WEBVTT - Selects: How the Escape from Alcatraz Worked 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:03.720 Hi, friends, It's me Josh, and for this week's select, 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:07.600 I've chosen our September twenty twenty episode on the Escape 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.039 from Alcatraz. Is our episode even better than the movie 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.080 could be. It's a little more accurate at least, and 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.960 even without Clint Eastwood, it's pretty thrilling. Nonetheless, I hope 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.320 you enjoy the absolute living heck. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:20.640 Out of it. 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:28.880 Welcome to Stuff you should know, A production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.600 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:40.080 Jerry's out there in the ether somewhere like that one 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:45.040 kid being transmitted from the camera to the TV in 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:50.360 Willy Wonka. Wow, I got that one eight kinds of wrong. Yeah, 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.240 but anyway, this is stuff you should know, which is appropriate. 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.160 Did I would get something eight kinds of wrong right 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:57.880 at the beginning? 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.480 Did you ever hear the story from Gene Wilder about 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:02.520 the move at the beginning of that movie where he 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.480 walks out with a cane. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.920 Where did the spill the summersault? 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:08.720 Yeah, he sticks a cane in the ground and does 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.679 the summersault. No, he said that that was his idea. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:14.800 And this just shows the brilliance of Gene Wilder. And 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.640 he said he did that because he knew from that 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.119 moment on no one would believe anything that that character said. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.800 Oh yes, I have heard that before. Great, that is brilliant. 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.399 That man was a brilliant man and a wonderful human being. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:28.920 I loved him. 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.319 He's got one of his last interviews on Conan O'Brien 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.680 was so great because Conan was just gushing, and I'm 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.560 sure Geen Wilder was very i think, kind of taken 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:39.200 back by how much he means to people. 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.800 Have you ever seen? Oh no, that wasn't the question 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.960 I had. Did you know? Did you know that? Your 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.080 question was did you fart? Did you know that Conan 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.080 O'Brien and Dennis Leary are cousins? 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:56.840 I don't think I knew that. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.360 According to Conan O'Brien asked a question on Jeopardy that 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:06.760 is his cousin did not know that. Speaking of Jeopardy, 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.880 we have a colleague named Ken Jennings who is on 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:17.760 Jeopardy YEA. And we have another colleague, two colleagues called 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.280 Daniel and Jorge, and they have a podcast called Daniel 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.919 and Jorge Explain the Universe. It's pretty cool, but they 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.600 also chuck I just saw have a PBS Kid's animated 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.960 program coming out September seventh called Eleanor Wonders Why Okay? 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:34.640 And it looks adorable. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.280 Wow. That sounds like right at my daughter's alley. 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.519 Yeah, so check it out, everybody. PBS Kids, September seventh, 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.200 Eleanor Wonders White and Congrats Daniel and Jorge. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:48.800 Do you have any famous cousins, famous or infamous? I 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.120 think we are the famous cousins. That's how said. Our 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:51.680 families are. 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.040 Yeah. It feels pretty great, though. I keep being like, hey, 0:02:55.120 --> 0:03:02.480 let's have another family reunion this month. Speaking of infamous cousins, Chuck, 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:03.840 how about those anglum brothers? 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:09.280 Huh? Yeah, man, this is I could have thought. I 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:10.120 kind of thought we did this. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:10.760 I know we do. 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.520 We do one on Alcatraz and maybe just briefly touched 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:13.760 on it. 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.040 Absolutely because this is this. 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.600 Movie, the nineteen what was it seventy nine Escaped from 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:26.120 Alcatraz movie with Clint Eastwood was one of my favorite 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:27.280 movies as a kid. 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:29.800 It's a good movie. I went I watched it just 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.280 the other night as part of this. 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.560 Yeah, it was an HBO special, so I must have 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:36.119 been I didn't see it in when I was eight. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.680 I probably was like ten or eleven, and it was 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.240 one of those movies I probably watched over a dozen 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:44.080 times when I was twelve twelve years. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.800 Old, followed by Kroll and outline. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:47.960 Oh man, those are great. 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.119 Yeah, they always went together though, didn't they? 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.320 Yeah, in war games. I mean that those are all 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:55.360 HBO specials. But this was a really good movie. 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:59.000 And I'm a big, big fan of prison escape movies. 0:03:59.440 --> 0:03:59.760 Sure. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.200 And I was thinking today when I was looking over 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.760 this stuff again that it's so weird that like these 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.480 guys were hardened criminals, and yet when you're researching this, 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.720 all you can think about is, oh, man, I hope 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:15.600 they got out of there, right, and I hope they 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:16.880 lived the fat life in Brazil. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.200 Well that really speaks to like who they are, what 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.719 they became because of this escape, which is put most 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.960 simply their folk heroes. I guess, Oh yeah, that's definitely 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:28.479 a part of being a folk hero is that you 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:33.120 can transcend the kind of like, uh, crime judgments that 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.240 society typically levies against people like criminals, like if you 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:39.880 if you are so good at your craft or so 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.880 good at something to do with criminality that you transcend 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.640 being judged for your crimes. That's you've become a folk 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.240 hero for sure. It's like dB Cooper. 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.000 Yeah, and I think it helps that you know, these 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.559 guys were armed robbers and thieves, and I think Frank 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.880 Morris and we'll get into all these who these dudes are. 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.880 But he was a drug trafficker. But they weren't rapist 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:03.960 and murderers. I don't think you can transcend that. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:09.480 No, they were definitely non violent criminals from everything that 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:10.119 I've seen. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.920 Yeah, they used a toy gun in one of these robberies. Yeah, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:13.640 it's adorable. 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.120 Well, let's talk about these guys, like you were saying, 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.000 we're talking about a group of people who escaped from Alcatraz, 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.160 and as far as anyone knows, they are the only 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.159 ones who really may have escaped from Alcatraz. They vanished 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.600 in nineteen sixty two, last seen leaving their cells, and 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.080 were never heard from again. And like you said, they 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.720 were all hardened criminals, like lifelong career criminals. Frank Morris 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.760 was thirty five when he left Alcatraz, and he'd been 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.560 a criminal since he was thirteen. He was in and 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.320 out of institutions, and like you said, He wasn't a 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.040 violent criminal. He wasn't a rapist or a murder or 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:56.680 anything like that. He was he liked to sell the drugs. 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:01.040 He had like a forehead tattooed or are tattooed on 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.000 his forehead for a while, which he very sensibly had 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:05.080 removed later on. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.160 Is that what that means but that. 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.719 He was a drug trafficker? Yeah, No, I think that 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.160 means that he did a few too many drugs one night. 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:15.720 Oh, he really did have a star. 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.240 Yeah, I thought that was some like prison thing for 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.080 like the tear drop tattoo means, doesn't mean you killed 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:22.800 somebody or something. 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:25.919 That's what I've always heard, but I don't know. It 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.160 could just be urban legend. But yes, what I've always heard. 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:29.400 No, I really did have a star. 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.560 Okay, Yeah, I think he got super wasted when I 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.640 got a star tattooed on his forehead. There was a 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.040 tattoo artist far too handy that night. 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.480 Yeah, yeah, which I think the old saying don't ever 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:42.840 make friends with tattoo artists. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:44.800 Yeah, or at least drinking buddies. 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.080 Sure, that's true, but he was also super smart too. 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.719 Yeah, And they point this out in the movie and 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.720 a lot of the movie. I mean, it's pretty close 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.760 to the real story that they did a really good job. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.839 But they do make a big deal in the movie 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.880 about how smart he was. As I know, IQ is 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:03.920 sort of take it or leave it as far as 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.680 that being a real measurement of one's intelligence. But he 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.800 supposedly had an IQ of one thirty and the BOP 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.000 which stands for the was it Bureau of Prisons. I 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.480 didn't know they had rankings, but they had rankings of 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.680 intellectual intellectuality? 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:22.480 Is that a word? 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.800 Yeah? I think so it gets the point across ergo 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:27.200 it is. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.480 Yeah, And I'm curious what other rankings they have. But 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:34.280 you know, best look in best abs. But he was 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.600 in the top two percent supposedly in the American prison 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.040 system as far as his intellectual capabilities. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.840 Yeah, so you hit on a point there that I 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.520 think we need to least at least bring up. Like 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.600 the the movie did follow the actual the truth of 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.160 the matter fairly closely in some cases. In other cases 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.800 it veered wildly away. Like there was a character based 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.960 on one guy who was very much involved, but they 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.000 didn't even use his name, and they made him seem 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.240 less involved than he actually was. There's a lot that 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.400 the movie gets wrong. But the problem with covering this 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.520 is that there's so many gaps and holes that are 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.280 so easily and casually filled in that you can't help 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.200 but wonder, like, wait, was this detail provided by somebody 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.480 who saw the movie and took the movie as fact? 