Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Over here.
Speaker 3: How are you doing?
Speaker 2: Doing pretty good? It's been waiting for you.
Speaker 3: How you've been running a little late today. I'm good,
Speaker 3: I'm good. Listen. You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yes, malware, DNA.
Speaker 3: Malware DNA yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, like I like, I like technology, but
Speaker 2: I'm not a tech bro. I know a rap name.
Speaker 2: But uh, there's this. I'm reading this Wired story. They
Speaker 2: they Okay, I don't know. This is wild. Maybe you'll
Speaker 2: find this interesting. I find it ridiculous. A group of
Speaker 2: researchers from the University of Washington, they created malicious software malware, yeah,
Speaker 2: and they put it into physical DNA strands EW so
Speaker 2: in a gene sequencer analyzes the DNA, the program gets
Speaker 2: read and then it corrupts the gene sequencing software and
Speaker 2: it takes control of the computer.
Speaker 3: So you just give your like DNA.
Speaker 2: Dn M malware.
Speaker 3: You can put in twenty three and meters rip and
Speaker 3: then bring the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Down DNA hijack love in that nuts. I'm gonna just
Speaker 2: inject myself of malware, do it. Yeah, that's the ridiculous part.
Speaker 2: My idea is I need some malware.
Speaker 3: You'll find me out behind the headquarters building, chewing on
Speaker 3: a flash drive, just trying to get that sweet malware
Speaker 3: up in me.
Speaker 2: So in that ridiculous It.
Speaker 3: Is so ridiculous, love. Do you want to know what
Speaker 3: else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Goodness? Yes, getting off the rock.
Speaker 3: This is a ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and
Speaker 3: outrageous capers, heist and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
Speaker 3: murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. I asked today
Speaker 3: for your indulgence. I think that that is because when
Speaker 3: things are tough, everyone has to go to their comfort zone.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's why I wanted to tell you a story
Speaker 2: about Ireland earlier. YEA, something comfortingly nice makes.
Speaker 3: People happy and calm. For me, that's usually like the
Speaker 3: garden or cooking, making, hugging on dogs. Oh yeah, what
Speaker 3: about you? What's your comfort zone place?
Speaker 2: Speed? I don't mean the drug, I mean going fast,
Speaker 2: just the act of going fast. I feel so relaxed
Speaker 2: when I'm going fast.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like comfort zone. It's more in the
Speaker 2: cool zone.
Speaker 3: But like the world is wild. Yes, as Shanaide saying,
Speaker 3: these are dangerous days.
Speaker 2: I think Elizabeth you've maybe realized I don't have a comfort.
Speaker 3: Zone going fast, I.
Speaker 2: Was kind of bing it's it's it's more I just
Speaker 2: feel good. I don't really have a comfort zone. I
Speaker 2: don't think I seek out enough comfort. You've made me
Speaker 2: realized I have a paucity of comfort comfort I need.
Speaker 2: I'm going to follow you in Shanade's advice, these.
Speaker 3: Are dangerous days. You fill in the rest of the
Speaker 3: line in your head if you know it. But the
Speaker 3: show almost go on, almost go on. So I have
Speaker 3: to tell you a compelling story.
Speaker 2: Right please.
Speaker 3: I can't come here and like be like, oh, list
Speaker 3: off my tomato seedlings for an hour. I mean I could,
Speaker 3: but there's no crime there other than how criminally delicious
Speaker 3: those tomatoes are going to be. I have to tell
Speaker 3: you an hour's worth of a z any crime. So
Speaker 3: for that, I'm going to go to my comfort place
Speaker 3: and Zarin that is San Francisco Bay Area history.
Speaker 2: Oh hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Right with that, I have a question for you. Have
Speaker 3: you ever been to Alcatraz aka The Rock?
Speaker 2: No? Actually I've never have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me neither. I am a fifth generation Bay Area
Speaker 3: residence and I have never been there.
Speaker 2: We should go, We should totally requid a ridiculous crime
Speaker 2: episode on the road.
Speaker 3: I kind of had wanted to do this one there,
Speaker 3: but like you know, I'm busy. I got it busy
Speaker 3: on the go lifestyles.
Speaker 2: You forgot to get the boat tickets.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've been to the other like large free standing
Speaker 3: island in the bay Angel Angel Island. Yeah, yeah, a
Speaker 3: couple of times. Angel Islands so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like to go hiking off. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: nature preserved Alcatraz. Why would why would you want to
Speaker 2: go to a prison? That's a good point, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like that was my issue with it. People.
Speaker 2: I've been offered to go and I was like, it's
Speaker 2: a prison, right, and it's cold. I got it to
Speaker 2: be cold for an hour to get there to go.
Speaker 3: It means you have to go to like Peer thirty nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta go hang out all these tourists and
Speaker 2: you gotta be wet and cold, and then you go
Speaker 2: and hang out with them and they go, look al
Speaker 2: Capone wants to spit here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm going to put it on my list now.
Speaker 2: I do want to go because I'm hoping they have
Speaker 2: like an al Capone banjo jazz band.
Speaker 3: In the event that I ever leave my house to
Speaker 3: go somewhere other than here at a headquarters, it'll be Alcatraz.
Speaker 2: Yeah, call me, let me know that.
Speaker 3: So the island started out as kind of a prison,
Speaker 3: oddly enough, because the Oloney people on whose land we
Speaker 3: sit to record, they used the island as a place
Speaker 3: of exile or punishment.
Speaker 2: Really, it was a banishment spot.
Speaker 3: Makes sense. Yeah, that's what I That's what I was told.
Speaker 3: Whereas Angel Islands pretty big relatively speaking, and has its
Speaker 3: own like microclimates, even Alcatraz is small, rocky, yeah, and
Speaker 3: it's in like a gnarly part of the bay that
Speaker 3: gets hit with a lot of wind and a lot
Speaker 3: and weather. The water is almost always choppy and cold. Yes,
Speaker 3: And there's the wind, like I said, and it's not
Speaker 3: particularly close to the shore.
Speaker 2: No, they got crazy currents right there, and there's sharks.
Speaker 2: That's where all the like the wind, the sail borders
Speaker 2: and stuff that go by because the winds are so reliable.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So when the Spanish showed up, they named
Speaker 3: the island like Isla Delos Alcatraces, And I'm saying that's
Speaker 3: where it gets it, island of the Pelicans. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's because there were so many Bobcats on the island
Speaker 3: no Pelicans.
Speaker 2: So there essentially there was you said, Pelican Island, and
Speaker 2: then there's also Pelican Bay, the prison up nor Repelican, California.
Speaker 3: That's the logo, that's the mascot Pelicans. So the name
Speaker 3: was later shortened to Alcatraz. It's way jazzier totally. There's
Speaker 3: a street in Berkeley called Alcatraz, so so named because
Speaker 3: like as you drive down the hill on it toward
Speaker 3: the bay, you're looking directly at the island. That's a
Speaker 3: fun fact. Enjoy the tours there, thank you. So after that,
Speaker 3: it was a US military fort in prison during the
Speaker 3: Civil War, that's where they put Confederate sympathizers. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then it was a maximum security federal prison in nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty four. That's when they kicked that off totally. And
Speaker 3: it was like the most dangerous dude wanted the bad
Speaker 3: boy Club. It was known for like super strict discipline,
Speaker 3: harsh conditions, near impossible to escape because of like those cold,
Speaker 3: treacherous waters. During the time that it was a federal prison,
Speaker 3: there were fourteen escape attempts, thirty six men Alcatraz. Yes,
Speaker 3: some say there were no successful attempts.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what they say.
Speaker 3: Others like me begged to differ. We'll get to that
Speaker 3: in a second. Due to high maintenance costs Alcatraz, they
Speaker 3: closed it in nineteen sixty three. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 3: Native American activists, led by Richard Oaks, they occupied Alcatraz
Speaker 3: for nineteen months.
Speaker 2: My friend's father was involved in that exactly, So shout
Speaker 2: out Victoria, Hello.
