1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000
This program is about unsolved mysteries.

2
00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:13,000
Whenever possible, the actual family members and police officials have participated in recreating the events.

3
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,000
What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

4
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:22,000
Alcatraz, the Rock.

5
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:28,000
For over 29 years, the nation's most notorious prison, a home for such master criminals as Al Capone,

6
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,000
Machine Gun Kelly, and its birdman, Robert Stroud.

7
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:42,000
Alcatraz stands in the middle of San Francisco's icy cold bay, a treacherous moat that was a best guarantee that nobody would successfully escape,

8
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:48,000
and nobody did until June 11, 1962.

9
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:55,000
On that night, three men broke out of their cell house and vanished into the waves in a homemade raft.

10
00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:05,000
John Angle, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris, a brilliant mastermind of the escape, were never seen again.

11
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:11,000
Ten days later, authorities discovered pieces of the raft. It had broken up at sea.

12
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,000
The three convicts appeared to have swum for it. Did they make it? Then the bait continues.

13
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:24,000
If they went into the water with the primitive flotation equipment that they had,

14
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:29,000
they were drowned within 30 minutes. They succumbed to hypothermia and drowned.

15
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:36,000
I'd stick my life on it. That there out there in that bay right now, or their bones are out there.

16
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:43,000
I felt that they didn't make it, but I thought we'd find a body. And we didn't find a body.

17
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:52,000
I think they made it. If you call the Bureau of Prisons today, they will tell you no one escaped from Alcatraz. They made it.

18
00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:00,000
In the 25 years that have passed since that June night, no trace of Frank Morris, John Angle and Clarence Angle has ever been found.

19
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,000
They may still be at large, and perhaps are still in hiding.

20
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:14,000
Tonight, in a special 90-minute edition of Unsolved Mysteries, we will see exactly how the inmates conceived and executed their ingenious escape.

21
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,000
We'll follow the exact route they took as they broke through the walls of Alcatraz.

22
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:28,000
And just as they faced the icy waters of the San Francisco Bay, we have asked triathlon swimmer Dave Horning to attempt to duplicate their dangerous swim to freedom.

23
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:36,000
We've also built a replica of the convict's makeshift raft to see if it could possibly survive the one-and-a-half-mile trip across the bay.

24
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:43,000
Renowned endurance swimmer Diana Nyad will closely track Dave and the raft's progress from our camera boat just a few feet away.

25
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:52,000
We'll also take you inside the walls of Alcatraz, where society's most incorrigible criminals, including Al Capone, were finally tamed.

26
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:58,000
So join me for this 90-minute special edition of the Unsolved Mysteries from Alcatraz.

27
00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:59,000
In August of 1934, Alcatraz opened its doors. Its inmates, the most troublesome escape-prone cons in the system, were gathered from prisons around the country.

28
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:10,000
Alcatraz's first convicts were loaded on special armored trains. Shackled to their benches, they made the slow journey to Tiburon on San Francisco Bay.

29
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:19,000
The guards were so concerned about an escape that once there, the railroad cars themselves were loaded onto barges and taken across to the rock.

30
00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:25,000
The men were not allowed out of these train cars until they stepped on the dock of Alcatraz.

31
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:32,000
An Alcatraz inmates who behaved themselves were given the privilege of working a few hours a day in the industry's building.

32
00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:45,000
Here in the laundry, Al Capone had once made $100,000 a week ruling Chicago's underworld, earned seven cents an hour, pressing and folding the clothes of military personnel and the inmates.

33
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:54,000
It was possibly the first honest job he ever held, and Alcatraz was the first institution to truly tame the cunning, ganglin boss.

34
00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:05,000
Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931. Initially he was jailed in Chicago and then Atlanta, but was able to bribe authorities for special privileges.

35
00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:12,000
He had a carpeted cell, a smoking jacket, and was even offered a ticker-tape machine to keep track of his investments.

36
00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:18,000
At Alcatraz, however, he endured the same spartan conditions as everyone else.

