Criminal - The Escape

Episode Date: October 20, 2017

In 1962, brothers John and Clarence Anglin, along with fellow incarcerated person Frank Morris, managed to escape the one prison in America that was supposed to be inescapable: Alcatraz. Alcatraz is surrounded by icy waters, so the men would’ve needed a raft in order to escape the island. When no evidence of the raft or the three men was found, the FBI concluded that the men had drowned and closed their case. But more than 50 years later, their 82-year-old sister, Marie Anglin Widner, and U.S. Marshal Michael Dyke believe that the brothers’ escape was actually a success. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, FDA approved for over 20 years. So, talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information, including boxed warning, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by name. To see for yourself and learn more, visit BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series

worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving

homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Tell me your name and where we are.

Okay, I'm Marie Anglin Widener. We're at Leesburg, Georgia. How long have you lived here? Fifty years. We had this house built in 67. Fifty years right here? Right here. I've never had but one telephone number.

I still got it. So you must know everyone in town. Oh, yeah. People could find me. They know where I'm at. For the past 50 years, Marie Anglin Widener has been waiting for someone to find her. She's 82 and lives on a small road in a small town three hours south of Atlanta. I kept trying to find the main street in town,

but somehow, even if I was on it, never figured out which one it was. The first thing you see when you walk in the front door of Marie's house is pictures of her brothers. It's sort of a shrine. The pictures are old. Her brothers look like two handsome men in their prime. How often do you think of them? All the time.

All the time, every day. Every time I walk by my display. She hasn't seen her brothers in almost 60 years. She's not the only one looking for them. Growing up, Marie says her family didn't have any money. They lived most of the year in Florida. Her father would pick tomatoes. And then in the summers, the whole family traveled north to pick cherries in Michigan. And wherever they went, her brothers, John and Clarence, were always getting into trouble. Little mischief things to begin with. Like what? Like the neighbor's pig, Sal, had some

little pigs, okay? So they were little, and they wanted to play with the pig. It's like a toy to them. So one of the little pigs got through the fence, and they chased the little pig, and they were trying to catch it to play with it, and the little pig got hot, and it fell over dead. That's the first trouble that you remember them getting into. My dad had to pay for the pig. I read that they were good swimmers growing up.

Oh, my goodness, yeah. They would swim across the lake and all the way back without a problem. And I'm not sure how far it was across there, but it was a long ways. So they would swim often? All the time. We'd go to Michigan to work, pick strawberries and cherries and stuff. They'd break the ice and go swimming. In really cold water?

Yes. Yes. As John and Clarence got older, they got wilder, stealing tires and tractor batteries. They'd break into cars, hotwire them, and go for a drive. By the time Clarence was 14, he'd been sentenced to one year in a very rough youth facility called the State Industrial School for Boys. When he got out, he and John broke into a store, landing them both in the industrial school for another year. They kept breaking into places and doing a terrible job. They were caught over and over and sent to prisons in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

Many times, they escaped. Some reports say they escaped from every single prison they were sent to. Marie says sometimes they'd just walk home. Won't some mamas cook in? Won't some of my two older sisters be good cooks. Always. When they would show up, would your mother or your sisters say, oh, no, not again? Not again. Right. And then, in 1958, John and Clarence,

along with their older brother, Alfred, rented a cabin and came up with a plan to rob a bank. John stayed in the getaway car while Clarence and Alfred went in with a toy pistol. Well, I thought it was awful, and I thought, well, it's a miracle they didn't get hurt because they did have a toy pistol. But the people in the bank did not know it was a toy pistol. I mean, you know, it looked real to them, and they were afraid. I'm sure they were afraid. One of

the ladies in the bank, she almost fainted, and my oldest brother, Alfred, he stops everything and gets water for her to drink. They never have hurt anybody. Do you remember, were your parents alive when this happened? Do you remember what your parents' reaction was? Oh, yeah, they were alive, and they were devastated, you know, about the bank robbery. In fact, John always wanted Mama to have an electric washing machine. Okay? So he went and bought Mama a washing machine and put it on the porch in the back. And when my Mama saw it, she said, and then she had heard about the bank robbery, she told John, she said, you take it away.

I don't want it. It was bought with bad money. And John had to move it. She wouldn't have it. All three brothers were arrested for bank robbery and sent to prison in Atlanta. But John and Clarence kept trying to escape and were eventually transferred to Leavenworth, Kansas.