Speaker 3: And they wanted the land return to Indigenous people. It
Speaker 3: gained national attention, influenced Native American rights policies. In nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two, the island became part of the Golden Gate
Speaker 3: National Recreation Area. Now it's a big tourist attraction. So
Speaker 3: here's a fun fact for this virtual tour. Alcatraz had
Speaker 3: hot showers, yes, and that was to prevent the prisoners
Speaker 3: from getting used to cold water, which would make it
Speaker 3: less likely to escape.
Speaker 2: Oh, they didn't want them to like basically, you know,
Speaker 2: make their body be not bothered by cold because that's
Speaker 2: what I would totally do that totally.
Speaker 3: So instead you have to take a hot shower, craze
Speaker 3: just hot water coming out of them showers. Isn't that nuts?
Speaker 3: You can't temping yourself up? So Alcatraz is like a
Speaker 3: mile and a half from the nearest point of land,
Speaker 3: which is Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, OK. A mile
Speaker 3: and a half in the prison used and developed this
Speaker 3: armorer system for surveilling the interior and the San Francisco
Speaker 3: Chronicle writer Jay Campbell Bruce he wrote this book in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty three, Escape from Alcatraz quote. The armorer, in
Speaker 3: his vault, sealed in the inner side, accessible only from
Speaker 3: outside the prison, enjoys virtual omniscience about what is going
Speaker 3: on in the cell blocks. Microphones hidden about the prison
Speaker 3: relay sounds to him day and night. If a phone
Speaker 3: is off a hook for more than fifteen seconds, a
Speaker 3: bulb lights up on his board and he dispatches an
Speaker 3: officer to investigate. He receives, for the record, twelve official
Speaker 3: counts a day of the inmate population. There are some
Speaker 3: thirty additional special counts, and if a count reveals a
Speaker 3: prisoner missing, he radios the Coastguard and the San Francisco Police.
Speaker 3: In the event of a riot, he hits the siren
Speaker 3: button to summon off duty personnel and distributes weapons from
Speaker 3: an arsenal in his vault. Rifles, pistols, submachine guns, gas grenades, ammunition.
Speaker 3: So there's like the one guy who's the brain of
Speaker 3: it all. So we had these guys who tried to
Speaker 3: escape fourteen attempts thirty six dude.
Speaker 2: So they're basically going up against this mastermind.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, he's just like in the like control tower.
Speaker 3: He can do and see everything. Interesting, most of the
Speaker 3: people who tried to scoot out, most of those guys
Speaker 3: were either recaptured, shot or killed or you know, they
Speaker 3: gave up.
Speaker 2: Oh really Yeah.
Speaker 3: So one of the ones who was recaptured was John
Speaker 3: Giles on July thirty first, nineteen forty five. His job
Speaker 3: was on the loading dock at the prison. He had
Speaker 3: a little job. He went down there though, dressed as
Speaker 3: a US Army Tech sergeant and he got on an
Speaker 3: army boat that was headed back to the mainlan. So
Speaker 3: he had spent the past couple of years working on
Speaker 3: the doc putting together a sergeant's uniform. By like when
Speaker 3: laundry would come in from this nearby naval base, I'm
Speaker 3: thinking Treasure Islander. It was sent to Alcatraz to be clean.
Speaker 3: He would just take little bits out, one by one,
Speaker 3: like the Johnny Cash song, and one piece of time
Speaker 3: made himself a whole uniform. He made fake dog tags,
Speaker 3: and he forged a shore pass. And so he gets
Speaker 3: down there in his little fake uniform, gets on the
Speaker 3: boat like, oh, you know, just getting out of here.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. Officers on the boat quickly noticed they
Speaker 3: had too many officers count yeah, and at the prison
Speaker 3: the guards were like, we don't have enough prisoners. So
Speaker 3: then there's the uniform, right Like, everyone's looking at him
Speaker 3: because the uniform doesn't really match up. It's not and
Speaker 3: he's got this janky shore pass, it's like wrinkled. So
Speaker 3: within twenty minutes the warden has chased him down in
Speaker 3: a speedboat and they pull made his boat pull off
Speaker 3: an Angel island. He's like, pull over over to the
Speaker 3: island island, We're not going on a horse stop. And
Speaker 3: then they sent him back to Alcatraz, and for that
Speaker 3: he got an additional five years on his ticket. So
Speaker 3: two cats who did make it off the island were
Speaker 3: Theodore Coal and Ralph Rowe. In nineteen thirty seven, Theodore Cole,
Speaker 3: who was twenty three years old, he was serving fifty
Speaker 3: years for kidnapping. When he was seventeen. He'd actually been
Speaker 3: sentenced to death for participation in an armed robbery of
Speaker 3: a doctor pepper bottling plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Did he kills someone?
Speaker 3: I don't know so, but all like these women's clubs,
Speaker 3: his own mother. They protested the sentencing, and the state
Speaker 3: Court of Appeals later reduced the term to fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow.
Speaker 3: So nineteen thirty four he was in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Speaker 3: He escaped in a laundry bag in a laundry truck.
Speaker 3: Then he hitchhiked, kidnapped a driver, hitchhiked, and forced him
Speaker 3: to drive him to Illinois. In early nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 3: he gets arrested in Texas, sent back to Oklahoma. Tries
Speaker 3: to escape a few more times, once by hiding in
Speaker 3: a garbage can. Another time he sawed off his cell bars.
Speaker 3: It was like every trope. May thirty five, he pleaded
Speaker 3: guilty to kidnapping charges. Sent to Alcatraz, and that's where
Speaker 3: you're supposed to do his fifty years. When he arrived,
Speaker 3: he apparently said, quote, don't think I'll like it here.
Speaker 3: Doubt I'll stay long. Oh, oh okay, Yeah. Ralph Rowe,
Speaker 3: he's twenty nine in nineteen thirty seven and he was
Speaker 3: at Alcatraz serving ninety nine years for bank robbery years.
Speaker 3: He had a long rap sheet, he had all these
Speaker 3: crazy robbery charges. He escaped from one prison by hiding
Speaker 3: in a crate that was leaving on a truck.
Speaker 2: Classic.
Speaker 3: So he and Cole they arrive at Alcatraz around the
Speaker 3: same time. And when they're there, other inmates included a
Speaker 3: notorious bank robber Harvey Bailey and Alcopol as well as
Speaker 3: George machine Gun Kelly and Albert Bates. And those two
Speaker 3: were there because they kidnapped oil tycoon and millionaire Charles
Speaker 3: Erschall remember Ershall, stepfather of cryptozoologist Tom Slick, He of
Speaker 3: the Jimmy Stewart Yetihans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a bunch of stories of that one.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So Cole and Roe they both worked in
Speaker 3: a model industries building in Alcatraz and that was on
Speaker 3: the northwest Ish end of it facing the Golden Gate Bridge.
Speaker 2: That's what gorgeous views.
Speaker 3: So Cole he was a janitor in the blacksmith part
Speaker 3: of it, and Roe he worked in the mat shop.
Speaker 3: And the mat shop is where car tires were like shredded,
Speaker 3: like torn up to make mats for the navy. That's
Speaker 3: the name the mat shop.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, car tires turned into matts.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. So over like you know, maybe like a
Speaker 3: month or so, the two men, you know, they started
Speaker 3: like filing through a couple of the bars on the
Speaker 3: mat shop window, and they covered up their progress using
Speaker 3: shoe polish and like grease paint, scraps and putty. They
Speaker 3: just have all these little, you know, tools around them.
Speaker 3: February sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven, Cole and Roe finally made
Speaker 3: their move. So there was like really thick fog that day,
Speaker 3: so thick in fact that in the morning the inmates
Speaker 3: were told, you have to stay in your cells. FOG's
Speaker 3: too thick, we can't see you, yeah, by a fog warning,
Speaker 3: fog warning. So by noon the fog had lifted some.
Speaker 3: And this is not unusual.