37
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:29,000
Al Capone was a very good inmate on Alcatraz. Unfortunately some of the inmates were very jealous of him because of his millions of dollars, and he was treated very badly by the inmates.

38
00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,000
One inmate stabbed him one time in the barber shop.

39
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:40,000
During Capone's first two years at Alcatraz, the warden established a policy forbidding the inmates to speak to one another.

40
00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:44,000
This strict rule of silence was impossible for the boisterous Capone.

41
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:53,000
At least three occasions he was caught talking to other inmates, and it was here that he paid the penalty, confinement on isolation row.

42
00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:57,000
His 200-pound doors of steel blocked out all the lights.

43
00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:04,000
They forced the inmate to sit in a tiny cell and pitch black dark with no human contact for 24 hours a day.

44
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:12,000
If a convict was particularly troublesome, his bed blankets and clothes would be confiscated, and he had to endure the ordeal naked.

45
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:21,000
When Capone entered Alcatraz, he was diagnosed with syphilis. Capone wouldn't believe it and paid other convicts to take his medicine.

46
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:30,000
After a few years, the guards noticed that the syphilis was affecting his brain, his speech deteriorated, and from time to time he would put his clothes on backwards.

47
00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:41,000
Eventually, Capone was completely disabled by the disease. He died on January 25, 1947, eight years after his release from Alcatraz.

48
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:49,000
One of the rock's most famous residents was Robert Stroud, who served a life sentence for two murder convictions.

49
00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:58,000
Stroud initially was incarcerated at Leavenworth, where he spent his time in solitary confinement studying birds and wrote two books on their diseases.

50
00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:04,000
His life was chronicled in a movie called The Birdman of Alcatraz, starring Bert Lancaster.

51
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:12,000
It painted a heroic picture of Stroud as an oppressed convict tormented by prison officials who wanted to confiscate the 300 birds he had collected.

52
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:27,000
Robert Stroud was a surly, quiet, and morose individual. He did very little talking. Very few of the inmates talked to him, and most of them disliked him.

53
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:33,000
Stroud was a very intelligent man, with only a third grade education, getting to read and write in about three or four languages.

54
00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:39,000
But he was a psychotic, very demented man, and at most times very difficult to get along with.

55
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:50,000
At Leavenworth, Stroud was caught hiding three and a half gallons of grain alcohol, which he had distilled from bird seed, and from contraband smuggled to him in the bottoms of bird cages.

56
00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:54,000
For this and other offenses, he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942.

57
00:07:55,000 --> 00:08:09,000
He had a lot of funny habits. A lot of times he'd walk around in a cell quite naked. He'd also shave every hair off his body, and those were some of the things that were different than most inmates.

58
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:21,000
On the rock, Stroud was not allowed to keep a single bird in his cell, but apparently his biographers felt the title Birdman of Alcatraz had a catchier ring than Birdman of Leavenworth.

59
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:35,000
For thirty years, Alcatraz was the most dreaded prison in America. Tough, cold, and virtually escape proof. Fourteen escapes were attempted, ten men died, and all the rest were captured.

60
00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:44,000
Except three. Many former inmates believed those three made it. One of these inmates was a suspected collaborator, Clarence Carnes.

61
00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:58,000
A confidential close friend of the escapees, Clarence Carnes, spent thirteen years on Alcatraz and was the youngest person in confinement, arriving in 1946 when he was just eighteen years old.

62
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:09,000
That same year, Clarence became embroiled in the bloodiest escape attempt on Alcatraz's history, a desperate bid that resulted in the deaths of two guards and three inmates.

63
00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:17,000
Two other inmates were executed for their role in the murders, but Carnes was spared and instead received a life sentence.

64
00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:28,000
Don Denevy, a professor at Merritt College in Oakland, co-wrote a manuscript with Clarence Carnes. This was the first insider's account of the escape.

65
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:33,000
Clarence passed away last year, but Denevy shares his collaborator's opinion.

