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Speaker 1: Hi, friends, It's me Josh, and for this week's select,

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Speaker 1: I've chosen our September twenty twenty episode on the Escape

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Speaker 1: from Alcatraz. Is our episode even better than the movie

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Speaker 1: could be. It's a little more accurate at least, and

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Speaker 1: even without Clint Eastwood, it's pretty thrilling. Nonetheless, I hope

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Speaker 1: you enjoy the absolute living heck.

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Speaker 2: Out of it.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff you should know, A production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck

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Speaker 1: Jerry's out there in the ether somewhere like that one

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Speaker 1: kid being transmitted from the camera to the TV in

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Speaker 1: Willy Wonka. Wow, I got that one eight kinds of wrong. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but anyway, this is stuff you should know, which is appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Did I would get something eight kinds of wrong right

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Speaker 1: at the beginning?

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Speaker 3: Did you ever hear the story from Gene Wilder about

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Speaker 3: the move at the beginning of that movie where he

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Speaker 3: walks out with a cane.

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Speaker 1: Where did the spill the summersault?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he sticks a cane in the ground and does

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Speaker 3: the summersault. No, he said that that was his idea.

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Speaker 3: And this just shows the brilliance of Gene Wilder. And

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Speaker 3: he said he did that because he knew from that

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Speaker 3: moment on no one would believe anything that that character said.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, I have heard that before. Great, that is brilliant.

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Speaker 1: That man was a brilliant man and a wonderful human being.

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Speaker 2: I loved him.

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Speaker 3: He's got one of his last interviews on Conan O'Brien

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Speaker 3: was so great because Conan was just gushing, and I'm

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Speaker 3: sure Geen Wilder was very i think, kind of taken

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Speaker 3: back by how much he means to people.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever seen? Oh no, that wasn't the question

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Speaker 1: I had. Did you know? Did you know that? Your

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Speaker 1: question was did you fart? Did you know that Conan

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Speaker 1: O'Brien and Dennis Leary are cousins?

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Speaker 2: I don't think I knew that.

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Speaker 1: According to Conan O'Brien asked a question on Jeopardy that

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Speaker 1: is his cousin did not know that. Speaking of Jeopardy,

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Speaker 1: we have a colleague named Ken Jennings who is on

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Speaker 1: Jeopardy YEA. And we have another colleague, two colleagues called

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge, and they have a podcast called Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe. It's pretty cool, but they

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Speaker 1: also chuck I just saw have a PBS Kid's animated

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Speaker 1: program coming out September seventh called Eleanor Wonders Why Okay?

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Speaker 1: And it looks adorable.

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Speaker 2: Wow. That sounds like right at my daughter's alley.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so check it out, everybody. PBS Kids, September seventh,

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Speaker 1: Eleanor Wonders White and Congrats Daniel and Jorge.

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Speaker 3: Do you have any famous cousins, famous or infamous? I

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Speaker 3: think we are the famous cousins. That's how said. Our

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Speaker 3: families are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It feels pretty great, though. I keep being like, hey,

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Speaker 1: let's have another family reunion this month. Speaking of infamous cousins, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: how about those anglum brothers?

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Speaker 3: Huh? Yeah, man, this is I could have thought. I

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Speaker 3: kind of thought we did this.

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Speaker 2: I know we do.

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Speaker 3: We do one on Alcatraz and maybe just briefly touched

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Speaker 3: on it.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely because this is this.

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Speaker 3: Movie, the nineteen what was it seventy nine Escaped from

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Speaker 3: Alcatraz movie with Clint Eastwood was one of my favorite

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Speaker 3: movies as a kid.

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Speaker 1: It's a good movie. I went I watched it just

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Speaker 1: the other night as part of this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was an HBO special, so I must have

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Speaker 3: been I didn't see it in when I was eight.

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Speaker 3: I probably was like ten or eleven, and it was

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Speaker 3: one of those movies I probably watched over a dozen

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Speaker 3: times when I was twelve twelve years.

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Speaker 1: Old, followed by Kroll and outline.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, those are great.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they always went together though, didn't they?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in war games. I mean that those are all

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Speaker 3: HBO specials. But this was a really good movie.

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Speaker 2: And I'm a big, big fan of prison escape movies.

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Speaker 1: Sure.

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Speaker 3: And I was thinking today when I was looking over

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Speaker 3: this stuff again that it's so weird that like these

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Speaker 3: guys were hardened criminals, and yet when you're researching this,

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Speaker 3: all you can think about is, oh, man, I hope

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Speaker 3: they got out of there, right, and I hope they

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Speaker 3: lived the fat life in Brazil.

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Speaker 1: Well that really speaks to like who they are, what

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Speaker 1: they became because of this escape, which is put most

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Speaker 1: simply their folk heroes. I guess, Oh yeah, that's definitely

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Speaker 1: a part of being a folk hero is that you

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Speaker 1: can transcend the kind of like, uh, crime judgments that

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Speaker 1: society typically levies against people like criminals, like if you

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Speaker 1: if you are so good at your craft or so

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Speaker 1: good at something to do with criminality that you transcend

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Speaker 1: being judged for your crimes. That's you've become a folk

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Speaker 1: hero for sure. It's like dB Cooper.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it helps that you know, these

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Speaker 3: guys were armed robbers and thieves, and I think Frank

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Speaker 3: Morris and we'll get into all these who these dudes are.

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Speaker 3: But he was a drug trafficker. But they weren't rapist

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Speaker 3: and murderers. I don't think you can transcend that.

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Speaker 1: No, they were definitely non violent criminals from everything that

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Speaker 1: I've seen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they used a toy gun in one of these robberies. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's adorable.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about these guys, like you were saying,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a group of people who escaped from Alcatraz,

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Speaker 1: and as far as anyone knows, they are the only

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Speaker 1: ones who really may have escaped from Alcatraz. They vanished

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two, last seen leaving their cells, and

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Speaker 1: were never heard from again. And like you said, they

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Speaker 1: were all hardened criminals, like lifelong career criminals. Frank Morris

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Speaker 1: was thirty five when he left Alcatraz, and he'd been

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Speaker 1: a criminal since he was thirteen. He was in and

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Speaker 1: out of institutions, and like you said, He wasn't a

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Speaker 1: violent criminal. He wasn't a rapist or a murder or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. He was he liked to sell the drugs.

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Speaker 1: He had like a forehead tattooed or are tattooed on

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Speaker 1: his forehead for a while, which he very sensibly had

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Speaker 1: removed later on.

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Speaker 2: Is that what that means but that.

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Speaker 1: He was a drug trafficker? Yeah, No, I think that

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Speaker 1: means that he did a few too many drugs one night.

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Speaker 2: Oh, he really did have a star.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought that was some like prison thing for

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Speaker 3: like the tear drop tattoo means, doesn't mean you killed

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Speaker 3: somebody or something.

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Speaker 1: That's what I've always heard, but I don't know. It

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Speaker 1: could just be urban legend. But yes, what I've always heard.

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Speaker 2: No, I really did have a star.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I think he got super wasted when I

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Speaker 1: got a star tattooed on his forehead. There was a

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Speaker 1: tattoo artist far too handy that night.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which I think the old saying don't ever

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Speaker 3: make friends with tattoo artists.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or at least drinking buddies.

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Speaker 1: Sure, that's true, but he was also super smart too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And they point this out in the movie and

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Speaker 3: a lot of the movie. I mean, it's pretty close

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Speaker 3: to the real story that they did a really good job.