Speaker 2: A lockdown is crazy, though, well crazy, and the fog
Speaker 2: is not unusual. But to be a lockdown, it's like
Speaker 2: a snow day, but in prison it's a fog exactly.
Speaker 3: So lifts at noon and they're like, okay, you guys
Speaker 3: can go to your work site. So one o'clock, the
Speaker 3: prison guard did his rounds of the mat. There's row
Speaker 3: and coal working away. By the time he came back
Speaker 3: around at one point thirty, no row and coal. No
Speaker 3: one's working. So they had broken through the bars, removed
Speaker 3: three panes of glass. They slipped out of a hole
Speaker 3: that was eight and three quarters inches by eighteen inches wide. Whoa, yeah,
Speaker 3: they were going lothered. Yeah. They used a wrench that
Speaker 3: they took from the machine shop to open a wire fence,
Speaker 3: and then that led them to this like twenty foot
Speaker 3: cliff over the water, and then they kind of like
Speaker 3: scrabbled down the side of it. Those are jagged, very
Speaker 3: jagged in the Yeah, it's almost straight up and down.
Speaker 3: They go down all these steep rocks to the shore,
Speaker 3: and the fog is still thick, and so the guards
Speaker 3: in the watch towers couldn't see them as they got
Speaker 3: into the water. And according to the news, the fog
Speaker 3: was the fog was sick.
Speaker 2: How thick was it?
Speaker 3: Well, the guards could not even see the Coastguard boards
Speaker 3: that were approaching to within a few year yards of
Speaker 3: the island in response to calls by radio, So they
Speaker 3: call for the coast Guard. The Coastguards like we're here.
Speaker 3: They're like, I don't see you.
Speaker 2: Honk, I don't see you are outside.
Speaker 3: So later officials they figured that Cole and Roe had
Speaker 3: waited for a foggy day, of course, to both hide
Speaker 3: them from the guards and also because there would be
Speaker 3: fewer ferries in everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of shows down the waterless traffic.
Speaker 3: So by the time the time that they escaped, too,
Speaker 3: they also did it at high tide, so it would
Speaker 3: be easier to die, like less to go distance.
Speaker 2: To get to the water less of the drop.
Speaker 3: The problem was that on that particular day, the tidal
Speaker 3: currents were super strong, eight miles an out.
Speaker 2: You don't realize how fast those currents are.
Speaker 3: Like even a strong swimmer would have been pushed out
Speaker 3: through the Golden Gate.
Speaker 2: To show up on the other side of the Golden
Speaker 2: like the Pacific side.
Speaker 3: Doesn't matter though they're escape kicked off. According to the
Speaker 3: New York Times at the time, quote the most intensive
Speaker 3: manhunt in recent California history. Yeah, so, six Coast Guard boats,
Speaker 3: one SFPD boat. They patrolled the coast of Alcatraz Island
Speaker 3: and the Bay. Sixteen police cars drove up and down
Speaker 3: the waterfront. The team searched Alcatraz Islands, surrounding Rocks, San Francisco,
Speaker 3: four nearby counties, nothing They came up empty. On the
Speaker 3: same day, two revolvers and two rifles, as well as
Speaker 3: six hundred rounds of ammunition, were stolen from a forty
Speaker 3: foot sailboat called the Jenny G. Moore at the Saint
Speaker 3: Francis Yacht Harbor in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: I was wondering which harbor they would land, So there was.
Speaker 3: Much debate as to whether this was connected to the
Speaker 3: escape you know, Saint Francis Yacht Club Tony and I
Speaker 3: love so I love the idea of the guys swimming
Speaker 3: up and like hopping into a small sailboat as they
Speaker 3: call it in the news reports. This small sailboat, it's
Speaker 3: a forty foot you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 3: So they pop in and they find chalk full of
Speaker 3: guns and ammo. Like that's crazy anyway, So when when
Speaker 3: they there were other news reports of like people getting
Speaker 3: lost in the fog while they were duck hunting and
Speaker 3: like coming in from the fog and Alameda and the
Speaker 3: police thought it was the escape convicts and held them
Speaker 3: at Tommy Guns until they Tommy, Yeah, what I'm trying
Speaker 3: to say, Zarin, is the fog was thick.
Speaker 2: Carl had he was on one that day.
Speaker 3: We get thick fog here in the bay, but nothing
Speaker 3: like I have ever experienced in Davis.
Speaker 2: To fog. Yes, they named the fog in San Francisco, Carl.
Speaker 2: They don't even name it in Davis because an animates. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: That is the thickest fog ever. It's unreal anyway, so
Speaker 3: low and.
Speaker 2: So thick you can't see your hand. You literally can't
Speaker 2: put your hand out and cannot see it. It causes
Speaker 2: all these car accidents every year.
Speaker 3: It's fantastic. Yeah, so let's take a break. When we
Speaker 3: come back, we're going to catch up with these escape convicts.
Speaker 3: I'm over here in the fog.
Speaker 2: I was hitting myself in the face, going, who's hitting you?
Speaker 3: Theodore call Ralph Row. They skidaddled out of Alcatraz into
Speaker 3: the drink in the heavy fog, the foggy do On
Speaker 3: the first day of searching prison Warden was like, you
Speaker 3: know what, I think they drowned. You know, he just
Speaker 3: looked out the water. He's like, yeah, them boys is going.
Speaker 3: But then like a few days later, no bodies have
Speaker 3: turned up. He's like, you know what, I'd take it back.
Speaker 3: I think that someone picked him up in a boat
Speaker 3: and yeah, and others are like, you know what, we
Speaker 3: got all these old car tires. I think they use
Speaker 3: those as flotation devices. Okay, I mean apparently they were
Speaker 3: like littering the side of the island. So whatever, that's
Speaker 3: not smart environmentally or escape early. So no one could
Speaker 3: speak to their swimming skills. But a sheriff from Oklahoma City,
Speaker 3: who you know, he knew who Cole was. He said, quote,
Speaker 3: he was lack a greased pig, and I wouldn't be
Speaker 3: surprised at anything he could do that mouth. So to
Speaker 3: prove that swimming from Alcatraz to shore was actually possible,
Speaker 3: the San Francisco Examiner had a teenage girl swim around
Speaker 3: the island and back to the mainland. I mean people
Speaker 3: do it in like triathlons always do ye, but they
Speaker 3: they picked their times right. The Examiner was having a
Speaker 3: field day with this, by the way, like full page
Speaker 3: spreads articles that looked at every possible angle of the.
Speaker 2: Storywings and maps.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. So they had like the histories of
Speaker 3: these guys, the weather, like currents, stories about the various searchs,
Speaker 3: like you said, maps, fantastic stuff. They don't do that
Speaker 3: like they used to know.
Speaker 2: They did not know when they're trying to sell papers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and it was so informative. It's just fascinating stuff. Okay.
Speaker 3: December seventeenth, a journalist reaches out to Cole's parents. They
Speaker 3: had moved from Oklahoma to Visalia, California, to be closer
Speaker 3: to Alcatraz after he got sent there. I mean it's
Speaker 3: like two hundred miles from the Bay Area, but that's
Speaker 3: closer than Oklahoma, and.
Speaker 2: It's not that could afford. It's nice.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of Oakies.
Speaker 2: Just by saying south of Frans I bet they were farming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, agg country. Well, they had a ranch, they got
Speaker 3: a ranch. It's also gateway to Sequoia National Park.
Speaker 2: Beautiful sun there's that come visit.
Speaker 3: Back to the journalists visiting Cole's family, he let them
Speaker 3: know that Theodore had escaped, and they're like, Theodore Cole
Speaker 3: kind of looked like Jack White by the way, White
Speaker 3: stripes Jack. Yeah. So when you do the screenplay for this,
Speaker 3: see if you can get him tied to the product.
Speaker 2: Dude, you know, he's one of my favorite people on
Speaker 2: the planet.
Speaker 3: Likewise, Okay, so the journalist he tells the mom like CEO,
Speaker 3: escape the Rock, didn't know that, And the mom's like, no,
Speaker 3: I know he's dead. I know he's dead. That's her quote.
