Imagine a prison so scary and secure that it seems like something out of a horror movie. That’s Alcatraz for you! Located on an island in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz was designed to hold some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States. Surrounded by freezing waters and strong currents, it seemed impossible to escape from. But believe it or not, a few prisoners managed to do just that using some clever tricks!
Alcatraz started as a military prison in the late 1850s and became a federal prison from 1934 until it closed in 1963. It housed infamous criminals like Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, the violent Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, and the notorious gangster Al Capone. But the real stars of this escape story are Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, John and Clarence.
Frank Morris was a small-time criminal with a high IQ of 133, which means he was smarter than most people. He had a history of escaping from prisons, and when he ended up in Alcatraz, he wasn’t planning to stay. The Anglin brothers, known for robbing banks without violence, were also in Alcatraz. Together with another inmate, Alan West, they plotted their escape.
The plan started in December 1961. The prisoners secretly collected spoons from the dining hall and old saw blades to dig through the walls behind their sinks. They covered the holes with fake vents made from cardboard to hide their work. At night, Morris played the accordion to mask the noise of their digging.
Once they broke through the walls, they set up a secret workshop on a hidden level of the prison. Here, they made dummy heads from paper mache, painting them to look like real sleeping prisoners. They also crafted life vests from raincoats and built a raft using materials they found in the prison.
On June 11, 1962, Morris and the Anglin brothers were ready. Unfortunately, Alan West couldn’t join them because he got stuck in his cell. The three escapees climbed onto the roof, slipped down a drainpipe, and made their way to the shore. There, they inflated their raft and disappeared into the night.
The next day, the guards discovered the escape and launched a massive search. They found a paddle, a wallet, and pieces of the raft, but no sign of the men. The FBI concluded that they probably drowned, but rumors and mysterious sightings continued for years.
Some people claimed to have seen the escapees, and the Anglin family even received postcards and flowers. In 2013, a letter supposedly from John Anglin surfaced, but its authenticity remains a mystery.
Did Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers survive the treacherous waters of Alcatraz? No one knows for sure. While it’s likely they didn’t make it, the mystery of their escape continues to intrigue people to this day. Whether they succeeded or not, their daring escape attempt remains one of the most fascinating stories in the history of Alcatraz.
Research the key events in Alcatraz’s history, from its beginnings as a military prison to its closure in 1963. Use this information to create a timeline. You can draw it on a poster or use a digital tool. Make sure to include important dates and events, such as the escape attempt by Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers.
Imagine you are a prisoner at Alcatraz. Using what you learned from the article, design your own escape plan. Consider the challenges you would face, such as the strong currents and the need for tools. Present your plan to the class, explaining how you would overcome these obstacles.
Using materials like cardboard, clay, or LEGO, build a model of Alcatraz Island. Include key features such as the prison buildings, the surrounding waters, and any other notable landmarks. Use your model to explain why escaping from Alcatraz was considered nearly impossible.
Write a creative short story from the perspective of one of the escapees. Describe the planning, the escape night, and what you imagine happened afterward. Use vivid details to bring the story to life, and consider how the escapee might have felt during each stage of the escape.
Participate in a class debate about whether Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers survived their escape from Alcatraz. Research evidence and arguments for both sides. During the debate, present your findings and try to persuade your classmates to agree with your viewpoint.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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Convicts who escaped Alcatraz using dummy heads. There are some prisons so dark and terrifying they look like they’ve come straight out of a horror movie. One of the most infamous of these is situated in San Francisco Bay, a mile off the coastline on its own little island, designed to securely incarcerate the most dangerous men convicted in the USA and ensure they had no chance of ever escaping. The name of the prison was Alcatraz.
Initially used as a military prison from the late 1850s to 1933, Alcatraz then became a federal institution from 1934 until its closure in 1963. The island was the perfect location to house some of America’s most notorious criminals and masterminds, being surrounded by the extremely cold Pacific Ocean, swirling strong currents, and even the occasional shark.
During its use as a federal prison, some of Alcatraz’s most famous residents included Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, the original Public Enemy Number One; the deranged and deeply violent Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, who was not allowed to keep any birds in his cell as punishment for being caught distilling alcohol at his previous prison; and of course, the most infamous of them all, the tax-dodging gangster Al Capone.
However, the inmates who escaped from Alcatraz—the only men to ever succeed in making it off the island—were none of these. Instead, it was a comparatively small-time career criminal named Frank Morris and two bank robber brothers, John and Clarence Anglin, who etched their names in history as the prison’s only escapees, with a fourth collaborator, Alan West, failing in his part of the attempt.
Frank Morris was a small-time criminal with a troubled past, raised in numerous foster homes. His first conviction was when he was just 13, and he continued to have issues with the law until he was sentenced to a 14-year stint in a prison in Louisiana for bank robbery. In a move that foreshadowed his future, Morris successfully broke out of that prison and spent a year on the run before being caught and sentenced to Alcatraz as punishment.
The Anglin brothers, John and Clarence, were in cells next to Morris and were serving out their 10 and 15-year sentences, respectively, when they, along with Morris and West, began to plan their escape. The two brothers, born almost exactly a year apart, were prolific bank robbers who targeted multiple banks and businesses before their luck ran out at the Columbia Savings Bank building in Columbia, Arizona. They, along with their third brother Alfred, were captured and sentenced to long periods in prison. Despite their long criminal history, the brothers were never violent; they robbed places at night when no one was there, claiming they only ever used a weapon once, and it was a toy gun.