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Speaker 3: But they do make a big deal in the movie

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Speaker 3: about how smart he was. As I know, IQ is

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Speaker 3: sort of take it or leave it as far as

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Speaker 3: that being a real measurement of one's intelligence. But he

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Speaker 3: supposedly had an IQ of one thirty and the BOP

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Speaker 3: which stands for the was it Bureau of Prisons. I

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Speaker 3: didn't know they had rankings, but they had rankings of

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Speaker 3: intellectual intellectuality?

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Speaker 2: Is that a word?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so it gets the point across ergo

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Speaker 1: it is.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm curious what other rankings they have. But

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Speaker 3: you know, best look in best abs. But he was

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Speaker 3: in the top two percent supposedly in the American prison

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Speaker 3: system as far as his intellectual capabilities.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so you hit on a point there that I

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Speaker 1: think we need to least at least bring up. Like

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Speaker 1: the the movie did follow the actual the truth of

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Speaker 1: the matter fairly closely in some cases. In other cases

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Speaker 1: it veered wildly away. Like there was a character based

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Speaker 1: on one guy who was very much involved, but they

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Speaker 1: didn't even use his name, and they made him seem

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Speaker 1: less involved than he actually was. There's a lot that

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Speaker 1: the movie gets wrong. But the problem with covering this

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Speaker 1: is that there's so many gaps and holes that are

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Speaker 1: so easily and casually filled in that you can't help

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Speaker 1: but wonder, like, wait, was this detail provided by somebody

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Speaker 1: who saw the movie and took the movie as fact?

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Speaker 1: Like where are we exactly? And just how pure the

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Speaker 1: knowledge and understanding is of this escape. So you have

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Speaker 1: to just kind of bear that in mind that it's

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Speaker 1: kind of a blur in the annals of crime as

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Speaker 1: far as factuality goes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's a good story, great story, and most

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Speaker 3: of this is pretty true.

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Speaker 2: I think so.

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Speaker 3: Frank Morris was four years into a fourteen year stint

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Speaker 3: and this was for a bank robbery and he was

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Speaker 3: transferred to the Rock in nineteen sixty. I didn't know

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Speaker 3: we were using Wingo episode it's Alcatraz. It's a prison

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Speaker 3: island or an island prison. Yeah, and some might say

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Speaker 3: the island itself is a prison, which we'll get to.

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Speaker 3: And then his buddies you mentioned the England brothers J W.

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Speaker 3: John William and his younger brother Clarence were thirty and

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Speaker 3: twenty nine years old, and they were from a very

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Speaker 3: big family of migrant farm workers in South Georgia. They

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Speaker 3: traveled all over the country wherever their work was, basically

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Speaker 3: as a big family, and they got into stealing things

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Speaker 3: from people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were the ones who used the toy gun.

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Speaker 1: Later on, they were I think visiting family in a

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Speaker 1: small town called Columbia, Alabama, which is in the southeast

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Speaker 1: of the state, and they found out that this bank

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Speaker 1: had been around for one hundred years in this town.

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Speaker 1: It had never been robbed. So they assumed, we're going

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Speaker 1: to change that. He'll be easy to knock over. And

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Speaker 1: apparently it was pretty easy to knock over, and they

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Speaker 1: had a toy gun that they used, and they still

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Speaker 1: managed to get away with at least I think like

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Speaker 1: ten grand or twenty grand, something pretty stantial amount of money.

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Speaker 1: And they were on the run for a little while,

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Speaker 1: but got caught and the Alabamas were not very happy

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Speaker 1: with it, and they threw the book at these brothers.

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Speaker 1: They got twenty five year sentences for robbing a bank

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Speaker 1: with a toy gun, and that actually was way better

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Speaker 1: than the sentence they initially faced, which was the potentially

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Speaker 1: the death penalty.

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Speaker 2: That's crazy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So they were caught and busted. And they had

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Speaker 1: a third brother named Alfred too, who was also involved,

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Speaker 1: but he was never sent to that to the rock

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Speaker 1: as you put it, I bet it was not a bet.

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Speaker 2: It was factually a lot easier to rob banks back then.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was way easier to be a criminal, even

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Speaker 1: just a few decades ago. Yeah, just in general, I

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Speaker 1: think now it's like, don't even try.

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Speaker 3: No, you got I mean, if it's not the cops

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Speaker 3: and their cameras, he got some dumb neighbor with their

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Speaker 3: cameras like me.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: Oh man, I hate to get off topic so quickly.

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Speaker 3: And we should post this on the Facebook page or something,

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Speaker 3: or maybe I'll put it on Instagram. What I got

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Speaker 3: attacked by a squirrel and it was captured by my

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Speaker 3: front of the house camera.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, everyone wants to see that.

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Speaker 2: This was great.

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Speaker 3: I just I was taking out some recycling and I

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Speaker 3: heard some rustling, and I went around the corner and

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Speaker 3: I was like, this squirrel was freaking out, and then

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Speaker 3: he literally leapt if you freeze from it, he leapt

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Speaker 3: three feet in the air. Wow, and hit my leg

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Speaker 3: and ran up my leg a little bit and then wow,

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Speaker 3: And I react thussly.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome. You know, it would be wonderful is to

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Speaker 1: intercut close ups of your face when you got that

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Speaker 1: Charlie Horse on internet round up? Oh my god, in

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Speaker 1: with this squirrel attack.

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Speaker 3: Amazing, it's a good thing. I don't care about myself

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Speaker 3: and looking dumb.

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Speaker 1: Why did you? Why did that squirrel attack you? What'd

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Speaker 1: you do to it?

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Speaker 2: I didn't do anything. It was freaking out.

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Speaker 3: And then I turned and looked after I dropped the

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Speaker 3: recycling off, and he and another squirrel were going at

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Speaker 3: it in our oak tree.

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Speaker 2: So I think he was just he was all riled up.

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Speaker 2: He might you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, did he have a star tattooed on his forehead?

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Speaker 2: He did, right on his little, tiny free forehead.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Yes, please do post that.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So all right, these guys are all in Alcatraz,

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Speaker 3: and Alcatraz at the time was like I said, it

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Speaker 3: was sort of the rock itself was the prison, and

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Speaker 3: that was the idea, was that even if you're even

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Speaker 3: if you managed to get out of the prison that

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Speaker 3: they eventually built, which we'll talk about, then you still

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Speaker 3: can't get out of there because you got to swim

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Speaker 3: over a mile to the nearest body of land about

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Speaker 3: one point three miles. That water is really cold, the

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Speaker 3: currents are brutal, the winds are really strong. San Francisco

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Speaker 3: Bay is not you know, for people that haven't been there,

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Speaker 3: it's not just some lovely little chill body of water

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Speaker 3: that you hang out in.

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Speaker 1: No, it's not a very hospitable body of water.

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Speaker 2: It's not.

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Speaker 1: So the idea was that, Yeah, like when you got

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Speaker 1: sent to Alcatraz, you weren't getting off of that island

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Speaker 1: and you were either parolled or died. And that was

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Speaker 1: actually the reason that the Anglands and Frank Morris were

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Speaker 1: sent there was because they had all met at the

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Speaker 1: Federal penn in Atlanta. I guess the one down in

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Speaker 1: Grant Park.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, which that building is amazing.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the most forbidding buildings in the world.

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Speaker 1: I would say. It looks like an old timey federal penitentiary.

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Speaker 1: And al Capone was there too for a little while.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I actually drove by there not too long ago with

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Speaker 3: my daughter for the first time.

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Speaker 2: And I was like, check out that building.

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Speaker 1: Look at that.

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Speaker 2: It's like that's a prison. What's a prison?