Speaker 3: I know he's dead. But then later when the authorities
Speaker 3: were like, oh, we don't think he's dead, actually, she
Speaker 3: said quote, it would be better I guess if he
Speaker 3: were dead. But he's not prepared.
Speaker 2: Wow wow thanks mo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his stepfathers just said quote, we'll all be damned.
Speaker 3: That was his were and they were like deeply, deeply religious.
Speaker 3: The reason they didn't know about it. They didn't read
Speaker 3: daily papers, they didn't have a radio.
Speaker 2: They didn't have a radio. They weren't listening to your
Speaker 2: girl Amy, simple.
Speaker 3: No, sadly no. So they promised the press that they
Speaker 3: were going to turn their son over to authorities if
Speaker 3: he came to the ranch. Oh like wank wank. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There were various unconfirmed but reported sightings, like all around Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: In nineteen thirty eight, a taxi driver said that he
Speaker 3: got shot by Cole who was trying to rob his car.
Speaker 3: Two hitchhikers said they got a ride from a man
Speaker 3: they were positive was Ralph Roe. In nineteen forty one,
Speaker 3: the San Francisco Chronicle reported the two guys were living
Speaker 3: in Peru and Chile, I don't know, simultaneously different like
Speaker 3: at whatever, and had quote plenty of money.
Speaker 2: They're kind of like a Butcher Sun Dance move from
Speaker 2: South America.
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty eight, the FBI looked into a report that
Speaker 3: Cole and Roe were playing the banjo and guitar in
Speaker 3: a bar and New Jersey. That that's amazing is the
Speaker 3: story that I want to be true. Like, think about
Speaker 3: that for a second. So you have two Alcatraz buddies
Speaker 3: who defied the law and nature to escape the rock
Speaker 3: and his aid capture, only to take up musical instruments
Speaker 3: and start new lives playing at a bar in New
Speaker 3: Jersey banjo and guitar. That's delicious. Wait, that's a perfect
Speaker 3: scene for your movie. You got Jack White just destroying
Speaker 3: it on the guitar eighteen fifty eight. I don't know
Speaker 3: who would play Ralph Rowe. Let me let me show
Speaker 3: you their mugshots and then you can you can tell me.
Speaker 3: Scroll down here, okay, so on your left is coal.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and then oh yikes, yeah it is some
Speaker 2: real criminals, criminals people back. He does look like Jack
Speaker 2: White never had a hot meal?
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. So, yeah, those are bad boys of rock
Speaker 3: and roll. And like, yeah, why do you like?
Speaker 2: Was it the photographs? The food, like the lead and
Speaker 2: the milk? Like, what the hell is all of the above?
Speaker 3: All of the above? Okay, So they're in nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 3: they're playing in this bar. You got to figure out
Speaker 3: who you're going to cast as Ralph row anyway, nineteen.
Speaker 2: Four, that's a tough challenge.
Speaker 3: Seventy four, thirty seven years after they liked it, the
Speaker 3: active investigation was stopped.
Speaker 2: Oh there, I thought it's gonna be like they were, like,
Speaker 2: you know, Roadies were the dead, Like they was spotted
Speaker 2: in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: They were officially listed as missing and presumed dead.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I think.
Speaker 3: Like successful escape or not, those two are long gone,
Speaker 3: Like right now, they'd be in their one hundred teens
Speaker 3: or like one hundred twenties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're out there with the Elvis sightings. It's now
Speaker 2: like you're dead, bro. Exactly. So do you think they
Speaker 2: made it out or not?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: You don't think they become sharp?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 2: Honestly, do you think.
Speaker 3: They made if the current was that strong, And I
Speaker 3: don't think they outside of the gate, you wouldn't ever
Speaker 3: find their bodies.
Speaker 2: You would never see anything again. No, so nothing.
Speaker 3: I don't think they did it. And I like, you know,
Speaker 3: you have to be a really strong swimmer, and they
Speaker 3: hadn't been.
Speaker 2: Haven't practicing at all, They haven't been in the water.
Speaker 2: And also you cramp up and like you can't make
Speaker 2: your body work anymore. It's freezing cold.
Speaker 3: They gets swimmers here.
Speaker 2: There's that as well.
Speaker 3: So hard so Alcatraz the rock. Those dudes made a
Speaker 3: break for it. Pretty ridiculous. But I have one that's
Speaker 3: even better. This is the best Alcatraz escape ever.
Speaker 2: Do they butter themselves before they hit the water?
Speaker 3: They're made of butter, Because.
Speaker 2: I'd be covered completely large, I'd be covered in large.
Speaker 3: I'd i'd be ordering from the commissary like vats of vassel.
Speaker 2: Totally, I mean, like various oils and oneons wetsuits.
Speaker 3: So this one happened in nineteen sixty two. It involved
Speaker 3: three guys, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: so Frank Morris arrived at Alcatraz January nineteen sixty and,
Speaker 3: according to alcatrazistory dot com please quote, by the time
Speaker 3: he reached his later teens, Morris's criminal record would include
Speaker 3: a multitude of crimes ranging from narcotics possession to armed robbery,
Speaker 3: and he had become a professional inhabitant of the correctional system.
Speaker 3: He spent his formative years in a boys training school,
Speaker 3: and then he graduated to a series of even larger penitentiaries.
Speaker 3: So he allegedly had an IQ of one thirty five,
Speaker 3: which is considered above average or quote moderately gifted. Okay,
Speaker 3: so good for him. I'm sad that he missed out
Speaker 3: on being in the gifted and Talented program as a kid.
Speaker 2: This is why I see people talk about, Oh, there
Speaker 2: are one thirty on the I know. I see that
Speaker 2: online and I'm like, who.
Speaker 3: Cares, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, that's coming around. Okay, that's the number.
Speaker 3: Sure you can go a lot higher than that. Oh
Speaker 3: I know, honey, lower too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I've been tested.
Speaker 3: So nineteen fifty five, Morris was serving a ten year
Speaker 3: sentence for robbery and marijuana possession. When he was he
Speaker 3: was in Louisiana State Prison in Angola.
Speaker 2: See, and they say standards don't have ambition.
Speaker 3: He escaped while he was out in the fields, cut
Speaker 3: in sugarcane.
Speaker 2: Oh that's like something out of the exactly that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So about six months later around Thanksgiving time.
Speaker 2: Field outside of Anglia. I mean I can just hear
Speaker 2: and feel the heat.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad he escaped.
Speaker 2: Oh kind of snakes.
Speaker 3: And so he's out right, he's on the lamb. He
Speaker 3: gets he's part of a team that robbed a bank
Speaker 3: by boring a hole through a wall and burning open
Speaker 3: two vaults. They got six one hundred and sixty five
Speaker 3: dollars in coins, but that's like seventy three thousand dollars today.
Speaker 3: Yeahs all coins. They're just like doing a burden a
Speaker 3: lot of laundry. So he needs to make a phone
Speaker 3: call a cup of coffee. So they're caught a few
Speaker 3: months later. He got sentenced to fourteen years and you know,
Speaker 3: sent to the rock. Then we have the brothers Anglin,
Speaker 3: John and Clarence. They had also been in and out
Speaker 3: of prison for bank robbery. Clarence had escaped before and
Speaker 3: by nineteen sixty both of them were back in Levenworth.
Speaker 3: August of nineteen sixty, while in Levenworth, they again tried
Speaker 3: to escape. According to that book, Escape from Alcatraz, Clarence
Speaker 3: quote cut the top off a big bread box and
Speaker 3: the bottom out of another. John sat in won and
Speaker 3: Clarence set the other on top, then packed in loaves
Speaker 3: of bread. A truck was ready to haul John and
Speaker 3: the other boxes out to a prison farm camp when
Speaker 3: a supervisor, apparently wondering why the helpers had struggled to
Speaker 3: hoist that particular double box into the vehicle, grew suspicious.
Speaker 3: He pulled out a few loaves and discovered John inside
Speaker 3: with an iron barn and knife. Just hide in the bread.