After repeated escape attempts, both John and Clarence were sent to Alcatraz—John in October 1960 and Clarence following shortly after in January 1961. In another cell adjacent to the brothers was Alan West, a habitual offender who had found himself sent to Alcatraz after a failed escape attempt from his prison cell in Florida. Together, these four men plotted their escape attempt from Alcatraz and very nearly succeeded.
Some may say it was sheer chance that these four men ended up in cells so close together. They were all career criminals who already knew each other from previous incarcerations, had all attempted or successfully escaped prison previously, and were all willing to try again. According to federal official records, Morris was exceptionally intelligent, with an IQ of 133, which was higher than 98% of the population. With him as the mastermind, the four men stood a strong chance of succeeding.
From the beginning of December 1961, this group of criminals planned their escape with Morris at the helm. Over the course of the next six months, they slowly and methodically worked through their plan. For their first step, each man would smuggle spoons from the prison dining hall and pilfer discarded saw blades to dig and widen the ventilation ducts beneath their sinks. To hide their activities by day, the prisoners covered up the holes with convincingly painted fake vents made from cardboard. By night, Morris would play the accordion to drown out the sounds of the other men scraping their way to freedom.
Once they made it into the air ducts, the men set up a makeshift workshop on a vacant top level of the cell block where they could really start getting to work on their escape plan. They made four dummy heads out of paper mache and cleverly painted their own facial features onto them with the eyes shut. Each night, the men would leave their beds, which were padded out with clothing beneath the blankets, with the dummy heads just showing to avoid arousing the guards’ suspicions.
They continued to stealthily pilfer materials, including 50 raincoats that they fashioned into life preservers based on designs they had seen in Popular Mechanics, a magazine allowed in prison, and scraps of wood and screws to build paddles. Remarkably, they also managed to create a hefty rubber raft measuring 6 by 14 feet, with seams stitched by hand and sealed using heat from the steam pipes nearby—another idea copied from prison magazines.
Finally, they were ready for the escape attempt. On June 11, 1962, the men seized the opportunity to escape just after lights out. Morris and the Anglin brothers met above the cell block, but Alan was nowhere to be seen. The cement he had used around the crumbling wall of his fake air vent had unexpectedly set solid, trapping him in his cell. He went back to sleep while Morris and the Anglin brothers carried on with the plan.
The first step was breaking out onto the prison roof, the only sound they made during their attempt, and the guards barely stirred. The three men carrying all their equipment climbed down a 50-foot drain pipe and then scaled a 12-foot high barbed wire fence before running to the northeast shoreline, hidden securely from the patrolling guards and searchlights. From there, they inflated their raft using makeshift bellows and took to the rough seas, never to be seen again.
The next day, when the guards finally realized they were missing, a huge sea and air search commenced. Over the next 10 days, the coast was scoured for any sign of the three men, but all that turned up was some evidence of their escape: a paddle found by a Coast Guard cutter on June 14th and a wallet wrapped in plastic that looked like it belonged to one of the Anglin brothers. Remnants of what looked like the raft were discovered near the Golden Gate Bridge on June 21st, and finally, the next day, a deflated life jacket was found just off the shores of Alcatraz.
The FBI’s final report on the case provided no further evidence or information on the missing men but surmised they must have drowned in their escape attempt. Ever since, there have been alleged sightings of the men and odd reports across the United States and other parts of the world. The Anglin family stated that they received postcards and messages occasionally, and their mother received flowers anonymously every Mother’s Day. Perhaps the most interesting was a letter sent to the FBI in 2013, after being received by the San Francisco Police Department and later disclosed to the general public in 2018, allegedly written by John Anglin. Within it, he contained information on where his conspirators were allegedly buried and was negotiating his surrender in exchange for cancer treatment.
However, whether any of these strange sightings and mysterious letters were genuine remains unlikely and inconclusive. It was extremely improbable that Morris and the Anglin brothers successfully navigated the dark and dangerous waters of Alcatraz Island to make it to the other side. If they did, there’s no evidence or traces of their movements since then. It’s more likely that these reported sightings and strange occurrences are the work of individuals and pranksters taking pleasure in the ongoing mystery surrounding their escape. Still, it’s entirely possible that Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin actually did escape and have cloaked their movements ever since. If that were true, they would be the only ones to have ever succeeded in making their way through Alcatraz’s deadly waters.
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This version maintains the essence of the original transcript while removing any potentially sensitive or inappropriate content.
Prisoners – People who are kept in a prison as a punishment for committing a crime – The prisoners at Alcatraz were considered some of the most dangerous criminals in the country.
Escape – To get away from a place where you are being held or kept – The prisoners devised a clever plan to escape from the heavily guarded prison.
Alcatraz – A famous prison located on an island in San Francisco Bay, known for being difficult to escape from – Alcatraz was once home to some of the most notorious criminals in American history.
History – The study of past events, particularly in human affairs – Learning about the history of Alcatraz helps us understand why it was considered inescapable.
Criminals – People who have committed a crime – Alcatraz was specifically designed to hold the most dangerous criminals of the time.
Plan – A detailed proposal for doing or achieving something – The prisoners spent months developing a plan to escape from Alcatraz.
Waters – The large area of sea or ocean that surrounds a place – The cold and strong waters around Alcatraz made escape nearly impossible.
Mystery – Something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain – The mystery of whether the escapees from Alcatraz survived remains unsolved.
Brothers – Male siblings – The Anglin brothers were among the prisoners who attempted to escape from Alcatraz.
Guards – People who watch over prisoners to prevent them from escaping – The guards at Alcatraz were highly trained to ensure that no one could escape.