66
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:45,000
These guys made it. They made it because Clarence said they did, and I trust that. If you call the Bureau of Prisons today, they will tell you no one escaped from Alcatraz.

67
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:51,000
They made it. This is an embarrassment. Who's going to admit to that?

68
00:09:52,000 --> 00:10:06,000
In Clarence's manuscript, he wrote, cowardice in Alcatraz was a thing you didn't run into very often. Most had proven long before they got there that they weren't cowards.

69
00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:15,000
The daring escape of Frank Morris and the Anglican brothers against the longest odds it could possibly exist is telling proof that Clarence knew what he was talking about.

70
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:27,000
Alcatraz had a deservedly formidable reputation. The ratio of guard to inmate was the highest of any prison in the country, one guard to every three convicts.

71
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:34,000
Alcatraz was the last stop in the federal prison system, and only the worst troublemakers were sent there.

72
00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:45,000
There were a few privileges, and for the first two years of operation, prisoners were not even allowed to talk to one another. Out of a 24-hour day, 23 were spent in a solitary cell.

73
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:56,000
The inmates were counted at least 14 times a day, but no man-made security precautions could begin to match Alcatraz's most distinguished feature, the bay that surrounds it.

74
00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:05,000
Alcatraz was open because it was hoped to be, and we believe it has been, the inescapable prison.

75
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:16,000
Alcatraz was never considered escape proof. It was considered to be a very difficult place to escape from, for one reason and one reason only.

76
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:26,000
And that was the water that lay between the island and the mainland, or in the other direction from the island and Angel Island.

77
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:36,000
That was the only thing that made it difficult to escape from Alcatraz was that water. The water was there. That was the barrier.

78
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:52,000
Alcatraz's state of the art security included a master control room that oversaw the three-tiered cell blocks. There, each prisoner was assigned to his own cell, guards prowled restlessly looking for signs of trouble.

79
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:58,000
25, 23, 27, 24.

80
00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:07,000
You got so many counts you make a day, and you got to count bodies. And we had a lot of official counts, and then we had a lot of unofficial counts, which the officer of work was supposed to take.

81
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:13,000
So, in my opinion, if you can beat the count, you can escape from any place. If you can't beat the count, you're going to get caught.

82
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:20,000
One of the hallmarks of Alcatraz's rigid security was the sporadic shake-downs of the prisoner's cells.

83
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:22,000
Want to open up 143?

84
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:29,000
Clarence Carnes was often targeted as he worked in the prison library and distributed reading material to the board prisoners.

85
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:41,000
Authorities suspected that he used this job as a cover to circulate contraband materials. They were correct.

86
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:57,000
Carnes was the most important inmate on Alcatraz. He had gained the respect of virtually all the other inmates because he knew how to keep his mouth shut.

87
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:10,000
But he was, in a sense, the godfather of Alcatraz. Those who needed information, those who wanted advice sought Carnes out.

88
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:20,000
Clarence was invited to participate in the escape, but as he was under such close scrutiny, he declined.

89
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:26,000
He did remain close to the plot, a plot that began with a robber named Alan West.

90
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:34,000
West was a close friend of Carnes and was assigned to paint the top tier and ceiling of the cell block at the prison.

91
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:41,000
One day, while working there, he discovered a way to access the prisoner's roof through a ventilation shaft.

92
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:49,000
West noticed that the ventilation ducked through the cellhouse roof.

93
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:59,000
It was constructed in such a way that there were crossbars in between. You couldn't cut the bar.

94
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:12,000
But West discovered that all you had to do was cut the entire duck from its surrounding support and just shove the whole thing out.

95
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:23,000
By October of 1961, West had begun planning his escape. He enlisted the help of the Anglin brothers.

96
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:29,000
They had been at the prison for one and a half years and had a history of escapes from other institutions.

97
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:38,000
The Anglins were expert raftsmen because they'd grown up in the floor of the swamps. They knew how to construct rafts.