Speaker 2: I'm like a ten year old. I'm out of here totally.
Speaker 3: That's another thing that's like out of o brother. Anyway, John,
Speaker 3: he gets sent to Alcatraz. Clarence shows up there a
Speaker 3: few months later. They were signed to adjacent cells, which
Speaker 3: does not seem like the wisest choice. I'd separate those two,
Speaker 3: I guess, and what would wind up being another bad
Speaker 3: choice as they were right by Frank Morris, our gifted criminal.
Speaker 3: So you know, when I was in the gifted program,
Speaker 3: it wasn't all math geniuses and science kids.
Speaker 2: Future spies.
Speaker 3: No, all of us were. Almost all of us were
Speaker 3: like weird creatives writing and this is unassigned. Mind you.
Speaker 3: Radio shows with vaudevillian musical numbers about leaking diapers, yes,
Speaker 3: or one woman shows about Joan of arc orse gits
Speaker 3: about the emotional toll of the moon landing. You can
Speaker 3: guess which one was mine, and it was only one
Speaker 3: of them anyway. So the brother's angling Alcatraz had been
Speaker 3: super hardcore for a long time. Like I said, you know,
Speaker 3: you got that guy in the box like controlling everything,
Speaker 3: but like this is nearing the end of its bid,
Speaker 3: you know. And so by this time a lot of
Speaker 3: the stricter stuff had loosened up. Okay, So now after
Speaker 3: dinner the men had like four hours of free time
Speaker 3: in their cells before they had to go to bed.
Speaker 3: So from five thirty to nine thirty after dinner they
Speaker 3: could just chill out. Coolah. There was a utility core open.
Speaker 2: Door cells that they can somebody.
Speaker 3: No, I think they're closed up, I believe.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's this utility corridor that ran behind their
Speaker 3: group of cells. The Anglands and Morris. Around December of
Speaker 3: nineteen six, Morris decides, I've got to come up with
Speaker 3: an escape plan, so he made a tool. He welded
Speaker 3: the handle of a spoon with the file from his
Speaker 3: nail clippers, and then he used that to slowly chip
Speaker 3: away at the concrete around the bars of his cells
Speaker 3: air vent. And like he figured, the wall was like
Speaker 3: eight inches thick and the air vent was only six
Speaker 3: inches by ten inches, so he couldn't squeeze through it.
Speaker 3: But he's pretty sure that if he got it up
Speaker 3: to like ten inches by fourteen, you know, he could
Speaker 3: make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It so he got to work like he needed help
Speaker 3: with the project, though this is not a one man effort.
Speaker 3: He also needed people to warn him if the.
Speaker 2: Guards were watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he rolled up to his neighbors, the Anglans,
Speaker 3: but also Alan West. West was born in Brooklyn and
Speaker 3: he played the accordion and was in Alcatraz. And I
Speaker 3: think that's all we need to know about him. It
Speaker 3: tells the whole story as far as I'm concerned, Brooklyn, Accordion, Alcatraz.
Speaker 2: I don't know Adion.
Speaker 3: Probably I don't know what he was in for, but
Speaker 3: I love him. They had to figure unless it was
Speaker 3: something horrific, and then I don't love him. They had
Speaker 3: to figure out a way to hide their work, and
Speaker 3: that's when like Morris went into gifted kid mode. So
Speaker 3: he decided they could hide their work on the vents
Speaker 3: using painted paper mache.
Speaker 2: That was gonna be an accordian concert.
Speaker 3: I'm like to just wait. So they began cutting ad
Speaker 3: pages out of magazines, and like one of the Anglin brothers,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden was like, I feel an artistic
Speaker 3: urge coming on. I need art supplies. So he orders
Speaker 3: tubes of paint from the purchasing officer. I think I'm
Speaker 3: going to get into painting. Morris ordered himself an accordion
Speaker 3: like his pal West, not for like a dueling accordion session,
Speaker 3: but because he realized that the case would perfectly cover
Speaker 3: the air vent well.
Speaker 2: So he just puts it there and he's like, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So the men they made these like thick
Speaker 3: sheets of cardboard out of paper mache, painted it to
Speaker 3: look like it had the vent over it. They also
Speaker 3: started collecting the concrete that they chipped from the wall.
Speaker 3: One of the Anglin brothers he worked in the brush shop,
Speaker 3: and then he started collecting the bristles because it looked
Speaker 3: like hair and then they used real human hair gathered
Speaker 3: from the barber shop Zarin. They were channeling Willie Sutton.
Speaker 3: They made dummies of themselves. Yeah. So by May of
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty two, the men had successfully removed the air vents.
Speaker 3: Morris and Clarence, who had finished first, they start building
Speaker 3: their dummy busts. And they made plaster from the chipped
Speaker 3: concrete that they'd collected, and soap and like white glue
Speaker 3: that they stole from the brush shop. Then they painted
Speaker 3: the plaster to make it look more life like. They
Speaker 3: added eyebrows, eyelashes, hair, John and Clarence, the brothers named
Speaker 3: their dummy heads Oink and Oscar. Yeah. To test everything out,
Speaker 3: Frank Morris and Clarence they put their dummy heads in
Speaker 3: their bed and filled the rest of the quote body
Speaker 3: with like pillow jacket.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then they climbed into the corridor behind the vent. Morris
Speaker 3: used a string tied to the handle of the accordion
Speaker 3: case to pull it back and cover the hole. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So the two men they made their way up. They're
Speaker 3: climbing this utility pole to the top of the cell block.
Speaker 3: And when they were up there, they found this concealed
Speaker 3: space that they could use as a storage area. As
Speaker 3: their plan progressed, so they started collecting rain jackets so
Speaker 3: that they could build life jackets and a raft out.
Speaker 2: Oh smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And according to the FBI quote, the seams carefully
Speaker 3: stitched together and vulcanized by the hot steam pipes in
Speaker 3: the prison. The idea came from magazines that were found
Speaker 3: in the prisoner's cells.
Speaker 2: So they're basically rubberizing the jackets. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Morris he built two oars out of some plywood
Speaker 3: that he had like lifted from the shop. Then they
Speaker 3: were like, okay, we've done all this, how do we
Speaker 3: get into the roof? And you know, easy enough. There's
Speaker 3: this rain cap on the shaft with cross bars. So
Speaker 3: with a piece of pipe that they found in the corridor,
Speaker 3: they were able to bend some of the bars, but
Speaker 3: they couldn't remove the rivets. So Morris he stole a
Speaker 3: fan from the music room, like hiding it in his
Speaker 3: accordion case. He goes in with an empty accordion case.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to go practice. Just let me get
Speaker 3: into a choir room.
Speaker 2: Give me a quick mind.
Speaker 3: She shoves a fan in there. He tried to build
Speaker 3: a drill with the motor from the fan, but it
Speaker 3: wasn't powered. Yeah, so, but he was able to get
Speaker 3: some carborundum string from the machine shop because his friend
Speaker 3: worked in there. It's what that is is it's a
Speaker 3: quote a cord impregnated with an abrasive such as raw
Speaker 3: greens of silicon carbide, aluminum oxide or diamond powder and
Speaker 3: used for intricate repairs such as fine grooving on the
Speaker 3: sewing machines in the glove and tailor.
Speaker 2: Shops, basically like diamond floss.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so that did the trick, and then they
Speaker 3: use that in some banjo string, probably borrowed from al
Speaker 3: Capone's dead body. Dorris and Clarence they were able to
Speaker 3: get through the rivets, so they made fake rivets out
Speaker 3: of soap and place those on the vent just in
Speaker 3: case someone came by to inspect it. So this whole
Speaker 3: process of THEIRS takes six months.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, like shaping rivet heads and.
Speaker 3: Out of soap and then painting it. So by this
Speaker 3: time it's early June nineteen sixty two, the Anglan brothers,
Speaker 3: they're ready to leave Morris. He he wants to spend
Speaker 3: more time learning about Angel Island, which something about.
