The whereabouts of Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, who escaped the offshore prison of Alcatraz in 1962 after months of planning, remains one of America’s greatest mysteries — and one which the government still wants to solve.
The three convicted bank robbers escaped from “The Rock” in June of 1962 by climbing through the prison’s vent systems. They made their escape off the island in a 6-by-14-foot, homemade rubber raft that was made from raincoats.
It’s still unclear to this day if the three men survived the strong currents and frigid Bay waters around Alcatraz.
According to the FBI, authorities found pieces of a wooden paddle and a rubber inner tube in the water around Alcatraz after the escape. They also found a homemade life vest washed up on a nearby beach.
The fugitives’ plan was complicated and involved numerous steps, including using a makeshift drill to remove the vents in each of their cells, establishing a secret workshop above the cell block, and making dummies with human hair to fool guards during bed checks, according to the Chronicle.
To escape the prison, the men squeezed into a utility corridor and then climbed onto the prison roof. They “made their way down a pipe, climbed two barbed wire fences, and placed the boat into the waters.”
From there, they used a makeshift inflatable raft made out of raincoats to continue their escape, the outlet reported. Prison guards only noticed that the men were not in their beds the following morning, and the prison went into lockdown, the outlet reported.
The search for the men began to drag on, and officials eventually said that the men must have drowned after making it off the island, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. However, Chronicle editors determined that it was possible to successfully swim from Alcatraz to nearby Angel Island in 53 minutes, the outlet reported.
The FBI ultimately closed the case in 1979, saying there was no credible evidence the men were still alive, the agency’s website said. It turned the case over to the U.S. Marshals Service, which kept it open.
To this day authorities maintain the escape attempt was unsuccessful. Just a few years ago, however, a new piece of correspondence has been uncovered which may offer a different explanation.
In 2013, the San Francisco Police Department received a letter apparently from an aging John Anglin.
In the opening paragraph of the letter, the author writes,
“My name is John Anglin, I escape[d] 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 states that Frank Morris and Clarence Anglin passed away in 2005 and 2008 respectively. The author then goes on to offer to give himself up to authorities in exchange for medical treatment and a one-year prison sentence, the authorities would need to make the announcement on TV. Then the author states that “I will write back to let you know exactly where I am. This is no joke…”
The FBI ultimately did not take the bait but did take the letter seriously enough to complete handwriting analysis, fingerprinting, and DNA tests, all of which came back inconclusive.
Since this letter, there has been no further correspondence and John Anglin, if he did survive, would have celebrated his 88th birthday on May 2, 2018.
Watch the video below for more details:
Source: AWM
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