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.560 Like where are we exactly? And just how pure the 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.640 knowledge and understanding is of this escape. So you have 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:33.920 to just kind of bear that in mind that it's 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.280 kind of a blur in the annals of crime as 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.520 far as factuality goes. 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.040 Yeah, but it's a good story, great story, and most 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:43.840 of this is pretty true. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:45.280 I think so. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.599 Frank Morris was four years into a fourteen year stint 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.880 and this was for a bank robbery and he was 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.960 transferred to the Rock in nineteen sixty. I didn't know 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.400 we were using Wingo episode it's Alcatraz. It's a prison 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:03.200 island or an island prison. Yeah, and some might say 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.360 the island itself is a prison, which we'll get to. 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.839 And then his buddies you mentioned the England brothers J W. 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:14.640 John William and his younger brother Clarence were thirty and 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.000 twenty nine years old, and they were from a very 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.520 big family of migrant farm workers in South Georgia. They 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.360 traveled all over the country wherever their work was, basically 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.280 as a big family, and they got into stealing things 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:29.800 from people. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.640 Yeah, and they were the ones who used the toy gun. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.120 Later on, they were I think visiting family in a 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.640 small town called Columbia, Alabama, which is in the southeast 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.319 of the state, and they found out that this bank 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.600 had been around for one hundred years in this town. 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.280 It had never been robbed. So they assumed, we're going 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.840 to change that. He'll be easy to knock over. And 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.079 apparently it was pretty easy to knock over, and they 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.280 had a toy gun that they used, and they still 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.679 managed to get away with at least I think like 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.160 ten grand or twenty grand, something pretty stantial amount of money. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.120 And they were on the run for a little while, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.520 but got caught and the Alabamas were not very happy 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.000 with it, and they threw the book at these brothers. 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.640 They got twenty five year sentences for robbing a bank 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.800 with a toy gun, and that actually was way better 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.600 than the sentence they initially faced, which was the potentially 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:20.439 the death penalty. 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:21.319 That's crazy. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.600 Yeah, So they were caught and busted. And they had 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.640 a third brother named Alfred too, who was also involved, 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.960 but he was never sent to that to the rock 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.520 as you put it, I bet it was not a bet. 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.400 It was factually a lot easier to rob banks back then. 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.120 Yeah, it was way easier to be a criminal, even 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.800 just a few decades ago. Yeah, just in general, I 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.560 think now it's like, don't even try. 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.640 No, you got I mean, if it's not the cops 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.560 and their cameras, he got some dumb neighbor with their 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:50.480 cameras like me. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:52.440 Right. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.400 Oh man, I hate to get off topic so quickly. 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.560 And we should post this on the Facebook page or something, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.000 or maybe I'll put it on Instagram. What I got 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.120 attacked by a squirrel and it was captured by my 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:04.360 front of the house camera. 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:06.840 Oh no, yeah, everyone wants to see that. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:07.640 This was great. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:09.320 I just I was taking out some recycling and I 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.199 heard some rustling, and I went around the corner and 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.600 I was like, this squirrel was freaking out, and then 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.680 he literally leapt if you freeze from it, he leapt 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.080 three feet in the air. Wow, and hit my leg 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.240 and ran up my leg a little bit and then wow, 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:23.560 And I react thussly. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.160 That's awesome. You know, it would be wonderful is to 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.600 intercut close ups of your face when you got that 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.240 Charlie Horse on internet round up? Oh my god, in 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:33.440 with this squirrel attack. 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:36.920 Amazing, it's a good thing. I don't care about myself 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:37.880 and looking dumb. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.520 Why did you? Why did that squirrel attack you? What'd 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:40.960 you do to it? 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:42.400 I didn't do anything. It was freaking out. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.160 And then I turned and looked after I dropped the 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.160 recycling off, and he and another squirrel were going at 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:48.200 it in our oak tree. 