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Speaker 3: And I went, oh, well, I guess I got to

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Speaker 3: explain that I'll tell you when you're eighteen if you

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Speaker 3: make it and don't go to prison first.

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Speaker 1: Right, So they all met at the federal pen in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember if they actually made it out or

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Speaker 1: if they were caught escaping, but they were known escape artists,

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Speaker 1: like the Frank Morris had escaped from places in Florida.

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Speaker 1: They didn't stay put when you put them in prison,

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Speaker 1: and so that's why they were all sent to Alcatraz,

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Speaker 1: and just crazily as they arrived between nineteen sixty and

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, they were all put pretty close together,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, the England brothers had a joint, which

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Speaker 1: is a very stupid thing to do, but that's what

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Speaker 1: they did. In part. I believe because there was a

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Speaker 1: certain thread of arrogance that ran through the administration of

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Speaker 1: Alcatraz that it was just basically inescapable.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you also sort of want happy prisoners,

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Speaker 3: and I've heard of requests like that being made possible before, like, Hey,

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Speaker 3: if you put me near my brother, we're gonna be

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Speaker 3: a lot better behaved.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're definitely not going to break out.

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Speaker 3: I don't think we mentioned either, like Alcatraz was so

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Speaker 3: formidable as a just an island that the very first

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Speaker 3: time they used it was when the Army put soldiers

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Speaker 3: there who cheered on President Lincoln's death. And so they

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Speaker 3: didn't even bother building a prison though, they just built

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Speaker 3: some barracks through them on the island. It was like, well,

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Speaker 3: you're in prison now, because good luck getting out of here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I saw too. And when the Bureau

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Speaker 1: of Prisons took over, they they really fortified it even more.

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Speaker 1: Like you said, there was a larger building that housed

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Speaker 1: everything from like the mess hall to the cell blocks.

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Speaker 1: So when you were in a cell in a cell block,

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Speaker 1: you were in you were in a little tiny prison

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Speaker 1: inside a larger prison onside this island prison. And the

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Speaker 1: cell blocks themselves had like three inch thick concrete walls,

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Speaker 1: reinforced iron bars. The building itself was made a very

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Speaker 1: thick concrete. It was it was just meant to to

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Speaker 1: basically tell you there's there's no getting out here. But

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Speaker 1: what's what's crazy is Frank Morris and the England Brothers,

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Speaker 1: they weren't the first people to ever try to bust out.

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Speaker 1: I believe they were part of a total of thirty

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Speaker 1: six people who tried to escape. In the history of

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Speaker 1: the prison, everybody else, almost everybody else was either killed, captured,

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Speaker 1: or their bodies were found except and I did not

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Speaker 1: realize this, Morris and the England Brothers were not the

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Speaker 1: first people have vanished without a trace from Alcatraz. Had

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Speaker 1: you heard about Ted Cole and Ralph Row?

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Speaker 3: I hadn't heard about them until this, But in the thirties,

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Speaker 3: late thirties, they did escape, and they did vanish, and

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Speaker 3: you know, sort of like where this story's going. I

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Speaker 3: don't think anyone wants to admit that from the prison

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Speaker 3: system that they could have really made it right.

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Speaker 2: So they're like, nah, they died, they drowned.

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Speaker 1: But the thing is the thing that really differentiates the

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Speaker 1: England Brothers and Frank Morris from guys like Ted Cole

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Speaker 1: and Ralph Row. They all shared in common that they

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Speaker 1: escaped from Alcatraz and vanished without a trace. The thing

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Speaker 1: that differentiates Morris and the Englands is that their folk

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Speaker 1: heroes because almost exclusively because of this plan they devised

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Speaker 1: and executed, and that the plan was so good and

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Speaker 1: so complex and well done that it actually lends credence

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Speaker 1: to the idea that they may have survived and escaped

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Speaker 1: from Alcatraz, genuinely.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, But they had in common is that they were

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Speaker 3: all top ten in best abs in the prison system.

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Speaker 1: Yep. And what everybody listening right now has in common

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Speaker 1: is that you're about to hear an ad Okay, we're back, everybody,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's high time we talk about the plan,

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Speaker 1: the escape plan, don't you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're going to escape from Alcatraz, it's not

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Speaker 3: the kind of thing where you distract a guard and

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Speaker 3: just run and jump over a fence. You got to

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Speaker 3: start this thing, this plan, many months in advance. And

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Speaker 3: by all accounts they and by all accounts meaning from

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Speaker 3: the one account that we really have of this, they

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Speaker 3: started planning easily six months before the escape. They start

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Speaker 3: developing this plan. They start collecting kind of anything they

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Speaker 3: can get their hands on that they think they can use,

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Speaker 3: everything from just loose nuts and bolts and screws to

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Speaker 3: things that I mean, they actually ended up using a

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Speaker 3: lot of this stuff. But I got the impression that

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Speaker 3: they were just kind of like, anytime they saw something

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Speaker 3: that they could squirrel away and hide, they would do

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Speaker 3: it because you never know what you could use it.

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Speaker 1: For yeah, and so like over the six month period,

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Speaker 1: they amassed something like eighty tools that they either stole,

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Speaker 1: had stolen for them rebuild, or repurposed out of other stuff,

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Speaker 1: or just made completely out of their own labor. They

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Speaker 1: had a pretty extensive toolkit that they created, and one

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Speaker 1: of the ways that they got a lot of the

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Speaker 1: tools was from Alan West, who we haven't mentioned yet,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of people don't realize there was a

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Speaker 1: fourth conspirator in the Alcatraz escape who was a major

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Speaker 1: integral part of it, but who actually didn't go along

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Speaker 1: with the escape, as we'll see.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, that part of the movie is so tough.

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Speaker 1: It is, especially with that poor guy. He just looks

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Speaker 1: character of womb like, I'm down on my luck. Can

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Speaker 1: you spare a dime? Bro?

381
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Speaker 2: He's so good, he's been in it so many things.

382
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Speaker 1: But he was I think he was the guy who

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Speaker 1: played Kramer on Seinfeld.

384
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Speaker 2: In the in the pilot, in the NBC pilot.

385
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so like in the show, the guy playing Kramer

386
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Speaker 1: on the show in the show, I think that was him.

387
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he stole the M and MS, I think yeah, yeah.

388
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Speaker 1: So he was in Escape from Alcatraz too. Yeah, he

389
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Speaker 1: just he's perfect for that part. But this guy named

390
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Speaker 1: Alan West, he was on the painting crew, and he

391
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Speaker 1: put that to use big time. One of the first

392
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Speaker 1: ways he did it was he was in the prison

393
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Speaker 1: barber shop and managed to steal a pair of electric

394
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Speaker 1: clippers while he was in there painting, and they were like, hey,

395
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Speaker 1: this motor will come in handy. Well, let's repurpose it

396
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Speaker 1: into a power drill, and they did.

397
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty cool. He also, I mean, just having

398
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 3: a little motor is so handy. So he came across

399
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:17,320
Speaker 3: a vacuum cleaner that wasn't working, and he said, hey,

400
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:21,040
Speaker 3: you mind if I repair this? I got to shake

401
00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:22,960
Speaker 3: the tree first, but after that, you mind if I

402
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Speaker 3: repair this?

403
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Speaker 1: Isn't what they call it a vacuuming.

404
00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:28,800
Speaker 2: No, And he got a pee on the on the

405
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Speaker 2: chain gang. Don't you call it shaking the tree? Oh?

406
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Speaker 1: I guess I think that's what it's called. Sure, But

407
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Speaker 1: I mean, what was I have to do with fixing

408
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Speaker 1: a vacuum nothing. It's just prison humor. Oh, I got it.