In 1960, Clarence tried to help John smuggle himself out of Leavenworth in a big bread box. That was the last straw. John was sent to Alcatraz. Clarence joined him three months later after a letter smuggling incident. Alcatraz became a federal prison in 1934. Before 1934, it was a military base and prison on an island more than a mile off the coast of San Francisco. The water in San Francisco Bay is very cold, and the currents are strong. It was said to be escape-proof.

The government was sending a message, not only to high-profile inmates like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly, but also to problem inmates, people like John and Clarence, who were determined to escape. The idea was, you could not escape from Alcatraz. My sister had wrote to John and asked John how was the ride out to Alcatraz. He said, well, the ride was good, but it was going the wrong way. John was only at Alcatraz for 20 months. Clarence was there for 17. And I was earning, and I had the radio on. And they broke into the news channel you know there and told about

the escape from Alcatraz and I said I know that was John and Clarence before they ever told it. I said that's them. They got out of there. And I was seizing one. I was seizing the marshals and I I said I know why they didn't like Alcatraz. The beds were too hard.

I just, I wonder when you heard that two people had escaped, if you thought, oh no, they must be dead because no one had, you know, because everyone who tried drowned. Is that your worry? No, not one bit. I was not worried a bit. I knew they were good swimmers. It's been 55 years, and Marie believes her brothers made it to the shore and are still out there somewhere.

They would be 86 and 87 years old today. Two old men palling around, outsmarting everyone. Especially the one U.S. Marshal who's still on the case. What did you think when you were told this was going to be your new assignment? I didn't want it. You were thinking, why me?

Exactly. Mike Dyke is a supervisory deputy with the U.S. Marshals. About 15 years ago, he was handed thousands of files, tissue-thin pieces of paper, fragments various law enforcement agencies have been collecting since 1962. He says the U.S. Marshal Service will keep going after a fugitive, no matter what, until they turn 99 years old.

Then the marshals back off. If you've made it that far, well, I guess you get a pass. And Mike Dyke says he still gets tips about the whereabouts of John and Clarence every year. I'm Phoebe Judge. This man got out with a big book. He said, are you Marie Anglin Widener? I said, I am. I said, who are you?

He said, I'm the FBI. I said, what do you want with me? This was after they got out. He said, well, I wanted to know if you know where your brothers are. I said, well, if I did, I wouldn't tell you. I would not tell you if I knew where they are. And I said, well, if I did, I wouldn't tell you. I would not tell you if I knew where they are. And he said, I said, by the way, how long will y'all be looking for my brothers? And he said, a hundred years from now. And I said, well, good luck. So he closed his book and got in the car and left. Were you waiting for your brothers to contact you? Oh, yeah. I'm still waiting.

Sure. I would love for them to contact me. Have they ever tried? They were spotted at Mama's funeral dressed like women. And then when my dad died, they were spotted at the funeral home two hours before the family was supposed to be there, and they went down to view the body. Hats, beard, long coats, didn't say a word, didn't sign a book.

Stood there about 15 minutes, this lady told us, and then left. That's a wild story that they showed up in women's clothing for your mother's funeral. I believe it. The lady that told us, she would not lie. She spotted them. She didn't tell anybody, but she spotted them. She told the family afterwards, after the funeral. You know, they like to take chances.

They like to do things nobody else would do. I would assume for a woman like you, of your age and your position in the community and everything else, your faith, that you take lying pretty seriously. Oh yeah. Oh yes, I do. Absolutely. And so you would have no reason to believe that all these stories weren't true that you had been hearing? Oh, they were true. They were true. They come from reliable source. They have a photo that was given to them years ago, which they say shows the two brothers in Brazil. They're middle-aged, and based on the open shirts and sunglasses, looks to me like it was the 70s. Mike Dyke says the photo isn't at all conclusive. He had it analyzed, and it didn't persuade him. But if the brothers were smart enough to get out of the escape-proof prison,

maybe they were smart enough to hide out all this time. They were discovered missing early in the morning of June 12, 1962. As the story goes, prison guards tried to wake up John Anglin, and he wouldn't wake up. They poked him, and his head rolled off the bed. Guards went into Clarence's cell and again found a papier-mâché head on the pillow. Another one in the bed of a third man, Frank Morris. The guards sounded the alarm, but the men were already off the island.