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:50.800 So I think he was just he was all riled up. 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:52.040 He might you. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.960 Yeah, did he have a star tattooed on his forehead? 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.520 He did, right on his little, tiny free forehead. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:11:59.640 Wow. Yes, please do post that. 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.840 Okay, So all right, these guys are all in Alcatraz, 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.680 and Alcatraz at the time was like I said, it 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.640 was sort of the rock itself was the prison, and 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.320 that was the idea, was that even if you're even 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.280 if you managed to get out of the prison that 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.000 they eventually built, which we'll talk about, then you still 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:21.960 can't get out of there because you got to swim 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.720 over a mile to the nearest body of land about 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.800 one point three miles. That water is really cold, the 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.400 currents are brutal, the winds are really strong. San Francisco 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.480 Bay is not you know, for people that haven't been there, 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.400 it's not just some lovely little chill body of water 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:39.280 that you hang out in. 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:41.880 No, it's not a very hospitable body of water. 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:42.240 It's not. 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.440 So the idea was that, Yeah, like when you got 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.840 sent to Alcatraz, you weren't getting off of that island 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.200 and you were either parolled or died. And that was 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.719 actually the reason that the Anglands and Frank Morris were 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.920 sent there was because they had all met at the 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.880 Federal penn in Atlanta. I guess the one down in 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:03.720 Grant Park. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.160 Right, Yeah, which that building is amazing. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.440 It's one of the most forbidding buildings in the world. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.200 I would say. It looks like an old timey federal penitentiary. 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.000 And al Capone was there too for a little while. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:15.360 Yeah. 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.520 I actually drove by there not too long ago with 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:18.760 my daughter for the first time. 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.000 And I was like, check out that building. 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:20.440 Look at that. 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.439 It's like that's a prison. What's a prison? 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.120 And I went, oh, well, I guess I got to 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.200 explain that I'll tell you when you're eighteen if you 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.280 make it and don't go to prison first. 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.040 Right, So they all met at the federal pen in Atlanta. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.240 I can't remember if they actually made it out or 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.360 if they were caught escaping, but they were known escape artists, 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.520 like the Frank Morris had escaped from places in Florida. 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.960 They didn't stay put when you put them in prison, 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.439 and so that's why they were all sent to Alcatraz, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.079 and just crazily as they arrived between nineteen sixty and 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.600 nineteen sixty one, they were all put pretty close together, 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.280 and in fact, the England brothers had a joint, which 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.280 is a very stupid thing to do, but that's what 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.199 they did. In part. I believe because there was a 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.440 certain thread of arrogance that ran through the administration of 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.040 Alcatraz that it was just basically inescapable. 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.800 Yeah, and I think you also sort of want happy prisoners, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:26.240 and I've heard of requests like that being made possible before, like, Hey, 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:27.760 if you put me near my brother, we're gonna be 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:28.640 a lot better behaved. 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.720 Yeah, we're definitely not going to break out. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.920 I don't think we mentioned either, like Alcatraz was so 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.760 formidable as a just an island that the very first 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.440 time they used it was when the Army put soldiers 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:47.160 there who cheered on President Lincoln's death. And so they 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.160 didn't even bother building a prison though, they just built 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.440 some barracks through them on the island. It was like, well, 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.480 you're in prison now, because good luck getting out of here. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.760 Yeah, that's what I saw too. And when the Bureau 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:02.120 of Prisons took over, they they really fortified it even more. 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.120 Like you said, there was a larger building that housed 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.000 everything from like the mess hall to the cell blocks. 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.600 So when you were in a cell in a cell block, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.000 you were in you were in a little tiny prison 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.680 inside a larger prison onside this island prison. And the 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.360 cell blocks themselves had like three inch thick concrete walls, 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.880 reinforced iron bars. The building itself was made a very 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.320 thick concrete. It was it was just meant to to 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.080 basically tell you there's there's no getting out here. But 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.440 what's what's crazy is Frank Morris and the England Brothers, 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.720 they weren't the first people to ever try to bust out. 