WEBVTT - For Those about to Rock: Alcatraz Escapes 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.400 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:06.400 Over here. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:08.320 How are you doing? 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.160 Doing pretty good? It's been waiting for you. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.320 How you've been running a little late today. I'm good, 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.960 I'm good. Listen. You know it's ridiculous. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.400 Yes, malware, DNA. 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.000 Malware DNA yeah. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.919 So you know, like I like, I like technology, but 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.640 I'm not a tech bro. I know a rap name. 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.160 But uh, there's this. I'm reading this Wired story. They 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:33.519 they Okay, I don't know. This is wild. Maybe you'll 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.879 find this interesting. I find it ridiculous. A group of 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:42.240 researchers from the University of Washington, they created malicious software malware, yeah, 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:47.239 and they put it into physical DNA strands EW so 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:52.280 in a gene sequencer analyzes the DNA, the program gets 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.160 read and then it corrupts the gene sequencing software and 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:56.360 it takes control of the computer. 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.160 So you just give your like DNA. 0:00:58.920 --> 0:00:59.920 Dn M malware. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.440 You can put in twenty three and meters rip and 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.319 then bring the whole thing. 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.200 Down DNA hijack love in that nuts. I'm gonna just 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.600 inject myself of malware, do it. Yeah, that's the ridiculous part. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.880 My idea is I need some malware. 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.600 You'll find me out behind the headquarters building, chewing on 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.960 a flash drive, just trying to get that sweet malware 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:24.000 up in me. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:25.200 So in that ridiculous It. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.960 Is so ridiculous, love. Do you want to know what 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:29.759 else is ridiculous? 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.160 Goodness? Yes, getting off the rock. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.960 This is a ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.720 outrageous capers, heist and cons. It's always ninety nine percent 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:07.720 murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. I asked today 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.399 for your indulgence. I think that that is because when 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.040 things are tough, everyone has to go to their comfort zone. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.320 Yes, that's why I wanted to tell you a story 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.680 about Ireland earlier. YEA, something comfortingly nice makes. 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.880 People happy and calm. For me, that's usually like the 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.880 garden or cooking, making, hugging on dogs. Oh yeah, what 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.560 about you? What's your comfort zone place? 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.160 Speed? I don't mean the drug, I mean going fast, 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.040 just the act of going fast. I feel so relaxed 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:38.959 when I'm going fast. 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:39.760 I like that. 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.560 Yeah, it's not like comfort zone. It's more in the 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:43.520 cool zone. 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:48.120 But like the world is wild. Yes, as Shanaide saying, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:49.880 these are dangerous days. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.040 I think Elizabeth you've maybe realized I don't have a comfort. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.960 Zone going fast, I. 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:57.960 Was kind of bing it's it's it's more I just 0:02:58.000 --> 0:02:59.639 feel good. I don't really have a comfort zone. I 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.440 don't think I seek out enough comfort. You've made me 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.320 realized I have a paucity of comfort comfort I need. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.040 I'm going to follow you in Shanade's advice, these. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:08.680 Are dangerous days. You fill in the rest of the 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.639 line in your head if you know it. But the 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.880 show almost go on, almost go on. So I have 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:15.799 to tell you a compelling story. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:16.400 Right please. 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.400 I can't come here and like be like, oh, list 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.000 off my tomato seedlings for an hour. I mean I could, 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.880 but there's no crime there other than how criminally delicious 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.359 those tomatoes are going to be. I have to tell 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.160 you an hour's worth of a z any crime. So 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:35.200 for that, I'm going to go to my comfort place 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.760 and Zarin that is San Francisco Bay Area history. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:39.440 Oh hell yeah. 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.760 Right with that, I have a question for you. Have 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.960 you ever been to Alcatraz aka The Rock? 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:48.640 No? Actually I've never have. 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.520 Yeah, me neither. I am a fifth generation Bay Area 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:54.320 residence and I have never been there. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.960 We should go, We should totally requid a ridiculous crime 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:57.640 episode on the road. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.839 I kind of had wanted to do this one there, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.000 but like you know, I'm busy. I got it busy 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:03.960 on the go lifestyles. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.280 You forgot to get the boat tickets. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.160 Yeah. I've been to the other like large free standing 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.360 island in the bay Angel Angel Island. Yeah, yeah, a 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:13.320 couple of times. Angel Islands so beautiful. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.840 Yeah, that's like to go hiking off. Yeah, it's like 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:18.960 nature preserved Alcatraz. Why would why would you want to 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:20.840 go to a prison? That's a good point, you know 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:22.560 what I mean? Like that was my issue with it. People. 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.200 I've been offered to go and I was like, it's 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:25.880 a prison, right, and it's cold. I got it to 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:27.359 be cold for an hour to get there to go. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:29.360 It means you have to go to like Peer thirty nine. 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.040 Yeah, you gotta go hang out all these tourists and 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:32.600 you gotta be wet and cold, and then you go 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:34.360 and hang out with them and they go, look al 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:35.560 Capone wants to spit here. 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.359 Yeah, yeah, I'm going to put it on my list now. 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:40.800 I do want to go because I'm hoping they have 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.440 like an al Capone banjo jazz band. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.680 In the event that I ever leave my house to 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.039 go somewhere other than here at a headquarters, it'll be Alcatraz. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.240 Yeah, call me, let me know that. 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.480 So the island started out as kind of a prison, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.880 oddly enough, because the Oloney people on whose land we 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.440 sit to record, they used the island as a place 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:02.760 of exile or punishment. 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.560 Really, it was a banishment spot. 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.640 Makes sense. Yeah, that's what I That's what I was told. 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.320 Whereas Angel Islands pretty big relatively speaking, and has its 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:16.400 own like microclimates, even Alcatraz is small, rocky, yeah, and 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.320 it's in like a gnarly part of the bay that 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.120 gets hit with a lot of wind and a lot 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.400 and weather. The water is almost always choppy and cold. Yes, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.720 And there's the wind, like I said, and it's not 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:29.679 particularly close to the shore. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.440 No, they got crazy currents right there, and there's sharks. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.080 That's where all the like the wind, the sail borders 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.159 and stuff that go by because the winds are so reliable. 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.800 Yeah. Yeah. So when the Spanish showed up, they named 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.120 the island like Isla Delos Alcatraces, And I'm saying that's 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.960 where it gets it, island of the Pelicans. Yeah, and 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.520 that's because there were so many Bobcats on the island 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:54.200 no Pelicans. 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.640 So there essentially there was you said, Pelican Island, and 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:02.520 then there's also Pelican Bay, the prison up nor Repelican, California. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.920 That's the logo, that's the mascot Pelicans. So the name 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.279 was later shortened to Alcatraz. It's way jazzier totally. There's 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.719 a street in Berkeley called Alcatraz, so so named because 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.560 like as you drive down the hill on it toward 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.360 the bay, you're looking directly at the island. That's a 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.400 fun fact. Enjoy the tours there, thank you. So after that, 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.960 it was a US military fort in prison during the 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:30.640 Civil War, that's where they put Confederate sympathizers. Yeah, and 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.200 then it was a maximum security federal prison in nineteen 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.560 thirty four. That's when they kicked that off totally. And 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.720 it was like the most dangerous dude wanted the bad 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.800 boy Club. It was known for like super strict discipline, 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:48.800 harsh conditions, near impossible to escape because of like those cold, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.719 treacherous waters. During the time that it was a federal prison, 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:57.880 there were fourteen escape attempts, thirty six men Alcatraz. Yes, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.200 some say there were no successful attempts. 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:02.159 Yes, that's what they say. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.719 Others like me begged to differ. We'll get to that 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.280 in a second. Due to high maintenance costs Alcatraz, they 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.840 closed it in nineteen sixty three. In nineteen sixty nine, 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:17.520 Native American activists, led by Richard Oaks, they occupied Alcatraz 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:18.520 for nineteen months. 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.600 My friend's father was involved in that exactly, So shout 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:22.760 out Victoria, Hello. 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.240 And they wanted the land return to Indigenous people. It 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:31.680 gained national attention, influenced Native American rights policies. In nineteen 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.160 seventy two, the island became part of the Golden Gate 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.480 National Recreation Area. Now it's a big tourist attraction. So 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.960 here's a fun fact for this virtual tour. Alcatraz had 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.000 hot showers, yes, and that was to prevent the prisoners 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.480 from getting used to cold water, which would make it 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:51.560 less likely to escape. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.440 Oh, they didn't want them to like basically, you know, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.960 make their body be not bothered by cold because that's 0:07:57.960 --> 0:07:59.320 what I would totally do that totally. 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.920 So instead you have to take a hot shower, craze 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.200 just hot water coming out of them showers. Isn't that nuts? 