409
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Speaker 2: It's a lot of prison jokes.

410
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Speaker 1: So all the inmates listening right now is busted out laughing.

411
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Speaker 1: Like he said, shake the tree.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's a drinking game. Well explain, if you're listening

413
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Speaker 3: from prison, if someone says shake the tree, you take

414
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Speaker 3: a drink of pruno. Well that's another drink. Yeah, that's

415
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Speaker 3: the that's what you would drink when somebody said shake

416
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Speaker 3: the tree. Say shake the tree one more time.

417
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Speaker 2: Shake the tree.

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Speaker 1: Guys, I think everybody's got a pretty good buzz in

419
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Speaker 1: prison right now.

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Speaker 3: So he says, let me fix this vacuum cleaner. They say,

421
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 3: that's fine. He saw that the vacuum cleaner had a

422
00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 3: couple of different motors, and one of which he used

423
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Speaker 3: to repair and actually make, you know, pass it off

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Speaker 3: as a working vacuum cleaner. And then he just took

425
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:24,919
Speaker 3: that other one, and that meant that they could make

426
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Speaker 3: a drill that was even more powerful than the other one.

427
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so they had not one, but two electric drills

428
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Speaker 1: at their disposal, which kind of gives you a pretty

429
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Speaker 1: good idea of just how dedicated and smart and crafty

430
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Speaker 1: these guys were. Right. Yes, they also very famously ended

431
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Speaker 1: up with fifty five zero different raincoats that were made

432
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Speaker 1: from rubber prison issue raincoats, so they got from other inmates,

433
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Speaker 1: And this really reveals something that I think a lot

434
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Speaker 1: of people don't necessarily realize. It seems like basically all

435
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: the inmates in prison with Anglin and the Anglands and

436
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 1: Morris were well aware of their plants, not necessarily every

437
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:06,919
Speaker 1: detail or even any of the details, just that they

438
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Speaker 1: were planning on breaking out, and so they managed to

439
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Speaker 1: get their hands on like fifty different raincoats from other

440
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,320
Speaker 1: prisoners that they used to build a life raft and

441
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:17,400
Speaker 1: life vests with.

442
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:21,120
Speaker 3: Pretty great I think the idea was is that these

443
00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 3: guys didn't like being on Alcatraz, so they kind of figured, Hey,

444
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:26,440
Speaker 3: if these guys actually get out, they're going to close

445
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 3: this place down.

446
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:27,720
Speaker 2: We're going to get out of.

447
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:28,879
Speaker 1: Here, right not.

448
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,640
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if I would have gone

449
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,440
Speaker 3: along with that rationale, I would.

450
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:35,880
Speaker 2: Have thought it's going to be even worse for us here.

451
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but.

452
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:39,439
Speaker 2: We'll hang on to what happened till the end of

453
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:40,200
Speaker 2: the show. How about that.

454
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,000
Speaker 1: I think everybody would have kept their pruno from you

455
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 1: had you raised that point.

456
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 2: You know, so they've got all this stuff.

457
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 3: They got paint, they got paper, they collect hair and

458
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:53,920
Speaker 3: from the barber shop they like sweep up his hair

459
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 3: and keep that. You might be thinking why in the

460
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:56,639
Speaker 3: world would they need that.

461
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: You'll just wait, you'll see.

462
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:00,920
Speaker 3: And then they had about three and a half hours

463
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 3: each evening after dinner, slop and before lights out where

464
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 3: they had to work and create a way out of

465
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,159
Speaker 3: their prison cell. And then once they get out of

466
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 3: their prison cell, like you said, they're still in this

467
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:17,880
Speaker 3: larger building, then away out of there. But the first

468
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 3: trick is getting out of their individual cells.

469
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, so from what I understand, that took up like

470
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 1: the lion's share of the time between when they first

471
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 1: hatched this plant in the time when they finally escaped.

472
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: They were like these little six by eight or nine

473
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: or something, very small ventilation chefs cemented into the wall.

474
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: These grates were submitted into the wall, but really it

475
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: was just a little metal grate over a hole. So

476
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: they figured it they could start chipping away at that

477
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,360
Speaker 1: hole and enlarge the hole into something they could crawl through,

478
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what they did. Eventually, over time, Frank

479
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: Morris and then both of the Anglin brothers managed to

480
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 1: create these holes, and they did so by serving his

481
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: lookout for one another while the other one chipped one night,

482
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 1: and then they would trade off that kind of thing.

483
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: And then here's the question that I have. I could

484
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: not confirm one way or the other if it was

485
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: a movie thing or if it was a real life thing.

486
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 1: But in the movie, they create these kind of cardboard

487
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 1: false walls that they're able to fill the hole with

488
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 1: that it looks like the great is still there and

489
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: the wall is still intact. So when they were out

490
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: of their cells, they could put this false wall in

491
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: behind them and nobody would be any of the wiser

492
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: when they just walked past and casually glanced in there.

493
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: I don't know if they did that or not.

494
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a pretty great detail of the movie,

495
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 3: so I'm inclined to believe it.

496
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:44,719
Speaker 1: Let's go with it.

497
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 3: What I didn't see in or I haven't seen it

498
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 3: a long time. Did they have those drills in the movie,

499
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 3: because I just remember a lot of digging with the

500
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 3: They kind of just like used a sharp and spoon

501
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 3: as a little mini pick.

502
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: A sharp and spoon with the warden's fingernail clippers that

503
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 1: he steals in like one of the first scenes.

504
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 2: But there was no drill in the movie, was there.

505
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: Not that I remember? So there definitely were two drills.

506
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: One of the drills, that one with the vacuum motor.

507
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 1: They actually figured out it's just too loud. It's too powerful, yeah,

508
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: and too loud. So they abandoned that one. But I

509
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: don't know what became of the hair clipper drill. I

510
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: didn't hear anything about that one other than that they

511
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 1: created it and used it well.

512
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 3: They managed to dig through though where they could get

513
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 3: their bodies out of the cell, and that just must

514
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 3: have felt like, you know, we're halfway there at this point, guys.

515
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So they from there it led to a

516
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 3: utility corridor. It was about a meter wide, and there

517
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 3: were no guards in here, because this is sort of

518
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 3: like the guts of the prison. Yeah, like why would

519
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 3: you need to guard where there are no people?

520
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 2: Wink wink.

521
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,679
Speaker 3: And in that corridor they could kind of move around freely.

522
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 3: They would climb up to the ceiling. This is like

523
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 3: a three story cell block, still within a larger building though,

524
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,639
Speaker 3: of course, like we mentioned, and then they had a

525
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 3: full on workshop up there for a few weeks. They

526
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 3: could store their tools, they could hide their stuff, they

527
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 3: could build We haven't really talked about the rafts, but

528
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 3: where they much they would build their rafts there and

529
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 3: it just sort of serves as their staging area where

530
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 3: they would eventually leave from to go buy this big,

531
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 3: heavy iron grate to a ventilation shaft, which actually finally

532
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 3: led to the rooftop.

533
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: Right, But that big iron gray was a big iron

534
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: problem because the bars were reinforced. They were i think

535
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 1: welded or maybe screwed I'm not sure, into this iron

536
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: ring that covered this ventilation shaft. So it was a

537
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: big problem. And then they figured out that the bolts

538
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 1: holding this whole thing together were actually not nearly as

539
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: strong as the bars that made up the grate and

540
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: the ring that held the bars, So they started working

541
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: away at cutting the bolts. One way or another, I

542
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: think they created a wrench. They built themselves a wrench,

543
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 1: and they managed to use that to some pretty good effect.