The escape triggered the greatest manhunt in San Francisco's history, as agents of the FBI, Coast Guardsmen, Highway Patrol, Sheriff's deputies, and local police joined in the search. Whatever their fate, the three convicts have apparently accomplished a feat that many have tried with no success. I'm just gonna to say it. Their escape was ingenious. They'd been planning it for months. The three men, along with a fourth named Allen West, sharpened spoons and started chipping away at the backs of their cells. They made a drill from the motor of a broken vacuum cleaner

and loosened the grills over their cell air vents. So they were able to enlarge the holes in the back of their cell and they made what they did is out of cardboard they made false grills that matched the existing vent in the back and it covered up the larger hole they made. And since West was on the, you know, the crew to do maintenance, he had access to paint. So, you know, they would put the cardboard grill back in the hole, put soap around it to fill in the crack, and then they'd paint over it. And you really couldn't tell,

unless you went up and looked right at it, that that was a larger hole than the vent that was originally there. The holes and fake vent grills allowed them to leave their cells freely at night. And they set up shop behind the walls in an unused utility space guards seemed unaware existed. And, you know, once they were out of the backs of their cells,

they were able to, you know, climb up and they collected raincoats from various prisoners who would give them up, and there was no count of raincoats. So a prisoner could go get a raincoat, and in the next day he can go get another raincoat, and another raincoat, because nobody kept track of him, because, you know, who's going to worry about raincoats on an island? So they were able to collect 40, 50, 60 raincoats, and mostly using the backs of the raincoats, they were able to make pontoons for a raft and life vests.

They created mouthpieces to inflate the life jackets. And to inflate the raft, they used a concertina, a type of accordion, as a kind of bellows. From what I understand, this was kind of a whole prison effort. There were a lot of people rooting for these guys and helping out. Yeah, so basically, most of the prisoners knew about it. The majority of them knew about it. And they were just able to keep their mouths shut.

Subtle results. Still you, but with fewer lines. Botox Cosmetic. Adabotulinum Toxin A is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulties swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition.

Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox Cosmetic if you have a skin infection. Thank you. or Lambert-Eden syndrome in medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. See for yourself at BotoxCosmetic.com. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these Series Essentials.

This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Once the men had figured out how to get out of their cells, they started focusing on how to get out of the building. The ceiling was about 30 feet high. FBI files show they created a periscope so they could keep watch. And they were using like a steam line to help vulcanize, you know, to provide heat to help cure the seals on the glue when they were putting the life vests together. And, you know, as far as

the quality of what they made, you know, one of the life vests, there was one life vest left behind. And when FBI took that as evidence, they tested it and they filled it with air in a lab and they put a weight on it and that held air indefinitely. It didn't even leak. So it was actually fairly well made. In order to make the guards think they were asleep in their cells, the men put the papier-mâché heads on their pillows. Marie says Clarence worked in the barbershop and collected hair to make them as lifelike as possible, even giving them eyelashes. She says they requested paint sets so they could make portraits of their girlfriends back home. They used that paint to give their

dummy heads facial features, but they also really did paint their girlfriends. Marie has the portraits in her house. I saw them. They're actually very, very good. Originally, all four men were going to leave together. But on the night of the escape, Alan West had trouble with the vent in his cell. He couldn't go. And when it came out that he was involved,

the FBI probed him, and they learned a lot. This is how we know what we do know about the escape. West did describe the raft as like 14 feet. Each of the two pontoons were 14 feet long and about 15 to 16 inches in diameter. And then the other pontoon was about six feet long, so we figured it was like a triangle, like an isosceles-type triangle-shaped raft. And they supposedly put a piece of canvas across the bottom of it to help support their weight.

And they had also made some paddles to help paddle away. At 10.30 p.m. on June 11th, the guards heard a loud noise. Mike Dykes says it was described like a hand beating a 55-gallon drum. And we assume that's the time when they were actually able to dislodge the cover on the vent on top of the building. And there's no real way, nothing else they could have done with it except push it up and push it over and it would have landed on the roof and made some noise. So that's sensible that that's what time they actually got out of the building.