Speaker 2: Sixty two San Francisco, like they're about to show up
Speaker 2: in the craziest San Francisco.
Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, Yeah, he wants to learn about Angel Island.
Speaker 3: It's like a mile and a half away, and the
Speaker 3: channel between it and Marin.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Going, He's like, we're not going into the city, We're
Speaker 3: going to Marin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the Admiral's Club harbor there right by the
Speaker 2: where the Golden Gate touches. On the other side, there's
Speaker 2: like an inlet harbor you can you can shelter and
Speaker 2: then you can totally get to before even knew you
Speaker 2: were there. Yeah. So, and there's an in and out
Speaker 2: burger right right right there.
Speaker 3: So they agreed to leave in like ten days. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the guards had been inspecting cells recently, and West he
Speaker 3: gets nervous, not just because he plays the accordion, but
Speaker 3: because his paper mache great was like a little wobbly.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that great. So he filled in most of
Speaker 3: his hole with cement that he'd found left in the corridor,
Speaker 3: because like there had been plumbers working in there recently,
Speaker 3: so it's not even like, oh, no one ever goes
Speaker 3: back there. And so then he stuck the paper machee.
Speaker 3: On top of that, he didn't want to get.
Speaker 2: Caught and the other guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the whole thing would tank. So let's pause here.
Speaker 3: It is West is a good dude, unless he wasn't
Speaker 3: a good dude, and in which case he's not. We
Speaker 3: don't like him. Yeah, when we get back, we're going
Speaker 3: to catch up with this crafty crew, zaren. Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: So we have Frank Morris, gifted Felon and the brother's Anglin,
Speaker 3: John and Clarence and then Alan West Brooklyn Accordion man
Speaker 3: on the spot. They're making a plan to escape, right,
Speaker 3: and it's the artsiest, craftiest plan I've ever heard totally.
Speaker 3: So remember they had everything in place and then they
Speaker 3: decided that they'd put the plan in action in ten
Speaker 3: days and a few nights after they made that decision,
Speaker 3: on Monday, June eleventh, nineteen sixty two, the Anglins jumped
Speaker 3: the gun. They announced that they wanted to leave that night.
Speaker 3: So Morris, I don't know, Morris, he was both gifted
Speaker 3: and bullied. Those go hand in hand. He had no
Speaker 3: choice but to comply. He's like, all right, fine, fine,
Speaker 3: we'll go now. As soon as the nine thirty bed
Speaker 3: check was completed. The men they set up their dummy
Speaker 3: heads and broke out of their cells for the last time.
Speaker 3: Zaren closed your eyes. Oh yeah, I want you to
Speaker 3: picture it. Yes, you are a jail bird, a convict.
Speaker 3: You're in Alcatraz serving a ten year sentence for public indecency,
Speaker 3: practicing both law and medicine without a license, perjury, and
Speaker 3: a marijuana possession with intent to sell. It's the scale.
Speaker 3: Is there in the scale? Did you in on that one?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Anyway, you're nine years into your dime. The finish line
Speaker 3: is within view. You just want to get out and
Speaker 3: try to do things right this time. You've learned some
Speaker 3: trades here, You've got a line on some work. You
Speaker 3: just want to earn an honest book, find a nice girl,
Speaker 3: and settle down and smoke a lot of weed. That's
Speaker 3: all you want. It's Monday, June eleventh, nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 3: nine to thirty pm. The guards have just finished their
Speaker 3: bed checks. You're on your cot reading to Kill a
Speaker 3: Mockingbird by the dimming light from a long summer night.
Speaker 3: It came out a couple of years ago. People donate
Speaker 3: books to the prison library, and you snag this one.
Speaker 3: You've checked it out a number of times, and this
Speaker 3: is your fifth read of it. You're almost done with it.
Speaker 3: You're in good with the librarian, and he has a
Speaker 3: book called Dharma Bums set aside for you. Sound good.
Speaker 3: You can hear the footsteps of the guard tap down
Speaker 3: along the long corridor, getting fainter and fainter until he's gone.
Speaker 3: Then it's nothing but the sound of the light wind
Speaker 3: and the waves. In the cell across from you is
Speaker 3: a guy named Alan West. He and a dude called
Speaker 3: Morris and the Anglan brothers are working on an escape plan.
Speaker 3: You think it's stupid. I mean, they say you can't
Speaker 3: survive an escape attempt here. Sure those fellas tried in
Speaker 3: thirty seven, and you're pretty sure though they didn't make
Speaker 3: it out of the water, same will go for this crew.
Speaker 3: In your mind, plus, you are so close to getting
Speaker 3: out it would be foolish to risk it all right now,
Speaker 3: So instead you flip the page on your paperback and
Speaker 3: continue your reading. But they're starting to make a little racket.
Speaker 3: You get up and you look over at their row
Speaker 3: of cells. Each of them are taking down their little
Speaker 3: art projects, revealing the holes where they've been scraping. You
Speaker 3: can't believe the guards haven't caught on, But you're no snitch.
Speaker 3: More power to the these goofs if they can pull
Speaker 3: it off. You see that Wes is having trouble getting
Speaker 3: through his cement. He was worried the hole would be
Speaker 3: discovered and shoved a bunch of stuff in there. But
Speaker 3: the air here is wet and the dry bits in
Speaker 3: there have hardened into a tough clump. He pulls and
Speaker 3: scratches at the cement as you look over and see
Speaker 3: the feet of Morris and the Anglans disappear into the
Speaker 3: holes in the walls of their cells. West is frantic,
Speaker 3: but then he realizes it's too late. He won't make it.
Speaker 3: You see Morris's face pop back out through the wall.
Speaker 3: He whispers to West, asking him what's the hold up.
Speaker 3: West whispers back that he can't get through go on
Speaker 3: without him. Without a word, Morris disappears back into the wall.
Speaker 3: Wes sits down and sighs. He pushes his accordion with
Speaker 3: his foot and lets out a discordant wine. Then it's
Speaker 3: just the sound of the wind and the water. An
Speaker 3: occasional cough. You flip the page of your book you
Speaker 3: look down at the page and whisper aloud to West
Speaker 3: the line of text in front of you are always
Speaker 3: better in the morning. West looks up at you. You
Speaker 3: nodded him in the darkness. Close your book and rest
Speaker 3: your head on your pillow. Things are always better in
Speaker 3: the morning. So Morris and the brothers Anglin they bust
Speaker 3: through the rain cap on the roof. They had their
Speaker 3: makeshift life vest and raft with them they'd stored in
Speaker 3: a little space. They found they had one of the oars,
Speaker 3: but they forgot to grab the other one. H Morris
Speaker 3: and the Anglin brothers they shimmeyed down a fifty foot
Speaker 3: pipe to the ground. They climbed a barb wire fence,
Speaker 3: and once down by the water, they placed some boards
Speaker 3: that they took from like leftover pallets in the life
Speaker 3: jacket raft to help stiffen it.
Speaker 2: Ah, there you go a frame.
Speaker 3: So how in the world were they going to inflate this? Things?
Speaker 2: Erin Oh, I didn't even think of them inflating at us.
Speaker 2: I was imagining, like they have made the raincoats really
Speaker 2: hard and rubberized, and they're just going to put wood
Speaker 2: in and it's going to like kind of just deplay displace.
Speaker 3: Those seams, right, And so luckily Morris had taken up
Speaker 3: the accordion and he packed that down with them too,
Speaker 3: and he used that to inflate.
Speaker 2: The rats, of course, brilliant.
Speaker 3: So the tide it was only moving at two point
Speaker 3: five miles an hour, which is better than the eight
Speaker 3: something of the nineteen thirty seven escape. So the water, though,
Speaker 3: is like between fifty and fifty four degrees. That's pretty
Speaker 3: standard for the bay. It'd be colder if it was
Speaker 3: in the winter.
Speaker 2: I'm just about to say that's actually not bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and June isn't true summer here. You know, you
Speaker 3: have to wait till like September October. Anyway, here's a
Speaker 3: development for you. West finally made it out of his cell.