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.440 I believe they were part of a total of thirty 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.400 six people who tried to escape. In the history of 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:51.840 the prison, everybody else, almost everybody else was either killed, captured, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.680 or their bodies were found except and I did not 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.680 realize this, Morris and the England Brothers were not the 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.520 first people have vanished without a trace from Alcatraz. Had 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.880 you heard about Ted Cole and Ralph Row? 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.600 I hadn't heard about them until this, But in the thirties, 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.280 late thirties, they did escape, and they did vanish, and 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.720 you know, sort of like where this story's going. I 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:18.960 don't think anyone wants to admit that from the prison 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:20.800 system that they could have really made it right. 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.840 So they're like, nah, they died, they drowned. 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.600 But the thing is the thing that really differentiates the 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.680 England Brothers and Frank Morris from guys like Ted Cole 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.120 and Ralph Row. They all shared in common that they 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.520 escaped from Alcatraz and vanished without a trace. The thing 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:39.760 that differentiates Morris and the Englands is that their folk 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:45.040 heroes because almost exclusively because of this plan they devised 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.360 and executed, and that the plan was so good and 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:54.120 so complex and well done that it actually lends credence 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.600 to the idea that they may have survived and escaped 0:16:57.720 --> 0:16:59.920 from Alcatraz, genuinely. 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.440 Yeah, But they had in common is that they were 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.439 all top ten in best abs in the prison system. 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.399 Yep. And what everybody listening right now has in common 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:39.679 is that you're about to hear an ad Okay, we're back, everybody, 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.760 and I think it's high time we talk about the plan, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.160 the escape plan, don't you. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.159 Yeah, if you're going to escape from Alcatraz, it's not 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.400 the kind of thing where you distract a guard and 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.560 just run and jump over a fence. You got to 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:57.000 start this thing, this plan, many months in advance. And 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.359 by all accounts they and by all accounts meaning from 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.560 the one account that we really have of this, they 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.640 started planning easily six months before the escape. They start 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.560 developing this plan. They start collecting kind of anything they 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.680 can get their hands on that they think they can use, 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.520 everything from just loose nuts and bolts and screws to 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:22.720 things that I mean, they actually ended up using a 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.760 lot of this stuff. But I got the impression that 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:26.959 they were just kind of like, anytime they saw something 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.119 that they could squirrel away and hide, they would do 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:31.679 it because you never know what you could use it. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.879 For yeah, and so like over the six month period, 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:40.080 they amassed something like eighty tools that they either stole, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:45.440 had stolen for them rebuild, or repurposed out of other stuff, 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:50.239 or just made completely out of their own labor. They 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.200 had a pretty extensive toolkit that they created, and one 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.480 of the ways that they got a lot of the 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.720 tools was from Alan West, who we haven't mentioned yet, 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.199 but a lot of people don't realize there was a 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:08.119 fourth conspirator in the Alcatraz escape who was a major 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.560 integral part of it, but who actually didn't go along 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:12.880 with the escape, as we'll see. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.040 Oh man, that part of the movie is so tough. 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.600 It is, especially with that poor guy. He just looks 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.520 character of womb like, I'm down on my luck. Can 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:23.560 you spare a dime? Bro? 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.240 He's so good, he's been in it so many things. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.640 But he was I think he was the guy who 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.240 played Kramer on Seinfeld. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.919 In the in the pilot, in the NBC pilot. 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.960 Yeah, so like in the show, the guy playing Kramer 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.679 on the show in the show, I think that was him. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.919 Yeah, he stole the M and MS, I think yeah, yeah. 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.520 So he was in Escape from Alcatraz too. Yeah, he 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.520 just he's perfect for that part. But this guy named 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.639 Alan West, he was on the painting crew, and he 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.400 put that to use big time. One of the first 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:56.800 ways he did it was he was in the prison 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.920 barber shop and managed to steal a pair of electric 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.560 clippers while he was in there painting, and they were like, hey, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.320 this motor will come in handy. Well, let's repurpose it 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.159 into a power drill, and they did. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.840 Yeah, that's pretty cool. He also, I mean, just having 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.800 a little motor is so handy. So he came across 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.320 a vacuum cleaner that wasn't working, and he said, hey, 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.040 you mind if I repair this? I got to shake 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:22.960