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.800 You can't temping yourself up? So Alcatraz is like a 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.280 mile and a half from the nearest point of land, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.080 which is Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, OK. A mile 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.920 and a half in the prison used and developed this 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:22.880 armorer system for surveilling the interior and the San Francisco 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.560 Chronicle writer Jay Campbell Bruce he wrote this book in 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:30.400 nineteen sixty three, Escape from Alcatraz quote. The armorer, in 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.960 his vault, sealed in the inner side, accessible only from 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:38.560 outside the prison, enjoys virtual omniscience about what is going 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.040 on in the cell blocks. Microphones hidden about the prison 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.280 relay sounds to him day and night. If a phone 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.680 is off a hook for more than fifteen seconds, a 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.640 bulb lights up on his board and he dispatches an 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.840 officer to investigate. He receives, for the record, twelve official 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.720 counts a day of the inmate population. There are some 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.680 thirty additional special counts, and if a count reveals a 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:06.040 prisoner missing, he radios the Coastguard and the San Francisco Police. 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.000 In the event of a riot, he hits the siren 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.559 button to summon off duty personnel and distributes weapons from 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:17.640 an arsenal in his vault. Rifles, pistols, submachine guns, gas grenades, ammunition. 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.320 So there's like the one guy who's the brain of 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.040 it all. So we had these guys who tried to 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.640 escape fourteen attempts thirty six dude. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.839 So they're basically going up against this mastermind. 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.080 Yeah. Yeah, he's just like in the like control tower. 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.800 He can do and see everything. Interesting, most of the 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.160 people who tried to scoot out, most of those guys 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.880 were either recaptured, shot or killed or you know, they 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:41.319 gave up. 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:42.720 Oh really Yeah. 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.400 So one of the ones who was recaptured was John 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:52.360 Giles on July thirty first, nineteen forty five. His job 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.000 was on the loading dock at the prison. He had 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.840 a little job. He went down there though, dressed as 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.080 a US Army Tech sergeant and he got on an 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.000 army boat that was headed back to the mainlan. So 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.840 he had spent the past couple of years working on 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.400 the doc putting together a sergeant's uniform. By like when 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.520 laundry would come in from this nearby naval base, I'm 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:19.240 thinking Treasure Islander. It was sent to Alcatraz to be clean. 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.200 He would just take little bits out, one by one, 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.199 like the Johnny Cash song, and one piece of time 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.200 made himself a whole uniform. He made fake dog tags, 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.199 and he forged a shore pass. And so he gets 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.600 down there in his little fake uniform, gets on the 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:38.840 boat like, oh, you know, just getting out of here. 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.400 Here's the thing. Officers on the boat quickly noticed they 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.120 had too many officers count yeah, and at the prison 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.880 the guards were like, we don't have enough prisoners. So 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.120 then there's the uniform, right Like, everyone's looking at him 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.280 because the uniform doesn't really match up. It's not and 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.520 he's got this janky shore pass, it's like wrinkled. So 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.480 within twenty minutes the warden has chased him down in 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.800 a speedboat and they pull made his boat pull off 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.560 an Angel island. He's like, pull over over to the 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.600 island island, We're not going on a horse stop. And 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.760 then they sent him back to Alcatraz, and for that 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.640 he got an additional five years on his ticket. So 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:23.440 two cats who did make it off the island were 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.000 Theodore Coal and Ralph Rowe. In nineteen thirty seven, Theodore Cole, 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.920 who was twenty three years old, he was serving fifty 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:35.280 years for kidnapping. When he was seventeen. He'd actually been 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.719 sentenced to death for participation in an armed robbery of 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.839 a doctor pepper bottling plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:42.920 Did he kills someone? 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.480 I don't know so, but all like these women's clubs, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:51.400 his own mother. They protested the sentencing, and the state 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.400 Court of Appeals later reduced the term to fifteen years. 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:55.800 Okay, wow. 0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:01.160 So nineteen thirty four he was in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.880 He escaped in a laundry bag in a laundry truck. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.080 Then he hitchhiked, kidnapped a driver, hitchhiked, and forced him 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.440 to drive him to Illinois. In early nineteen thirty five, 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.760 he gets arrested in Texas, sent back to Oklahoma. Tries 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.360 to escape a few more times, once by hiding in 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.760 a garbage can. Another time he sawed off his cell bars. 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:26.200 It was like every trope. May thirty five, he pleaded 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.240 guilty to kidnapping charges. Sent to Alcatraz, and that's where 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.280 you're supposed to do his fifty years. When he arrived, 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.080 he apparently said, quote, don't think I'll like it here. 