The group most likely went to the very north end of the building where there was a stovepipe that they could shimmy down. And there's some dislodged barbed wire on a fence right outside of there that shows they went up over the fence there and then up over another fence. And then once they were after that fence, there was really nothing left that they had to defeat except the water. It's believed that they didn't inflate their raft until they were at the water's edge and that they set out not for mainland San Francisco, but for Angel Island. Allen West said their plan was to steal a real boat,

then steal a car, then head east. There's no way they could have known what the tides were going to do. The raft that they made, who knows how watertight that was. And there was a paddle found near Angel Island. So about 24 hours after they would have escaped out of their cells and out of the building, a paddle was found, and it was matching a paddle that was left on top of the cell block for West. So we know it's one of the paddles for them, but it was found near Angel Island. Days later, a packet of letters sealed in rubber and thought to have belonged to the men was found, and a homemade life jacket washed up not far from Golden Cape Bridge. You could drop 20 things, floating things in the bay,

and all of them would end up in different locations. That's the whole, you know, that's the whole problem with trying to judge where things are going to end up. Well, I think they made it. Good for you. What do you think? What makes you think that? Well, you've just told me about a wonderful plan that they were able to execute there.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, why wouldn't they have made it? It sounds fantastic, the whole thing. You know, once they went in the water, obviously nobody knows what happened. No bodies were ever recovered. But also on the same note, there's been no positive proof that any of them lived. Marie says they do have proof. A piece of leather with a horse on it.

It was delivered to Alfred, Clarence and John's oldest brother, in prison, after the brothers escaped from Alcatraz. She showed it to me. It's small, the size of a picture frame. Marie says the stitching on the edges of the leather is unmistakably Clarence's stitching, and perfectly matches the stitching on a leather wallet he made at Alcatraz. But, more importantly, she pointed out a small slit in the side of the leather where, she says, Clarence and John left a secret note for Alfred. When the three brothers were little,

they figured out how to use milk to write on blank paper to pass messages back and forth without their father seeing. He said when he took the note out, there was nothing on it. Struck a match to it, held it over the commode, and then he could read it as it burned. And it told him where the boys were. Alfred died shortly after he received that horse. He was electrocuted trying to escape from a prison in Alabama. Officials

said it was an accident. His body made contact with an electrified fence in an attempt to climb over it. As for Frank Morris, the third man who escaped with John and Clarence, we don't know anything. In 2010, Mike Dyke started looking at bones

that had washed up in 1963, nine months after the escape. A pelvis with two femurs attached. It was a male. Mike Dyke contacted the Anglin family and got DNA. It wasn't a match. Frank Morris has no living blood relatives that Mike Dyke could locate, so he was stuck. He describes it as a broken chain. What would happen if you

caught the brothers today? Well, just like any criminal, any guy fugitive we catch, they're going to go to court. You know, we'll arrest them. And then the U.S. attorneys would decide whether, you know, it's worth the trouble to prosecute them, you know, because they would be very old men now if they're still alive. And is it worth the trouble to prosecute them? Because they obviously stayed out of trouble for the last 55 years, as far as we can tell. And, you know, as far as that's concerned as well,

I mean, if any of them were still alive, all three of those guys would have reoffended in some way, shape, or form, because they're all career criminals. There's nothing, there's no indication whatsoever that they would have turned over a new leaf right after that escape, because they've all escaped before,

and every time, they re-offended. Have you ever met their sister Marie? Yeah, Marie Widener. Yeah, I met her. She really believes that her brothers made it. And I can understand her position on that, because it's her brother. If my brother disappeared and I didn't know whether he lived or died, I'd still try and, I would feel the same way. I would think my brothers might be still alive somewhere

or try to anyway, unless there was some proof otherwise. And she's, and the Anglin family is in the same boat I am. They have no evidence either way, whether they made it or whether they died. So, and maybe if I can prove something one way or another, it might give closure to everybody. What would you do if you saw them again? Oh, my goodness. I probably couldn't get through hugging them.

And telling them how much I love them. How do you imagine their lives after they escape? Where do you see them, and what do you think their life was like? Well, I used to dream about them a lot. And they were, every time they were in a big white house in the side of a mountain, and a lot of clay around. I, I, They were happy. One out of two of them in my dream.

So I would always hope that that's probably what happened. I'm sorry. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohr, Nadia Wilson, and me. Audio mix by Corey Schreppel and Rob Byers. Our intern is Matilde Erfolino. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight Foundation.

And thanks to AdCirc for providing their ad-serving platform to Radiotopia. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Radiotopia. From PRX. Headlines look better in adults. Effects of Botox cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox cosmetic if you have a skin infection.

Side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache, eyebrow and eyelid drooping, and eyelid swelling. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome in medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300.

See for yourself at BotoxCosmetic.com. changed by the tools we use to do it. So what is enterprise software anyway? What is productivity software? How will AI affect both? And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.