98
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:44,000
They knew how to negotiate currents. They were expert swimmers as well.

99
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:52,000
Perhaps the most pivotal figure in the plot was another bank robber named Frank Morris.

100
00:14:53,000 --> 00:15:04,000
According to prison records, he had an IQ of 133 approaching the genius range. His cell was next to West, and once he was brought into the plan, he put his intellect to good use.

101
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:11,000
Morris also had a record of other escape attempts. He had been at Alcatraz for one and a half years.

102
00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:26,000
Morris, if you could use the term, was the intellectual type. He was the thinker. Anything connected with this escape that had any real brains behind it can be credited to Morris.

103
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:34,000
Though they found a way to break through the roof, the prisoners still had no way to get to the top of the cell block from their first floor cells.

104
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:46,000
But Clarence Carnes knew a way. During his few hours of freedom, during the 1946 escape, Carnes had discovered this utility corner that ran the length and the height of the cell block.

105
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:56,000
Inside the corridor were heating and water pipes that formed a makeshift ladder. It was a dangerous climb, but it was the only way the convicts could reach the roof.

106
00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:11,000
Word began to circulate through the prison grapevine that an escape was on. It seemed everyone but the guards knew that something was up. Carnes' job made it possible for him to pass information to the four ring leaders.

107
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:24,000
It was not what might be called general knowledge, but I think that there was quite a few of the other inmates that were aware that an escape attempt was being made.

108
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:34,000
And it's surprising to me that this could be the case without some information getting to the authorities.

109
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:49,000
The convicts on Alcatraz, you know, even if the whole population knew about it, you can almost be guaranteed that the guards would never hear about it. That's just the way the cons on the rock were.

110
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:56,000
In preparing for their escape, the convicts took advantage of one of Alcatraz's few luxuries.

111
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:06,000
In the early part of the evening, there was what they call a music hour, and anybody who had a string instrument could play.

112
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:18,000
When that music is playing, it kind of has an effect of deafening the officer who was making his inspections.

113
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:24,000
And the inmates that were digging were just digging away.

114
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:39,000
You think that somebody's going to escape? They're going to escape out through the front. It never entered my mind that somebody would go back through the corridor. I don't know why. It's like, I guess you don't use the back door.

115
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:49,000
In between headcounts, the Anglans West and Morris dug out the rear of their respective cells.

116
00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:00,000
West also used the time to craft false ventilation fronts to hide their escape materials.

117
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:08,000
In order to evade the incessant headcounts while they prepared their escape, the convicts devised a brilliant ploy.

118
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:18,000
They decided that they would have to make dummy heads to be in their bunks in case one of them was not in there when the guard would go by.

119
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:26,000
And this was at a time when the lights were turned low, and it would be difficult to recognize other than see that a face was in the bed.

120
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:40,000
Morris asked me about how you mix flesh tone. You see, I'm an artist. I did a lot of oil painting on Alcatraz.

121
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:53,000
He asked me a number of times, and I began to wonder why is he so interested in flesh tone, and then I began to put it all together because they needed a flesh tone color for the dummy heads.

122
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:05,000
The construction of these dummies took place after the lights had been extinguished. The dummies themselves were made from soap, concrete powder, and stolen paint.

123
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:13,000
One of the Anglans worked in the barber shop and provided the hair that gave them an extra touch of realism.

124
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:27,000
This is one of the actual dummies the men created, still preserved by the National Maritime Museum across the bay in San Francisco.

125
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:35,000
Now these are two drills used by the convicts. They're constructed from barber shears and parsma vacuum cleaner.

126
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:39,000
They are thought to have been used to drill through the huge duct leading to the roof.

127
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:46,000
These are the actual spoon handles, which authorities believe are used to dig through the convict's cell walls.

128
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:55,000
By the time the convicts had crafted these items, they'd managed to surmount many of the obstacles standing between them and freedom, but huge ones remained.