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:41.360 Doubt I'll stay long. Oh, oh okay, Yeah. Ralph Rowe, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.080 he's twenty nine in nineteen thirty seven and he was 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.600 at Alcatraz serving ninety nine years for bank robbery years. 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:51.880 He had a long rap sheet, he had all these 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:56.000 crazy robbery charges. He escaped from one prison by hiding 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.280 in a crate that was leaving on a truck. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:12:58.840 Classic. 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.199 So he and Cole they arrive at Alcatraz around the 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:05.800 same time. And when they're there, other inmates included a 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.800 notorious bank robber Harvey Bailey and Alcopol as well as 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.319 George machine Gun Kelly and Albert Bates. And those two 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.960 were there because they kidnapped oil tycoon and millionaire Charles 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:25.240 Erschall remember Ershall, stepfather of cryptozoologist Tom Slick, He of 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:26.760 the Jimmy Stewart Yetihans. 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.640 Yeah, we got a bunch of stories of that one. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.800 Oh yeah. So Cole and Roe they both worked in 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.520 a model industries building in Alcatraz and that was on 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:40.600 the northwest Ish end of it facing the Golden Gate Bridge. 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:41.960 That's what gorgeous views. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.240 So Cole he was a janitor in the blacksmith part 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.920 of it, and Roe he worked in the mat shop. 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.280 And the mat shop is where car tires were like shredded, 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.880 like torn up to make mats for the navy. That's 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:57.120 the name the mat shop. 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.000 Huh yeah, car tires turned into matts. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.040 Yeah yeah. So over like you know, maybe like a 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.480 month or so, the two men, you know, they started 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.240 like filing through a couple of the bars on the 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.199 mat shop window, and they covered up their progress using 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.559 shoe polish and like grease paint, scraps and putty. They 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.480 just have all these little, you know, tools around them. 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:24.880 February sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven, Cole and Roe finally made 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.880 their move. So there was like really thick fog that day, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.560 so thick in fact that in the morning the inmates 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.520 were told, you have to stay in your cells. FOG's 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.280 too thick, we can't see you, yeah, by a fog warning, 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.760 fog warning. So by noon the fog had lifted some. 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:43.440 And this is not unusual. 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.240 A lockdown is crazy, though, well crazy, and the fog 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.000 is not unusual. But to be a lockdown, it's like 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.040 a snow day, but in prison it's a fog exactly. 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.520 So lifts at noon and they're like, okay, you guys 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.000 can go to your work site. So one o'clock, the 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.120 prison guard did his rounds of the mat. There's row 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.600 and coal working away. By the time he came back 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.760 around at one point thirty, no row and coal. No 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.480 one's working. So they had broken through the bars, removed 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.200 three panes of glass. They slipped out of a hole 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:18.560 that was eight and three quarters inches by eighteen inches wide. Whoa, yeah, 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.400 they were going lothered. Yeah. They used a wrench that 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.480 they took from the machine shop to open a wire fence, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.880 and then that led them to this like twenty foot 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.840 cliff over the water, and then they kind of like 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.320 scrabbled down the side of it. Those are jagged, very 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.160 jagged in the Yeah, it's almost straight up and down. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.080 They go down all these steep rocks to the shore, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.560 and the fog is still thick, and so the guards 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.320 in the watch towers couldn't see them as they got 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.640 into the water. And according to the news, the fog 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:52.960 was the fog was sick. 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:54.880 How thick was it? 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.280 Well, the guards could not even see the Coastguard boards 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.440 that were approaching to within a few year yards of 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.000 the island in response to calls by radio, So they 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.000 call for the coast Guard. The Coastguards like we're here. 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:06.960 They're like, I don't see you. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:09.960 Honk, I don't see you are outside. 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.280 So later officials they figured that Cole and Roe had 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.360 waited for a foggy day, of course, to both hide 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.280 them from the guards and also because there would be 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.040 fewer ferries in everything. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.080 Yeah, it kind of shows down the waterless traffic. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.640 So by the time the time that they escaped, too, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.360 they also did it at high tide, so it would 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.920 be easier to die, like less to go distance. 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.000 To get to the water less of the drop. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.200 The problem was that on that particular day, the tidal 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.400 currents were super strong, eight miles an out. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.160 You don't realize how fast those currents are. 