544
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 1: But it went from digging out of their cells to

545
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: figuring out a way to get through this grate. That

546
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 1: was kind of like stage two. And then let's talk

547
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 1: about the raft, because the raft is an extremely important

548
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: part of this whole thing, and I think really one

549
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: of the things, if not the thing, that lends credence

550
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: to the idea that they might have actually made it.

551
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they got these raincoats, and back then raincoats

552
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 3: were just basically sheets of rubber.

553
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't breathe very well.

554
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 3: They were very hot, like get sweaty Gordon's Fisherman type

555
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 3: of stuff.

556
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 1: A sweaty Gordon's Fisherman.

557
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that guy was always sweaty.

558
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 3: So they ended up creating a six foot by fourteen

559
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 3: foot life raft from these raincoats from an article in

560
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,479
Speaker 3: Popular Mechanics, which shows up a couple of times, very

561
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 3: useful magazine if you were trying to escape prison. And

562
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 3: it was an article about a hunter who had gotten

563
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 3: law and survived hunting geese that he attracted using rubber

564
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 3: decoys that he'd made. So they get this idea. They

565
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 3: build these inflatable pontoons made from these raincoat sleeves, so

566
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 3: they were stuffed inside and made air tight by gluing

567
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 3: rubber cement contact cement over the seams and then pressing

568
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 3: them against steel pipes, which vulcanized it. It just basically melted

569
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 3: everything shut. And then you have these floatable pontoons that

570
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 3: you could use and craft this larger raft.

571
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they had something that was inflatable because those

572
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 1: seams were vulcanized. It would hold the air. The air

573
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: couldn't escape, and they used a concertina. Oh, I can't remember,

574
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: Handsome Pete. There's like a little guy who plays the

575
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: accordion down on the docks that looks just like Krusty

576
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: the clown in one of the Simpsons episodes, and he's

577
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: playing a concertina. It's like a squeeze box. It's like

578
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: an accordion without the keys and the buttons.

579
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it acts as bellows because it moves air.

580
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 1: Essentially, that's what they used it for. They modified it

581
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: so that they could use it to inflate their raft

582
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: very quickly with this concertina that I guess they stole

583
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: from the prison music room, which is pretty great. So

584
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: they're working on all this stuff and the raft in particular,

585
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: this is like the lynchpin of this whole plane. Is

586
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: this raft in these life preservers, that work fell to

587
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: Alan West. So while these dudes were like chipping away

588
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: at the ventilation holes, Alan West was standing lookout for

589
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 1: most of them, and he was creating this raft in

590
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: these life fests, and so he wasn't able to chip

591
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: away at his own ventilation hole nearly as fast. So

592
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: while they were out, you know, working on the great

593
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: the event covered great, he still had no way out

594
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: of his cell at that point. He hadn't made it

595
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: all the way through.

596
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know we should point out something that

597
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: earlier we mentioned. If they happened to walk by and

598
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 3: they don't notice a hole on the wall, because they

599
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 3: may or may not have made these fall grates and walls.

600
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 3: If you're a listener and you don't know the story,

601
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 3: you might have said like, yeah, but wouldn't they have noticed.

602
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 2: There was no one in the cell?

603
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: Good question.

604
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 3: What they did was they made paper mache recreations of themselves.

605
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 3: They made these busts. They use that prison hair, which

606
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 3: so gross, and use that rever cement again to glue

607
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 3: this hair on. And if you see the real things,

608
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 3: it's not Madam Tussou or anything.

609
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 2: It's not like, boy, look at that.

610
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: Likeness photo realistic.

611
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 3: But it's in the dark and you're sort of, i think,

612
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 3: as a human trained to see what you're looking for.

613
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 3: So if your guard that's just walking by, you see

614
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 3: a head turned the other way with prison hair on

615
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 3: it and some pillows under a blanket, and you don't

616
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:50,479
Speaker 3: think it looks fake it just looks like it wouldn't

617
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 3: like Ferris Bueller style with like a fake snore on

618
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 3: the Hi fi system or anything.

619
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: Right, but you just kind of walk past it.

620
00:30:57,840 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 3: It worked well enough, Like they did this for weeks

621
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 3: and weeks and weeks with these paper mache busts, and

622
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 3: it worked.

623
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 2: They never got noticed.

624
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: No they didn't, because I mean remember like that that

625
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: they were working between the end of dinner and lights out,

626
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: So they just seem to have made it look like

627
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 1: they went to bed early and put the paper mache

628
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: busts in there. Guys are sleepy. Yeah, Frank got a lot,

629
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: I got a lot of questions about this, but I'm

630
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: not going to investigate any exactly. So do you want

631
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: to talk about the escape and then go to abreak?

632
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the way to do it.

633
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: Okay, So finally they get to this point where the

634
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: great is. The bars are removed from this great enough

635
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: that they can slip through, and they realize that they

636
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: have they have successfully penetrated to the exterior of the building.

637
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: That's right, Okay, they're on the roof. Well, they know

638
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: they can get on the roof. Now they know there

639
00:31:57,640 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: is go night.

640
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 2: I bet you they got up there at least one

641
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 2: to be like all right.

642
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't heard anything like that. And

643
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions about why this particular night.

644
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: Was this the very first night that they were able

645
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: to get out and they're like, let's go, which seems

646
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: likely to me, or were they waiting for a particular night,

647
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: or like you said, they tested it before they do

648
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: any dry runs. We don't really know that. But we

649
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: do know is that on Monday, June eleventh, nineteen sixty two,

650
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: jw Angling, Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris all left their

651
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: cells and the first thing Frank Morris did was go

652
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: to help Alan West finish the puncturing the hole through

653
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: his cell wall. Still had not done this yet. He's like,

654
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: come on, we got to go. But apparently part of

655
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: the plan was to help him punch the hole out

656
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:45,959
Speaker 1: the rest of the way and then he would escape

657
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: with them. Frank Morris apparently tried in vain and went

658
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: off to get Clarence England to come try. They trade

659
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: it off, and then Clarence tried. He couldn't do it either,

660
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: so I guess he had the very uncomfortable I'll be

661
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: right back. I got to go, I gotta go shake

662
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: the tree or something like that. I'll be right back.

663
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: You stay here, And that was the last anybody ever

664
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: saw of Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin or J. W. Anglin

665
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: from that moment until today.

666
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 2: Yeah.

667
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 3: So they get to that corridor, they climb up to

668
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 3: the roof of the cell block and then through that

669
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 3: ventilation shaft that great is no longer a problem, and

670
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 3: they push away Alan West.

671
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: They can just barely hear him saying, like, you guys

672
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: are coming back right any minute now, you said.

673
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 3: So, there's this rain cover on top. They pushed that

674
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 3: thing off, and this all makes some noise. And in

675
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 3: the movie they kind of accurately display that too as

676
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 3: some clanking and clanging around. And I don't think in

677
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 3: the movie they did this, but in real life, supposedly

678
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 3: there was so much noise that they did like a

679
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 3: little forty five minute kind of a search of the area.

680
00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: Didn't see anything going on. No, they didn't go.

681
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 3: Up on the roof, that's for sure, and they basically

682
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 3: didn't find anything.

683
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 2: So the guys are out.

684
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 3: They shimmy about fifty feet to the ground via drain pipe,

685
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 3: which is how you always do it go to that

686
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:16,280
Speaker 3: perimeter fence. And I'm sure the perimeter fence was fine,

687
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 3: but I think the idea was that they're never getting

688
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:22,280
Speaker 3: out anyway. So I don't think it had like fifteen

689
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 3: feet of razor wire or anything like that.