129
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,000
They still had to find a place to hide while they used the drills that cut through to the roof.

130
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:07,000
Additionally, in the midst of the prison's tight security and close scrutiny, they had to find some private space where they could build their raft.

131
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,000
Alan West came up with a solution.

132
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:18,000
What's going on up there?

133
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:23,000
When West was painting, some material would get down and get scattered around.

134
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:34,000
And so I don't know who gave the orders that he would be allowed to hang some blankets up alongside of there so that this material would not get thrown over the side.

135
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:38,000
In retrospect, it gave those people a place to work.

136
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:54,000
For eight months, the cellhouse roof was blanketed off, giving the inmates complete privacy to drill out the ventilation shaft and collect the items they needed for their escape.

137
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,000
Morris and the Anglans would take turns climbing to this workspace.

138
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:04,000
The dummies left on their pillars enabled them to evade the nightly headcount.

139
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:16,000
Each night, with a lookout in place, they would make the hazardous climb to the roof.

140
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,000
In his manuscript, Carnes writes,

141
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:29,000
Many times through the years, I had met men who had tried to escape, but their flaw had been too little planning and being too hasty to try to get away.

142
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:35,000
They had not been thorough in their thinking, and that's what defeated them on Alcatraz.

143
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:46,000
The four men who painstakingly prepared their daring escape that winter in 1962 made no such mistakes.

144
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,000
I can hear you all the way up here. You gotta be quiet.

145
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,000
Shut up and keep filing.

146
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,000
Making any progress.

147
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:54,000
Some.

148
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:55,000
Some.

149
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:16,000
Back in 1962, the Anglans, Frank Morris and Allen West spent nine months preparing for their impending swim, and as winter passed into spring, they made their final plans.

150
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:30,000
To the patrolling guards, the spring of 1962 was like any other, but the inmates knew differently, and right under the gaze of their keepers, they helped the four escapees in their preparations.

151
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:38,000
One by one, other convicts surreptitiously passed the escapees the raincoats they needed to build their raft and life jackets.

152
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:49,000
At night, the men made their life preservers in their cells and hid them in the partially dugout escape tunnels.

153
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:59,000
In this secret workspace hidden by the blankets, the Anglans and Morris took turns assembling their raft.

154
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,000
They were getting close, very close to the time when they would be ready.

155
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:13,000
The lights had been extinguished. The time to escape had finally arrived.

156
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:43,000
Allen. Allen.

157
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,000
Yeah. Time to go.

158
00:23:53,000 --> 00:24:02,000
Quietly, the Anglans made the by now routine trip to their workspace, and for the first time, West tried to slip through the hole in his cell wall.

159
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,000
Frank, what the hell's the matter with you?

160
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,000
I can't get through the holes too small.

161
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,000
Everybody's upstairs ready to go.

162
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:18,000
West had his exit carved out to the point where all he needed was to punch his way through.

163
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:31,000
Suddenly, there's an iron bar that had been used as part of the reinforced masonry when the cell house had originally been built and that no one knew was there.

164
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:34,000
Where's West?

165
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,000
This hole's not big enough. He needs more help.

166
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:39,000
No way. Relief ring.

167
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:51,000
Leaving the instigator of the plan behind, the Anglans and Morris finally, in the words of Clarence Carnes, saw the moon for the first time in decades. They were almost free.

168
00:24:52,000 --> 00:25:04,000
The convicts descended from a corner of the roof by way of an exhaust pipe adjoining the kitchen.

169
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:14,000
Ironically, though prepared for every security breach inside the prison, security outside was weak.

170
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:22,000
Nobody noticed the men as they carried their raft and light preservers closer to the beach, the last step before the most grueling part of the journey.

171
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:29,000
Only one fence stood between them and the 54 degree waters of San Francisco Bay.

172
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:42,000
It was so carefully planned, utilizing dummy faces, the making of the life jackets and making of the rafts.

173
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:51,000
I don't know of any escape from a prison which had more ingenuity utilized.