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.400 Like even a strong swimmer would have been pushed out 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:46.360 through the Golden Gate. 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:48.480 To show up on the other side of the Golden 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:49.920 like the Pacific side. 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.160 Doesn't matter though they're escape kicked off. According to the 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.520 New York Times at the time, quote the most intensive 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:02.720 manhunt in recent California history. Yeah, so, six Coast Guard boats, 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.120 one SFPD boat. They patrolled the coast of Alcatraz Island 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.200 and the Bay. Sixteen police cars drove up and down 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:16.160 the waterfront. The team searched Alcatraz Islands, surrounding Rocks, San Francisco, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:21.199 four nearby counties, nothing They came up empty. On the 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.320 same day, two revolvers and two rifles, as well as 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.040 six hundred rounds of ammunition, were stolen from a forty 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.880 foot sailboat called the Jenny G. Moore at the Saint 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:32.720 Francis Yacht Harbor in San Francisco. 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.040 I was wondering which harbor they would land, So there was. 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.359 Much debate as to whether this was connected to the 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:44.719 escape you know, Saint Francis Yacht Club Tony and I 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:46.640 love so I love the idea of the guys swimming 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.320 up and like hopping into a small sailboat as they 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.879 call it in the news reports. This small sailboat, it's 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.439 a forty foot you know. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.760 Yeah, that's yeah. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.080 So they pop in and they find chalk full of 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:04.280 guns and ammo. Like that's crazy anyway, So when when 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.600 they there were other news reports of like people getting 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.119 lost in the fog while they were duck hunting and 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.000 like coming in from the fog and Alameda and the 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.800 police thought it was the escape convicts and held them 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.560 at Tommy Guns until they Tommy, Yeah, what I'm trying 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.240 to say, Zarin, is the fog was thick. 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:21.800 Carl had he was on one that day. 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.919 We get thick fog here in the bay, but nothing 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.240 like I have ever experienced in Davis. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.040 To fog. Yes, they named the fog in San Francisco, Carl. 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:35.240 They don't even name it in Davis because an animates. Yeah, exactly. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.439 That is the thickest fog ever. It's unreal anyway, so 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:39.120 low and. 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.359 So thick you can't see your hand. You literally can't 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.000 put your hand out and cannot see it. It causes 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:45.200 all these car accidents every year. 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.399 It's fantastic. Yeah, so let's take a break. When we 0:18:49.520 --> 0:19:14.520 come back, we're going to catch up with these escape convicts. 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:15.639 I'm over here in the fog. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.280 I was hitting myself in the face, going, who's hitting you? 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.640 Theodore call Ralph Row. They skidaddled out of Alcatraz into 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.960 the drink in the heavy fog, the foggy do On 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.720 the first day of searching prison Warden was like, you 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.719 know what, I think they drowned. You know, he just 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:35.840 looked out the water. He's like, yeah, them boys is going. 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.520 But then like a few days later, no bodies have 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:42.640 turned up. He's like, you know what, I'd take it back. 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:45.200 I think that someone picked him up in a boat 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.000 and yeah, and others are like, you know what, we 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.560 got all these old car tires. I think they use 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.240 those as flotation devices. Okay, I mean apparently they were 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.840 like littering the side of the island. So whatever, that's 0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:05.320 not smart environmentally or escape early. So no one could 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.040 speak to their swimming skills. But a sheriff from Oklahoma City, 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.520 who you know, he knew who Cole was. He said, quote, 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.800 he was lack a greased pig, and I wouldn't be 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:25.000 surprised at anything he could do that mouth. So to 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.920 prove that swimming from Alcatraz to shore was actually possible, 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.560 the San Francisco Examiner had a teenage girl swim around 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.280 the island and back to the mainland. I mean people 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.080 do it in like triathlons always do ye, but they 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.120 they picked their times right. The Examiner was having a 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.000 field day with this, by the way, like full page 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:50.040 spreads articles that looked at every possible angle of the. 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:51.960 Storywings and maps. 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.639 Oh yeah, yeah. So they had like the histories of 0:20:54.680 --> 0:21:00.120 these guys, the weather, like currents, stories about the various searchs, 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:05.960 like you said, maps, fantastic stuff. They don't do that 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:07.000 like they used to know. 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.360 They did not know when they're trying to sell papers. 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:14.520 Yeah, exactly, and it was so informative. It's just fascinating stuff. Okay. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.280 December seventeenth, a journalist reaches out to Cole's parents. They 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:22.760 had moved from Oklahoma to Visalia, California, to be closer 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.240 to Alcatraz after he got sent there. I mean it's 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.360