If you'd like to learn more about this story, we recommend Escape from Alcatraz by J. Campbell Bruce. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Mohamed Shazi. Sound design by Molly Bach. Supervising sound designer Matthew Filler. Music by Lindsay Graham. This episode is written by Austin Rackless. Edited by Dorian Marina. Produced by Alida Rosansky. Managing producer Desi Blalock. Senior managing producer Callum Pluse. Senior producer Annie Herman. Executive producers Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.
40:25 Speaker 07 For decades, two legendary brands fought for the hearts of American bikers: Indian Motorcycle and Harley-Davidson. The battle looked a lot like Coke versus Pepsi or Ford versus Chevy, but tastes changed and Indian didn't adapt fast enough. The icon all but died. Then came the con men, the dreamers, a string of spectacular failures that kept Indian in the grave, until one company finally got it right. This is the story of an improbable revival and the reignition of an old rivalry. David Brown, the host of the podcast Business Wars. And every season, we bring you the true stories behind the companies that shape our world. Indian's new owners are going all in, but an existential crisis looms. Can Indian and Harley recruit enough younger riders to survive?
41:08 Speaker 07 Make sure to follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Business Wars early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
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