Out of Alcatraz — by a spoon?
Wouldn’t you like to spend some time on a beautiful island? “La isla bonita” of the Caribbean Sea is the symbol of paradise for everyone. But an island can also be hell, like Alcatraz, in the bay of San Francisco. Despite its beautiful Californian location, Alcatraz is sadly famous for its high-security prison, which, from 1934 to 1963, housed the worst criminals in the U.S.A., like Al Capone himself, and lesser criminals who had already caused trouble at other prisons or tried to escape. The strict rules and merciless treatment of the jailers made life there hard for prisoners, but the worst thing was probably its tight security which denied any hope to escape. During its 29-year history, there is no evidence of any successful escape attempt: it really was America’s best escape-proof stronghold.
The only exception might have happened in 1962, with two brothers, John and Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris as its protagonists. The Anglin brothers were two of thirteen children of a farmer family and had always been very close to each other: they grew up together, impressing everyone by swimming the frozen waters of Lake Michigan as children; then they robbed banks together, went to jail together, escaped the Atlanta penitentiary together and were sent to Alcatraz together. Frank Morris, orphaned at the age of 11, started his prison life very early, after being arrested for drugs possession and armed robbery. IQ testing stated that he was among the top 2% of the population in intelligence. He was definitely the head of the escape plan.
After all, only a brilliant idea and a lucky strike could have hoped to succeed in what was a desperate attempt against bleak odds. Leaded by Morris’s bright mind, the three Alcatraz inmates worked at night for months in their adjacent cells, widening the ventilation duct openings with saw blades, spoons and other tools they found or stole around the prison; they concealed the holes with cardboard and paint and the noise with Morris’s accordion playing. The widened holes leaded to an unguarded room in which they set up a small workshop; there they assembled stolen and donated raincoats from other inmates into makeshift life-preservers and into a rubber raft, stitched and sealed with the nearby steam pipes; they improvised paddles from scrap wood.
The three accomplices concealed their absence and the escape itself by sculpting papier-mâché dummy heads and putting them into their beds. On the night of June 11, 1962, they started their adventure. They reached a blind spot in the prison’s network of searchlights and there they inflated the raft with a concertina from an inmate. At around 10 pm they left the island on their makeshift raft and headed towards Angel Islands, where they hoped to land and seek freedom. Their absence wasn’t discovered until the next morning, thanks to the dummy heads they had placed in their beds.
A spectacular attempt, wasn’t it? But was it enough to stain the perfect evasion-less records of Alcatraz? Investigation on the case started right afterwards and lasted very long, but without being able to provide any clear evidence. No car nor cloth thefts were reported on Angel Island following the escape; no human remains nor any other physical evidence of the men were ever found. The FBI concluded that, even if possible, the escape was very unlikely, due to the frigid temperature of the water and the strong currents in the bay.
A family friend, Fred Brizzi, who grew up with the Anglin brothers, claimed to have recognised them in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1975. He also produced a photo of the two brothers in front of the farm where they supposedly lived in Rio.
Were two brothers and their bright friend able to escape legendary Alcatraz? We don’t know. But what’s clear is how, oddly, we tend to sympathise with these criminals. Shouldn’t we hope the FBI is right and they drowned? Shouldn’t we hope that Alcatraz granted all the criminals in its history their well-deserved punishment?
We should, indeed. Yet, we struggle to do so. Maybe it’s because we see some redeeming qualities in them, like Morris’s hard youth and outstanding intelligence and John and Clarence’s brotherly love. Or perhaps it’s because they weren’t the worst type of criminals after all, they were sent to Alcatraz because they escaped other facilities. They were just bank robbers, they stole from the rich to give to… themselves, like half Robin Hoods. Or maybe it’s the ingenuity of their plan and their epic escape from an impregnable prison what makes us turn a blind eye to them.
And you? Do you hope this great escape was successful?