690
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: I think it did have double barbed wire at least

691
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: for sure.

692
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 2: That's nothing for us.

693
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: It's not like Concertina wire or anything.

694
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 2: No, nothing like that.

695
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 3: Around one in the morning, Alan West, Poor Alan West.

696
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:42,479
Speaker 3: He finally gets that cell great broken open. I'm sure

697
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:44,839
Speaker 3: he just thinks, all right, I'm going to catch up

698
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 3: to these guys and it's going to be all good,

699
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:50,720
Speaker 3: and I'm getting out of here. Followed that same route.

700
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,479
Speaker 3: It's been a couple of hours. At this point, though

701
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 3: he saw that these were genuinely good dudes, it seemed

702
00:34:56,600 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 3: like because they did leave him a paddle. I don't

703
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 3: think we mentioned they made paddles out of chair legs

704
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 3: and the rest screws and nuts and bolts and a

705
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 3: pon tune that was all inflated for him. And he

706
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 3: got a little snack low of rice, Krispy Tree, it's

707
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 3: Krispy Tree, the little Bruno little shot of Bruno for

708
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 3: his courage, and then he looks over terrible timing, and

709
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 3: there's a guard in a new position that basically could

710
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 3: see anything that he tries to do.

711
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:23,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, from that point forward.

712
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,240
Speaker 1: He's visually pinned down on the roof. He can't do anything.

713
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: So this is around one am or something, and he figures, okay,

714
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: the guard will eventually move. Well, alan West says, the

715
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: guard never moved until dawn. It doesn't this guy pee right,

716
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: doesn't he ever shake the tree? And he didn't. He

717
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: did not shake the tree, stayed put. And so eventually

718
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: Alan West was forced to climb back down the ventilation chaft,

719
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: back down from the roof of the cell block, three

720
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: stories back to his cell that he had just a

721
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: few hours earlier. Finally, after months, punched a hole through

722
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: and he went and laid down and just waited for

723
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 1: the heat to come down on them. And indeed it

724
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:07,959
Speaker 1: did because at the seven am bedcheck, three dummy heads

725
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,359
Speaker 1: were discovered where three inmates real heads should have been,

726
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 1: and the prison just went berserk.

727
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 3: You know that feeling you get when you take a

728
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 3: wrong turn and go like three or four miles in

729
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 3: the wrong direction and.

730
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 2: Have to go all the way back the other way.

731
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, imagine being Alan West and having to do that.

732
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: That time's infinity, that time's infinity.

733
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, you want to take another break?

734
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 1: I think so. Man, all right, we'll get to the bot.

735
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 3: Well, we won't get to the bottom of this, but

736
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 3: we'll speculate all over the place right after this.

737
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 1: Okay. So there are some things that we know about

738
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,800
Speaker 1: this from watching the movie, but the movie writers based

739
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: the movie on a book, and the book author I

740
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: believe based his stuff on an interview or interviews with

741
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:22,360
Speaker 1: Alan West that Alan West had with the Bureau of

742
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: Prisons in the FBI, because basically everything we know about

743
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,720
Speaker 1: the escape from Alcatraz came from the mouth of Alan West.

744
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he made a deal.

745
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 3: He said, listen, I'll tell you all about it, but

746
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 3: you can't throw me in here for longer. Because I

747
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 3: tried to escape prison. You got to give me immunity

748
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 3: for that attempted escape. And let's be honest, guys, it

749
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 3: really wasn't much of an attempt. Can you give me

750
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 3: a break here? I had to make the sad walk

751
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 3: of shame back to the cell.

752
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that that definitely factored into their

753
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: decision to give him immunity, like man, probably, so you

754
00:37:58,040 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: really got a hard luck case.

755
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 3: So he makes a deal and says, I'll tell you everything.

756
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 3: But again, this is just his account of it. One

757
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 3: thing that kind of jumped out is maybe it's not

758
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 3: the most accurate account, was that he was like, yeah,

759
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 3: I was the mastermind.

760
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 2: I thought of the whole thing from the start.

761
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 3: And I don't know if that's quite true, because it

762
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 3: seems like Clin Eastwood did Yeah.

763
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: Certainly in the movie. The movie is basically it should

764
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: be called Colin the Frank Morris story. He's the main character.

765
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: Everybody else is a side character. It really kind of

766
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: downplayed a lot of the contributions by the England brothers,

767
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: certainly by Alan West. Doesn't even use Alan West's name.

768
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: So I don't know how much of an influence is

769
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,280
Speaker 1: from that movie, or if that movie was just based

770
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,439
Speaker 1: on the general idea that Frank Morris was the mastermind

771
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: and the leader, that he was a very intelligent person

772
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: and kind of a born leader from what I know.

773
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: So it's just not clear whether Alan West actually came

774
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: up with this plan or not. Was he the one

775
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: who sewed the raft all this time and he got

776
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 1: left behind, or maybe he had really weak arms, And

777
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: this was just what he told the Bureau of Prisons investigators.

778
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: It was the reason why he never was able to

779
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: chip out of his cell. Who knows, but just so

780
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: just bear in mind from this point forward, we're just

781
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: going to go on with this his gospel. But all

782
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: of this is coming from Alan westsmouth. He was the

783
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: one that was left behind.

784
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 3: I feel like in the movie he got to the

785
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 3: point where he could not jump up by himself and

786
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 3: reach the grate.

787
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 2: Is that right?

788
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in the movie they help each other upright,

789
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: and then he would he would have had to have

790
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: done it himself.

791
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 3: And he couldn't jump. He just kept jumping and jumping

792
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 3: and couldn't make it.

793
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: Yes, but from what I know, he made it up

794
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: to the roof and was pinned down on the roof

795
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: by that guard and the watchtoyeah. But I don't think

796
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: it was a guard inside. No, no, no, no, you're right

797
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: in the movie it was like that.

798
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 3: So the plan was, and this again from west account said,

799
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 3: was to sail this raft or I guess, paddle this

800
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 3: raft across the bay to Angel Island about a mile

801
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 3: away a little over, and he said. From there they

802
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 3: were going to rest for a little bit, get their bearings,

803
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 3: stash everything, and then swim to the mainland across what's

804
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 3: called the Raccoon Straits to Marin County, and then once

805
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:19,879
Speaker 3: they got there they would start doing crime again. Immediately.

806
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 3: They could rob a store for closing money and steal

807
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 3: a car and get the heck out of there as

808
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:26,479
Speaker 3: quickly as possible before the word gets out.

809
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: Ostensibly, which is a pretty great plan actually, except for.

810
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 3: The crime part. Like I would have, I don't know.

811
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 3: I guess the idea is to just get as far

812
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 3: away as possible. But I don't know if I would have.

813
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:38,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you need a car. It's not like somebody's

814
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: going to just give you one.

815
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 2: I can take the Bart.

816
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: Sure you could take the Bart. I guess the part

817
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: was around back then. I think it was a pretty

818
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: good Maybe they were just like one last heist to

819
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: get away from here. Maybe that's what it was.

820
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 3: Maybe because they just want I mean, I get did

821
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 3: want the urge to get as far away from there

822
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 3: as possible. But also what if all of a sudden

823
00:40:59,040 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 3: cops are on.

824
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 2: You from stick on the car immediately.