Speaker 3: He didn't give up, so maybe you read him another
Speaker 3: quote from To Kill a Mockingbird. Real courage is when
Speaker 3: you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin
Speaker 3: anyway and see it through no matter what.
Speaker 2: That's damn right.
Speaker 3: So there's West up on the roof. He's liberated, but
Speaker 3: his pals are nowhere to be seen because they'd been
Speaker 3: out there around like ten o'clock or so. And now
Speaker 3: it's midnight.
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, he missed it.
Speaker 3: According to west Quote, their plan had been to use
Speaker 3: their raft to make their way to Angel Island. After resting,
Speaker 3: they would then re enter the bay on the opposite
Speaker 3: side of the island and swim through a waterway called
Speaker 3: Raccoon Straits. Then on into Marin they would steal car,
Speaker 3: burglarize a clothing store, and then venture out in their
Speaker 3: own separate directions.
Speaker 2: Not bad, you're right.
Speaker 3: Plan. There were reports of a car being stolen in
Speaker 3: Marin County by three men the night of the escape,
Speaker 3: and then later that same car was found run off
Speaker 3: the road in the Central Valley. But the FBI, the
Speaker 3: US Marshals, they looked into it and it didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 3: It was that next morning, Tuesday morning, June twelfth, at
Speaker 3: the seven to fifteen am bedcheck, that the guards discovered
Speaker 3: the escape. So this huge search on Alcatraz Island, Angel Island,
Speaker 3: all throughout the bay night, they had the whole night,
Speaker 3: You're right, like just ahead of them, and they're going
Speaker 3: like all over all the counties surrounding the bay. So
Speaker 3: on Wednesday and or like, the one they'd left behind
Speaker 3: was found two hundred yards off Alcatraz, and then on Thursday,
Speaker 3: a debris boat in the bay like searching for the debris,
Speaker 3: they found a small plastic bag made out of raincoats
Speaker 3: and inside and dry. It was like sixty photographs, a
Speaker 3: list of names and addresses, and a receipt for a
Speaker 3: ten dollars money order made out to Clarence Anglin and
Speaker 3: cashed by the Alcatraz mail clerk. So it wasn't immediately
Speaker 3: made public at the time, but there was a report
Speaker 3: that a raft and a paddle were recovered on Angel
Speaker 3: Island and there were footsteps leading away from him. So
Speaker 3: a few days after the escape, a reporter called the
Speaker 3: director of the Bureau of Prisons to check on progress,
Speaker 3: and the director told the reporter this, and somehow the
Speaker 3: Bureau of Prisons believed that this was proof that they
Speaker 3: had drowned. I would say it was the exact oppositely.
Speaker 3: I know, I'm a simple country Lawyer's there, I'm with you,
Speaker 3: what do I know? So June eighteenth, it's like a
Speaker 3: week out. The reporter filed an article with the information
Speaker 3: about the paddle and the footsteps, and then the FBI
Speaker 3: wrote quote a release such as appeared in the San
Speaker 3: Francisco Chronicle on June eighteenth, nineteen sixty two, makes it
Speaker 3: more difficult to conduct the investigation, since if in fact
Speaker 3: these prisoners successfully reached the mainland, they obviously would not
Speaker 3: contact the persons whose names were known to be in
Speaker 3: possession of investigative authorities.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, thanks, it's true, basically, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Friday, June fifteenth, according to the FBI report,
Speaker 3: a quote May West life jacket may West. Yeah, identified
Speaker 3: it as identical to those made by the escapees washed
Speaker 3: up on Cronkite Beach in Marine County. You have you
Speaker 3: heard that term a may West test? I hadn't either,
Speaker 3: so I looked it up on the Navy's Naval History
Speaker 3: and Heritage Command National Naval Aviation Museum website, and they
Speaker 3: had a picture of one with a description quote, this
Speaker 3: mark one life vest popularly known as a may West
Speaker 3: because when inflated, it gave the wearer a book some appearance.
Speaker 2: That's what I was imagining, Yeah, belonged.
Speaker 3: To Marine aviator Elden E. Ballard. He expressed pride in
Speaker 3: his service as a flying leatherneck, using his life vest
Speaker 3: as a canvas for drawing The SBD Dauntless dive bomber
Speaker 3: he flew, and the ubiquitous symbol of the Marine Corps
Speaker 3: a bulldog wearing a pilot's helmet. So it's one of
Speaker 3: those life vests with like a hole for your head,
Speaker 3: ties around the front. You blow it up, gives you
Speaker 3: gives you boobies later. And this particular one on the
Speaker 3: website had drawings on it like tattoo flash looking you
Speaker 3: know what else was on this website?
Speaker 2: What else, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: A red banner across the top of the page reads quote.
Speaker 3: Content on this website has been revised or removed to
Speaker 3: align with the President's executive orders and DoD priorities in
Speaker 3: accordance with DoD Instruction fifty four zero zero dot seventeen
Speaker 3: Official Use of Social Media for public affairs purposes.
Speaker 2: Because a woman, it's what's the reason.
Speaker 3: I know we're being escapist here in more senses than one,
Speaker 3: but I cannot act like this is normal. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: this is not normal to have this banner at the top.
Speaker 3: We're just taking stuff out out of a whim to
Speaker 3: quote the swing another song, tell them told you so.
Speaker 3: This is not how it's supposed to go. It's in
Speaker 3: my head a lot these days. Anyway, back to the
Speaker 3: life fest, I can't escape anything, just like you can't
Speaker 3: escape Alcatraz. I try and do escapist research and then
Speaker 3: it's right there.
Speaker 2: It comes right back at you life fest.
Speaker 3: So it's fully intact. But there was like a small
Speaker 3: tear at the scene. So that's when they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: did they not make it? But I think if it's
Speaker 3: tied around you, yeah, you know, even they.
Speaker 2: Can use a pair of genes as a life fest.
Speaker 2: You have to tie them the legs and you capture
Speaker 2: air and you put it underwater. And that's right, So
Speaker 2: it's possible. It is. And these guys as inventive as they.
Speaker 3: Are, and they had like they had gone full on
Speaker 3: to make this life as There was the tube that
Speaker 3: you used to blow and and plate it and there's
Speaker 3: like a paper clip they would hold it. That was saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: and crafts is amazing. Oh they're incredible. The tube had
Speaker 3: heavy teeth marks on it trying to hold it. And
Speaker 3: June eighteenth, the warden at Alcatraz got a postcard postmark
Speaker 3: June sixteenth with the message ha ha we made it,
Speaker 3: signed Frank John Clarence.
Speaker 2: I'm taking that as evidence.
Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, they sent it to the FBI
Speaker 3: for handwriting analysis. It was inconclusive, but amazing if true.
Speaker 2: I also, I mean, it seems like it'd be before
Speaker 2: anyone else knew they had escaped if it was postmarked sixteenth,
Speaker 2: since weren't most of the stories coming out after that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love taunting correspondence from criminals. Yes, like,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at you, Zodiac killer stuff my thought, I
Speaker 3: am so, of course, there were so many suspected sightings.
Speaker 3: June fourteenth, someone reported seeing three suspicious men with quote
Speaker 3: phony accents in San Rafell, just on the other side
Speaker 3: of Angel Island from Alcatraz. The FBI later determined they
Speaker 3: were simply quote foreign exchange students from the University of
Speaker 3: Washington and were not the escapees.
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking they came from Alden.
Speaker 3: About a month after the escape, a body dressed in
Speaker 3: blue clothing similar to the Alcatraz prison uniform, was found
Speaker 3: up the coast from San Francisco, but it was too
Speaker 3: badly decomposed to be identified. But this didn't mean the end.
Speaker 3: One of the Angland's sisters later told the press that
Speaker 3: she was positive that both of her brothers had attended
Speaker 3: their mother's funeral in nineteen seventy eight, dressed as women. Yes,
Speaker 3: I love that. And she also had another incarcerated. She
Speaker 3: had another brother who was locked up. He said he
Speaker 3: got a letter from Clarence and John when he was
Speaker 3: in jail after the escape, which is like, how many
Speaker 3: Anglin brothers are there? And are they all in jail?
