84 ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ
In the darkness of the prison, it
appeared they were sleeping.
In their workshop, they assembled
a variety of stolen objects, including
more than 50 rubber raincoats,
which the quartet used to create
both a raft and life jackets. They
stitched together the seams and
sealed them with the heat from a
steam pipe to make the devices
watertight. They stole an accordion
from a fellow inmate and
repurposed it as a bellows to inflate
the life raft, and they made crude
wooden paddles.Man down
Once their preparations were
complete, the men chose to escape
on the night of 11 June 1962.However, there was a problem.
The opening to West’s tunnel had
started to become visible, so he
had patched it up with a makeshift
cement mix. When it dried, the hole
narrowed and West was unable to
climb through. By the time he
was able to widen the hole
sufficiently, the others had left
without him.
Meanwhile, the three men
climbed out of the ventilation shaft
onto the roof, inadvertently making
a loud crash that alerted the guards- but as there were no further
noises, the guards did not
investigate. The trio scaled the
barbed-wire fences and inflated
their raft. Investigators later
estimated that they left the island
at 10pm, and departed towards
Angel Island, 3 km (2 miles) to the
north. The following morning the
ruse was uncovered when guards
found the dummy heads. As word
of the remarkable prison break
spread around the jail, inmates
began to chant “They got away!
They got away!”The manhunt begins
For the next 10 days, law
enforcement agencies conducted
an extensive air, sea, and land
search. On 14 June, the Coast
Guard discovered a paddle, about
180 metres (200 yards) off the
southern shore of Angel Island.
A boatman also found a wallet
wrapped in plastic containingThe five key components of the plan
Sharpened spoons
and a crude
home-made drill
allowed the men
to chisel through
the rear walls of
their cells.Music hour
was the perfect
opportunity for
the conspirators
to tunnel without
alerting the guards.Dummy heads
placed on their
pillows made it look
as though they
were asleep.Raincoats
were transformed
into a raft and
life jackets.An accordion
was stolen and
adapted to inflate
the raft.080-085_EscapeFromAlcatraz.indd 84 12/12/2016 17:12
85
An Alcatraz prison guard in the
utility corridor holds a small section
of the wall that one of the inmates
chiselled free. From this corridor, the
inmates could make it up to the roof
of the cellblock.CON ARTISTS
photographs of the Anglin family.
On 21 June, shreds of raincoat
material, believed to be remnants
of the raft, were recovered on the
beach. The next day, a prison boat
picked up a makeshift life jacket.
Neither human remains, nor
any other physical evidence of the
men’s fate has ever been found.
FBI investigators concluded that
while it was theoretically possible
for one or more of the inmates to
have reached Angel Island, the
water temperature and strong
currents within the bay made it
highly unlikely.
Once the escape was
discovered, West cooperated with
investigators on the proviso that he
would be spared punishment for
his part in the plot. He provided
a detailed description of their
intended escape, telling
investigators that once they
reached land the plan was to
steal clothes and a car. The FBI
investigated but determined that
there were no vehicle thefts orclothing-store burglaries in the
days following the escape. This
strengthened their belief that the
three escapees had perished in
the icy waters.New leads
On 31 December 1979, after an
investigation lasting 17 years, the
FBI closed its file. Their official
finding was that the prisoners most
likely drowned in the cold waters of
the bay while attempting to reach
Angel Island. They turned the case
over to the US Marshal Service,
which continued to investigate.
In October 2015, the Anglin
family breathed new life into the
case. They produced Christmas
cards, which they claimed the
Anglin brothers had sent to their
mother in the three years following
their escape. The handwriting wasfound to be a match but the date
they were written could not be
determined. The Anglin family also
revealed a photograph purporting
to show the brothers on a Brazilian
farm in 1975. A forensic expert
working on a subsequent History
Channel investigation deemed it
highly likely that the photograph
shows the Anglins alive in 1975.
Declassified FBI documents also
released in October 2015 revealed
that FBI Director Edgar Hoover
was told in 1965 that the Anglins
could be hiding in Brazil, contrary
to the agency’s public line on the
case. Secretly, Hoover ordered
investigators to Brazil to search for
them in 1965 but found no trace of
the Anglin brothers. Whatever the
truth may be of the escapees’ fate,
it seems this incredible case is far
from over. ■I really do believe the
boys made it out of here.
I do believe the boys are
a l ive t o day.
Marie Widner080-085_EscapeFromAlcatraz.indd 85 02/12/2016 14:41