825
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: Risk It is a big risk and a lot of

826
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: people say that they were actually helped. On the other side,

827
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: there was a guy named oh Man. I can't remember

828
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,720
Speaker 1: his last name, but his first name or his nickname

829
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: was Bumpy. He was a Gillicutty Harlem crime lord, drug

830
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: lord who was just a total ba and they think

831
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: that he may have had something to do with helping

832
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: them escape with somebody who would have shown up and

833
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: picked them up and driven them off. Other people say

834
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: that one of the England's girlfriends was there, but the

835
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: FBI supposedly investigated and said Frank Morris didn't have anybody.

836
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: He was an orphan, he didn't have anybody on the

837
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: outside he could have helped. The Anglands had family that

838
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 1: definitely would have helped if they could, but they didn't

839
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 1: have the means to actually to help them out in

840
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:54,320
Speaker 1: San Francisco. So yeah, but they were a tight family,

841
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 1: and they were the kind of family where I think

842
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: if one of them had called him be like I'm

843
00:41:57,280 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 1: breaking out, I need you to pick me up, they

844
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: would have done it. That. They're like that kind of

845
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: tight family bond. Now, like my family would be like,

846
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: oh well, I'll call you right back, and then hello, FBI.

847
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: How much of a reward do you have for giving

848
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: up a prison escapee? Yes, a federal prison. Oh that

849
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: much hunk? Great? Do you have a pen?

850
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:16,919
Speaker 2: Can you do any better?

851
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's exactly what my family would follow up with.

852
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 2: They did find some evidence.

853
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 3: So they did a search for about a week and

854
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 3: a half along with the FBI, like you were saying,

855
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 3: in the Bureau Prisons and the Alcatraz people, they were

856
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 3: all super mad, of course, especially in the movie version.

857
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 3: And they search Angel Island, They searched all the other

858
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 3: islands in the bay, and they did find one of

859
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: those like preservers that had teethmarks on the inflation valve.

860
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 3: They found a wallet wrapped in plastic that they figured

861
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:48,800
Speaker 3: was jw.

862
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 2: Anglin's.

863
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 3: They found one of those oars, and they found it

864
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 3: looked like most of one of the rafts or most

865
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 3: of the raft But no bodies, no stolen cars, no burglaries,

866
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 3: No one had reported anything in the area, unusual to

867
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:08,959
Speaker 3: according to their plan, which was to you know, steal

868
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 3: closing money in a car.

869
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the Bureau of Prisons, like right out

870
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: of the gate was like they drowned there. They were

871
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: washed out to see. That's it, we'll never hear from

872
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: him again. But they're dead. They didn't actually escape, And

873
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,280
Speaker 1: this was in nineteen sixty two. It wasn't until nineteen

874
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 1: seventy nine that the FBI closed the book and said, yeah,

875
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 1: that's probably what happened. We presumed that they were dead

876
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: and their bodies lost at sea. But when they were

877
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: building this case, they cited the story of a guy

878
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 1: named Seymour Webb who had jumped from the Golden Gate

879
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: Bridge at virtually the same time the Englands and Morris

880
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: would have been in San Francisco Bay, and his body

881
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: was never found, despite there being witnesses who watched him jump.

882
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 2: Very flimsy.

883
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, but at the same time it does kind

884
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: of demonstrate like, look, man, they could have this guy

885
00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: was never Yeah, he was never found. He jumped to

886
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: the same time the Anglands and Morris were in the water,

887
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: so maybe their bodies were never found. There was a

888
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: sighting of a body about five weeks later in July

889
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty two by a group of Norwegian sailors

890
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: who saw something kind of floating off and they're like,

891
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: is that a body? Yeah. They one got binoculars and

892
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: they say that's a body.

893
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 2: It was a body.

894
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 3: It was floating upside down, so all they could see

895
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 3: was the butt basically kind of bobbing in the water,

896
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 3: and the butt looked through their binoculars at least to

897
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 3: have on jeans, have on denim, and they you know,

898
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 3: that was part of the prison outfit, was they were

899
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 3: wearing denim. And this is the part that kind of

900
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:41,439
Speaker 3: gets a little flimsy to me is the FBI said

901
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 3: that there were no missing persons in the area in

902
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 3: that timeframe that were wearing jeans.

903
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? So sitting down, who knows?

904
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 3: And it was reported many weeks later, so you know,

905
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 3: it was all it was kind of hearsay, I guess

906
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 3: at that point it was.

907
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 1: And then by the time they actually reported the sighting,

908
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: it was October. So they're like, well, that's kind of useless.

909
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: But they do point to that and say, okay, this

910
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: combined with Seymour web, we think that their bodies were

911
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: swept out to see. Not everybody agrees with that, including

912
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 1: the Anglan family, who very much maintained that their brothers

913
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 1: survived this escape from Alcatraz and actually had a photograph

914
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: that I don't know where they got it, but they

915
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: have a photograph that was supposedly taken of their brothers

916
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,799
Speaker 1: in Brazil in nineteen seventy five looks that they shared.

917
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: Then it does It certainly doesn't. There was actually a

918
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,319
Speaker 1: company I can't remember the name of the company, but

919
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: they do like artificial intelligence facial recognitions. So they're just

920
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 1: really leading the way to a dystopia. But they were like, hey, everybody,

921
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: we want to introduce you to our software. So we're

922
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: going to analyze this picture. And their AI said, yep,

923
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,839
Speaker 1: definitely the angling's how cool is that? Yeah?

924
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 3: I mean I certainly looked at it, and it could

925
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 3: be it didn't look so unlike them that it was

926
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 3: like no way. And again I found myself being like, ah, man,

927
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 3: these guys made it to Brazil and they're the Robin

928
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 3: Banks there to this day.

929
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: Exactly right, I have them raising cattle in Brazil. That's

930
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: my that's my idea.

931
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,359
Speaker 3: In twenty thirteen, there was a letter sent to the

932
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 3: San Francisco Police Department supposedly from J. W. England saying, Hey,

933
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 3: we made it, guys, but just barely. Morris died in

934
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,439
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight. We kept in touch, great guy,

935
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 3: Clarence died in twenty eleven and I'm still alive, but

936
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 3: I got cancer. I need help, and I'm going to

937
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 3: come forward if you promise and pinky swear and tell

938
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 3: the public that you're not going to send me to

939
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 3: jail for more than one year and you're going to

940
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 3: heal my cancer.

941
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 1: Yeah. And apparently they analyzed the letter and like, this

942
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,319
Speaker 1: is inconclusive. But the FBI was like, we close this

943
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:54,399
Speaker 1: case in nineteen seventy nine, we're not about to open

944
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:58,399
Speaker 1: it up. But here's the thing. The idea that they

945
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: survived is that least possible enough that for this whole time,

946
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: the US Marshall's Office, who took over the case from

947
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:09,760
Speaker 1: the FBI in nineteen seventy nine, have kept it open.

948
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:12,440
Speaker 1: Like these guys are wanted outlaws still to this day,

949
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: even though they would be eighty nine, ninety and ninety five.

950
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: I think by now they are considered wanted fugitives and

951
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: the cases open. Even though I believe the Marshal Service

952
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: typically believes that they're dead, they haven't closed the case.

953
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:25,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's my deal.

954
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,959
Speaker 3: If you do something like this and you don't leave

955
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 3: some rock solid deathbed evidence, then you're just selfish.

956
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:34,799
Speaker 1: You really are.

957
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 3: You owe it to the world to have this be

958
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 3: a lead story and be like, Frank Morris died and

959
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 3: here's the evidence, here's that little flower from.

960
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 1: The rev Yeah, exactly, teach your smartest head of cattle

961
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: to stamp out a message in morse code. That's what

962
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,800
Speaker 1: I want you spending your dying days doing, teaching that cow.

