On June 12, 1962, three men escaped from Alcatraz Island and could never be seen again. The ultimate fate of Frank Morris and the Anglin Brothers remains a mystery, but the originality and determination to boldly escape from the safest prisons in the United States continues to attract people. Two years later, the BBC returned to the crime scene.

In May 1964, Michael Charlton of BBC Panorama crossed the churning waters of the San Francisco Bay to see the infamous Alcatraz Prison Island for the “most feared journey in the world of crime.” Nicknamed "Rock" the federal prison has held some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States. It is considered an indestructible fortress. But in the early morning of June 12, 1962, the three men achieved the impossible: they escaped.

The demons initially served as naval defensive forts that protected the entrance to the bay. During the American Civil War, the prisoners of the Allied Powers were captured due to the isolation of the island, the steep cliffs and the rapid, cold currents around it. In the early 20th century, it was rebuilt into a military prison. In the 1930s, the Justice Department took over it as the United States tried to deal with organized crime that flourished during the ban. Soon, the most terrifying criminals in the federal prison system began to arrive. Among its famous prisoners are notorious gang members Al Capone, Mickey Cohen and George "Machine Gun" Kelly and convicted murderer Robert Stroud, who later became "Birdman of Alcatraz." "Men are too vicious and troublesome to be held in ordinary prisons," said Charlton of the BBC.

The Panorama went there four years before the first four years, and Frank Lee Morris arrived on the island. Morris committed his first crime at the orphanage at the age of 11, and his first crime spent most of his life in various correctional facilities. Considered highly intelligent, he is an experienced criminal with a fee table ranging from drug hiding to armed robbery and perhaps most notably jailbreak. After escaping from Louisiana State Prison, he was sent to Rock in January 1960. Once he arrived at Alcatraz, he began to think about how to leave. He has been an Alcatraz prisoner John and Clarence Anglin and Allen West since 1957, and he joined the cell.

When the BBC's Charlton visited the site a year after the closure, he was very aware that the prison was known for its ruthless guards, harsh conditions and punishments that criminals had to endure. "It seems that the ruthless wind will never stop, how called echoing in the bar." "Built on a walk-in section of an ancient fortress...the foundation of today's Alcatraz is rotting and decomposing."

With Morris' leadership, the four prisoners began to develop a delicate and bold escape plan. Over the course of months, the men chiseled out of the salt-damaged concrete around the air holes below the sink. Using the restaurant's fuchsia metal spoon, a drill bit made of a vacuum cleaner motor and discarded saw blades, they dug into unprotected utilities. To cover up the noise of the exercise, Morris plays the accordion every day when the music is played to the prisoners. Once they created a hole big enough to climb into the hallway, they climbed to the empty top floor of Cellblock and built a secret studio. To cover up the holes in the cell, they made fake paper grills from prison library magazines. Once they entered the workshop, they set out to build a 6x14-foot temporary rubber raft made of over 50 stolen raincoats and lifespan. To seal the rubber, they used a prison hot steam pipe to melt it. They then transformed the hexagonal piano into a tool that expanded the raft and fashioned paddles from the fragments of plywood.

However, while they work, they need to cover up their absence from guards who conduct regular night checks. So they carved paper versions of paper from soap, toothpaste and toilet paper. To make them look more realistic, they used real hair from the prison barber shop floor and used stolen artwork to paint them in flesh color. They then put it on the bed and tied clothes and towels under the blanket to make it look like it was asleep. While they are working on temporary escape gear, they are still looking for a way out. They used pipe pipes as steps, climbed up 30 feet (91m) and turned on the ventilator at the top of the shaft. They made a fake bolt with soap to hold it in place.

Finally, on the evening of June 11, 1962, they were ready to put the clever plan into practice. Morris and two Anglin Brothers tricked the dummy in the bed and crawled out through the hole in the wall of the cell. When West was unable to leave the cell in time, West's escape was cut, so no one else left. They climbed up the roof of the cell, walked through it - lifted the makeshift boat and looked at the shroud tower - toward the next external drain, crossed the prison yard, zoomed two consecutive 12-foot-12-foot (3.7 million) wire fences and climbed the steep embankment to the steep embankment on the northeast shore of the island. At the edge of the water, they swelled the boat and disappeared into the middle of the night. The alarm was not issued until the next morning when the bait head was found.

The island is also home to the guards who work in the prison. The father of Jolene Babyak, who was acting warden on Alcatraz, then triggered an alarm. She told the BBC Witnesses about the history in 2013. "When I woke up, the sirens were still walking. It was harsh, very loud, so scary, it was scary. I was shocked, and my first thought was that this was not an attempt to escape, of course, that was."

The prison was immediately blocked and searched deeply for all buildings, including the accommodation of prison officials. Meanwhile, Jolene's father launched a huge pursuit, with hundreds of law enforcement officers searching the surrounding area for several days. On June 14, the Coast Guard found one of the prisoners' oars. On the same day, the worker discovered a pack of Anglins' personal effect and sealed it with rubber. Seven days later, some raft residues were washed near the Golden Gate Bridge, and a homemade lifesaving rate was found the next day. But these three fugitives had never seen them.

Although prisoners escaped the prison, authorities concluded they must have died in dangerous waters trying to leave the island. When the BBC interviewed him in 1964, of course, it was the opinion of prison warden Richard Willard. “Yes, we’re short, but they didn’t brag. “Why am I so sure? You hear the wind, don't you? Do you see the water? Do you think you can do it? ”

A year later, the man escaped, in 1963, Alcatraz Prison was closed. Partly due to its deterioration in structure and the cost of running it, but the serious regime in prisons has long been controversial. Back in 1939, U.S. Attorney General Frank Murphy tried to shut it down and said: "The entire institution favors psychology, establishing sinister and vicious attitudes among prisoners."

For years, prisoners have been killed or stuck – unable to face relentless conditions – as the 1960s developed, the United States sought to recover from prisoners, not just their punishment.

As for the three escapees, although no bodies were found in the bay, in 1979, they were declared legally dead. The FBI closed the case and transferred the responsibility to the U.S. Marshal Service.

However, people's speculation about fate has never diminished. The same year, they were pronounced dead, the film escaped from Alcatraz, with Clint Eastwood as Frank Morris. From the moment of escape in 1962, there have been reports of witnesses of these people and their information.

In 2018, San Francisco police revealed that they were sent a mysterious letter by someone who claimed to be John Anglin five years ago. "I escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962. Yes, we all did that night, but hardly any!" The letter insisted that these people had lived in secret, Frank Morris died in October 2005 and Clarence Anglin died in 2008. The author of the letter said he now wants to negotiate his surrender in exchange for cancer treatment. The FBI evaluated the letter but was unable to verify that it was true.

The case is still open to the U.S. Marshal's Service. Just in 2022, it released the latest images in which three missing demon prisoners might be as they do now, while attracting any information about them, hoping that the mystery will eventually lie in the bed.

This article was originally published on June 10, 2024 and has been republished.

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