Speaker 2: Yes, totally.
Speaker 3: The escape made it to the silver screen. Of course,
Speaker 3: you know you're too late on this one. It was
Speaker 3: the story behind the nineteen seventy nine movie Escape from
Speaker 3: Alcatraz during Clint Eastwood. Yeah, Springklin and the FBI closed
Speaker 3: the case in nineteen seventy nine, it said, quote, for
Speaker 3: the seventeen years we worked on the case, no credible
Speaker 3: evidence emerged to suggest the men were still alive, either
Speaker 3: in the US or overseas. The three men are officially
Speaker 3: listed as missing and presumed drowned.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to say I think they made it in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: good job, gentlemen.
Speaker 3: The US Marshals, they took it over. They're like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're two too weak to keep going.
Speaker 2: For cowboys, we never give up.
Speaker 3: Twenty eleven, Supervising Deputy Mike Dyke of the US Marshall
Speaker 3: Service told CBS News that he thought that the men
Speaker 3: may have survived. Quote, I think probably the brothers lived.
Speaker 3: There's no body recovered. I can't close the case. Yeah,
Speaker 3: good guys, don't have it in me. However, in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, he told the press that quote, after working
Speaker 3: the case for seventeen years, it's my opinion that they
Speaker 3: very likely did not survive the first night of their escape.
Speaker 2: Why did anyone come to that conclusion?
Speaker 3: Because has been recovered. You can never say that one
Speaker 3: hundred percent, but based on all the evidence, more than
Speaker 3: likely all three of them died that night and were
Speaker 3: swept out into the ocean.
Speaker 2: I don't see it the first time, yes, second time.
Speaker 3: In twenty thirteen, San Francisco police they got a letter
Speaker 3: from a guy claiming to be John Anglin. Yes. The
Speaker 3: letter stated, quote, yes we all made it out that night,
Speaker 3: but barely. He said he had cancer and quote, if
Speaker 3: you announce on TV that I will be promised to
Speaker 3: go first to jail for no more than a year
Speaker 3: and get medical attention, I'll write back to let you
Speaker 3: know exactly where I am. This is no joke. He
Speaker 3: wants to go to jail for medical health care.
Speaker 2: So America.
Speaker 3: Another deep breath, everyone, just deep breath. The writer of
Speaker 3: the letter said that he spent a ton of years
Speaker 3: after the escape living in Seattle, and that he also
Speaker 3: lived in North Dakota for eight years and then currently
Speaker 3: is in southern California. The guy who wrote the letter
Speaker 3: said that Morris had died in two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: and his brother Clarence had died in twenty eleven. FBI
Speaker 3: analysts they take the letter, they look at fingerprints. DNA
Speaker 3: results inconclusive twenty fifteen. So apparently they didn't tell it
Speaker 3: on TV and he didn't get to go back.
Speaker 2: And also do they have his fingerprints? I mean, do
Speaker 2: they have big handwriting samples enough they can do it before?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: With the postcards, it's like, what do we think we're
Speaker 2: going to find FBI?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Twenty fifteen, new evidence that the men
Speaker 3: were possibly alive emerged. Yes, the Anglan's nephews said that
Speaker 3: their family had gotten handwritten Christmas cards and photos and
Speaker 3: that the brothers were possibly living in Brazil. And there's
Speaker 3: a photo that allegedly shows them in Brazil in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy five. Oh and so the family they hired an analyst,
Speaker 3: and the analysts confirmed using AI facial recognition that yeah,
Speaker 3: that's them in the pictures. The FBI was like, no,
Speaker 3: it's inconclusive.
Speaker 2: Nothing's conclusive for the help. Yeah, it's just bodies. You
Speaker 2: got a body, call me when you got a body.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, the US Marshals they released updated
Speaker 3: renderings of what the guys might look like if there's
Speaker 3: still a live Updated renders always nineties in their ninety
Speaker 3: the hell Okay, so.
Speaker 2: Did you see it? Did it seem like you like
Speaker 2: men like that? No?
Speaker 3: What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: I don't ever want to go to prison, but I
Speaker 2: would love to try to escape. Okay you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Like, if I was there, that's all i'd
Speaker 2: be value. So I'm taking notes anytime we do a
Speaker 2: prison escape story. Anytime you're you're telling me, I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: that seems like that's a good Noteka, I remember that. Okay,
Speaker 2: gotta get the diamond flass. I'm like, all about you.
Speaker 3: Got to practice your like sculpture skills, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Rafts Hea, Yeah, what about you, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: I I think that people get that challenge of you
Speaker 3: can't escape this place. And you know, I also all
Speaker 3: of the people, all the guys in this had done
Speaker 3: had tried to escape other facilities. So there are people
Speaker 3: like you where it's just they cannot be penned in
Speaker 3: and others you know, right right, And I think that's
Speaker 3: really interesting, like the mindset of it. And I think
Speaker 3: it also goes to not saying that like you don't
Speaker 3: have impulse control, because you very much do, but.
Speaker 2: I don't have the ability to have my life dominated
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah that's yeah problem.
Speaker 3: And so these guys they have poor ink pulse control,
Speaker 3: they don't like their life dominated. They also can't see
Speaker 3: down the road. So a lot of times you're just
Speaker 3: like you can plan these things to a t, but
Speaker 3: then what how how do you go after that?
Speaker 2: Totally? And like also how do you live in America
Speaker 2: as a convict? I mean damn? And everybody wants to
Speaker 2: find you and everyone wants to turn you in for
Speaker 2: a like a reward.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, And you're a criminal and you're probably just
Speaker 3: going to get keep criming and so your risk of
Speaker 3: getting re arrested.
Speaker 2: And you're and you're always just a life changing amount
Speaker 2: of money to somebody.
Speaker 3: With all that said, Dave, may I have a talk
Speaker 3: back please?
Speaker 2: By the way, that was really fun.
Speaker 3: Thank you, O.
Speaker 2: God. I let cheat.
Speaker 4: Hi Aaron producer d This one's mostly for Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: This is Grace.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to let you know that last night
Speaker 4: I started watching the first episode of nine to one
Speaker 4: one and I was so tickled by how ridiculous that
Speaker 4: show is. So thanks for the recommendation. Love the podcast.
Speaker 3: Look, Grace, I am so excited you have joined us.
Speaker 3: The journey it gets crazier and campier and sillier, and
Speaker 3: then you're really going to get invested in the whole thing.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic, it really is. You've got me watching.
Speaker 3: I love it. I'm so happy that you're part of
Speaker 3: the nine one one family. What's your emergency? That's it
Speaker 3: for today. You can find us online at ridiculous crime
Speaker 3: dot com. That website is full of.
Speaker 2: Malware DNA malware.
Speaker 3: DNA malware, so if you click it, you get the
Speaker 3: DNA malware, you grow a tail totally.
Speaker 2: It's awesome and finn Yeah maybe some spots so good.
Speaker 3: Crisper endorsed. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky
Speaker 3: and Instagram. You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com if that's If that's your thing, jamail,
Speaker 3: or you can leave a talk back on the iHeart app,
Speaker 3: which is our preferred method of communication reach out. Ridiculous
Speaker 3: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced
Speaker 3: and edited by Alcatraz Art Room director Dave Cousten, starring
Speaker 3: Annals Rutger as Judas. Research is by Unincarceratable Criminal mastermind
Speaker 3: Marissa Brown. The theme song is by Plaster Bunk Dummies
Speaker 3: Thomas Lee and Travis Duck. Post wardrobe is provided by
Speaker 3: Botany five hundred guests here and makeup by Sparkleshot and
Speaker 3: mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Bowleen and Noel Brown,
Speaker 3: who escaped from Alcatraz in twenty sixteen via ferry boat
Speaker 3: headed for Pure thirty nine and the Curi Delly Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 2: Guidus Quime Say.
Speaker 3: It One More Time, Gquious QUI.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts
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