963
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 3: The marshals say that they don't think they survived and

964
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 3: went on to lead lives of solitude because they're like,

965
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 3: these guys are career criminals. They would have done something again,

966
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 3: they would have gotten caught again. It's a good point

967
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 3: arguments four is that, And they don't know if they

968
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 3: planned this that way or not. But when they went

969
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 3: on the day they went, and during the hours they went,

970
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 3: they actually had a few good hours of pretty calm

971
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:24,359
Speaker 3: bay currents. The you know, it could be so bad

972
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:26,359
Speaker 3: that they're going to pull you out to sea, or

973
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 3: so bad that they take you in the wrong direction,

974
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 3: completely away from land. And they said that, you know,

975
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 3: whether it was just providence or whether they planned it

976
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 3: this way. They had a cloudy night, so there wasn't

977
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 3: much light from the moon, and they had a really

978
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 3: calm bay, so in theory they might could have done this.

979
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 1: They could have, but the winds were really terrible that

980
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: night too. I think they were a gusts up to

981
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: like twenty one miles an hour, sustained winds of like

982
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: ten miles an hour in which direction though, that's tough

983
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: to row. Who knows. If it was lucky, then yeah,

984
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: if it was blowing them toward Angel Island, that was

985
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: in their favor. It was blowing in any other direction

986
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: that would make it very very low to Brazil, and

987
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: then maybe so they're like, well, that was fortunate, didn't

988
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: even have to steal a car. The other problem is

989
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: the water. The water temperature is like fifty degrees farentheight,

990
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 1: which is very very cold, and you get very numb

991
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:25,280
Speaker 1: and eventually sent into shock and then exhaustion pretty quickly

992
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: after being in this water for thirty minutes or last.

993
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 3: But people swim in that thing. They do and it's

994
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 3: happened before. They have triathlons in that water, and people

995
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 3: do it. So it's not to say that these guys

996
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 3: could not have done it. It wasn't so frigid that

997
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 3: science would say, oh no, you would die inside five

998
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 3: minutes in this water.

999
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: Exactly. I mean, especially if they were operating on the

1000
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: adrenaline that they surely would have had from the escape.

1001
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:54,359
Speaker 1: She meaning fifty feet down a drain pipe alone will

1002
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:56,879
Speaker 1: pump you full of some pretty decent adrenaline. So who

1003
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: knows what they were capable of at the time.

1004
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 3: I have a theory is that the Anglins killed Frank

1005
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 3: Morris out there on that raft, and that was the

1006
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 3: body they saw floating, and that's why they made it

1007
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:11,799
Speaker 3: to Brazil and we never heard from Frank Morris again.

1008
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: Oh I don't like your theory.

1009
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 2: You don't think I don't turning on them at the

1010
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 2: last minute.

1011
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:22,240
Speaker 1: No, No. My theory is that that body was actually

1012
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 1: Seymour Web, that he was wearing denim jeans underpants that

1013
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: got taken off of his other pants, and that he

1014
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: wasn't actually dead, but he met a mermaid or merman

1015
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: who he fell in love with and spent the rest

1016
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 1: of his life under the sea with.

1017
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 2: Well, that's lovely. I like that theory.

1018
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 3: But the cherry on top here is that those prisoners

1019
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 3: who wanted to help them escape because they thought the

1020
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,399
Speaker 3: prison would close were right. The prison was shut down

1021
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 3: the following March, and the Bureau Prison said, you know what,

1022
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 3: we were gonna shut this thing down anyway because Alcatraz

1023
00:50:56,719 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 3: is just too much to keep up. This big concrete

1024
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 3: block on a rocky island is too expensive to keep up,

1025
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 3: right with very few guards.

1026
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 2: So who knows.

1027
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 3: But in the movie they definitely sort of betray it

1028
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 3: as as that's the reason why.

1029
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the warden never had a happy day again.

1030
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 2: That's right. Pretty satisfying film.

1031
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: Pretty satisfying film. And Chuck, I guess we said all

1032
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 1: this to say this. We have a book coming out

1033
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: that we would love for you to pre order.

1034
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

1035
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:29,320
Speaker 3: Stuff you should know is that Jarring, an incomplete compendium

1036
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 3: of mostly interesting thing and guys. One of our lifelong

1037
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 3: dreams is to be on the New York Times bestseller list.

1038
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, they give you a T shirt.

1039
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 3: We really want to get on that list, and if

1040
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 3: that list came out today, we wouldn't be on it.

1041
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 3: So we would love for you to step up and

1042
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 3: help our dreams come true. Sure, how's that for a plea?

1043
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: I think that's a great plea, A plea and a

1044
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: plug altogether. It's a pleague.

1045
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 2: What is this in cost twenty bucks?

1046
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: I think so? And it's worth every penny I can

1047
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 1: tell you because we you wrote it. That's right. So

1048
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: that's it. If you want to go order our book,

1049
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: you can pre order anywhere you get books. Thank you

1050
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: in advance. And I think that's it for Escape from

1051
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: Alcatraz too, right, that's it. If you want to know

1052
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 1: more about escaping from Alcatraz, there are some really great

1053
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: articles and books and all sorts of stuff out there

1054
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: on the Internet for you to dig into. So get digging.

1055
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: Since I said get digging, it's time for listener mail.

1056
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 3: I'm going to call this Delaware response. We kind of

1057
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 3: poked fun at Delaware a little bit, Oh we now,

1058
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 3: I guess.

1059
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 2: It was me.

1060
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 3: But Delawarians, Delawareans, Delawarans, Delaware, Delawarean nights. They are lovely people,

1061
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:43,720
Speaker 3: as it seems, because we've gotten quite a few emails,

1062
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 3: and they'll have good humor about their lovely little state.

1063
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 3: Hey guys, our Delaware family had to laugh at your

1064
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 3: pirate radio podcasts. Delawareans, Oh yeah, that's right. There would

1065
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 3: be proud to be known as the Luxembourg of the

1066
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 3: United States. Most people drive through our state on nine

1067
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 3: ninety five and less than thirty minutes but if you

1068
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 3: do stop by. Our state is rich in history and agriculture,

1069
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 3: and we have a few nice beaches.

1070
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 2: What you should know is the ark on the top

1071
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 2: of our state.

1072
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,400
Speaker 3: I guess it's an arch, is made by a twelve

1073
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 3: mile radius from Newcastle and historic Town. What many people

1074
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:22,240
Speaker 3: do not know is the bottom of the arc formed

1075
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 3: a wedge betwixt Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. The ownership of

1076
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:29,800
Speaker 3: that land was in dispute between Delaware and Pennsylvania for decades,

1077
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 3: only to be resolved in nineteen twenty one. Rumor has

1078
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 3: it that the disputed land was a haven for unsavory

1079
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 3: types who capitalized on the uncertain jurisdiction.

1080
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:39,879
Speaker 2: Thanks for the show.

1081
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 3: It informs and entertains my family and we wish you

1082
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,879
Speaker 3: well from Delaware. The first state to ratify the constitution,

1083
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 3: oh that is from Doug wasgat and family.

1084
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 1: Nice Doug, thank you. I would have led with the

1085
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: first state to ratify the constitution. Thing.

1086
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 2: I bet they tout that a lot. It's a good

1087
00:53:57,520 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 2: thing to tout.

1088
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:02,000
Speaker 1: Yep. We want to be like Doug and defend your state,

1089
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: whether it's Delaware or not. We want to hear from you,

1090
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: and you can send it in an email to Stuff

1091
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

1092
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Speaker 2: You Know Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.