174
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:59,000
The escapees were confronted by one final hurdle, how to quietly inflate their huge raft.

175
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:09,000
Their solution was perhaps the most ingenious yet. Frank Morris had received a small accordion called a concertina for use during the Daily Music Hour.

176
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:21,000
They had taken the keys out of the concertina and therefore you could put your hand on one strap of the concertina and push it up and down and it would operate just like a bellows.

177
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Very remarkable exercise of patience and stick-to-itiveness. The only weak point in this escape was the failure to really take serious consideration of that water out there.

178
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:50,000
The record of previous escape should have been sufficient to deter them from tackling that water. It's impossible to beat that water. That was the mistake.

179
00:26:54,000 --> 00:27:03,000
Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin had made it off the rock. What happened to them next remains a mystery.

180
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:13,000
The following day it was business as usual on Alcatraz beginning with a morning head count.

181
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,000
It's a dummy! It's a dummy in 152!

182
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:26,000
Clarence Anglin, John Anglin and Frank Morris had escaped.

183
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:39,000
Immediately an extensive search began. One of the largest manhunts in the country since a Lindbergh kidnapping 25 years earlier.

184
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:47,000
We were ordered to go out on the bay and of course start looking around the island and then over an angel on it.

185
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:52,000
Scanning the beaches to see if anything that pertained to them might have washed up.

186
00:27:52,000 --> 00:28:03,000
And then it became evident that we weren't going to find them. Whether they had made it or not, no one knew for sure.

187
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:11,000
Authorities believed that the men were headed for nearby Angel Island but for 24 hours nothing was found.

188
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:19,000
Then remnants of the escapee's rap began to surface and so too did a controversy on whether or not the men survived.

189
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:26,000
The day after the escape a homemade ore was discovered floating between Alcatraz and Angel Island.

190
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,000
This paddle matched one that the convicts had left behind in the cell block.

191
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:39,000
On June 14th, two days after the break out, a rubber-wrapped packet was also discovered floating near Angel Island.

192
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:46,000
It contained in a dress book 80 family photographs and a money order that belonged to one of the escapees.

193
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:55,000
My conclusion would be that it was items that these people needed. These were keepsakes of these men. This is all they had in this world.

194
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:04,000
When I seen that, I said, well, I think they didn't make it because I think it's something that they would even possibly risk their life to save.

195
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000
On the 15th of June, a prison raincoat was found floating near the North Shore of San Francisco.

196
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:21,000
On the 22nd, 10 days after the escape, pieces of the convict's raft were found, only 50 yards off the East Shore of Alcatraz.

197
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:31,000
I feel sincerely that the flotation equipment that they had came apart on them.

198
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:39,000
And that instead of being able to ride above the water, they were submerged in the water.

199
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:49,000
Don Eberle was the FBI agent in charge of the investigation.

200
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:54,000
Probably the earliest they could have gotten into the water would be 10.30.

201
00:29:54,000 --> 00:30:03,000
The outgoing tide started that night at 10 o'clock, and that outgoing tide is very strong.

202
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:12,000
And I firmly believe that they were taken by the currents into the Pacific Ocean.

203
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:18,000
The day of the escape, an Norwegian ship spotted a body floating 20 miles past the Golden Gate Bridge.

204
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:24,000
The one able to retrieve it, their description matched that of Frank Morris.

205
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:35,000
They sighted what he had on, and it coincided with the apparel of the escapees.

206
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:40,000
There is some evidence to suggest that at least one of the men survived.

207
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:48,000
The day after the escape, a man claiming to be John Anglin called a San Francisco lawyer known to represent Alcatraz inmates.

208
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:55,000
The attorney in question was out of the office, so the call was transferred to another attorney, Eugenia McGowan.

209
00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:02,000
The person called and the receptionist put him through to me, and he said, I'm John Anglin,

210
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:09,000
and I want you to contact the U.S. Marshals Office to set up a meeting, and I said, for what purpose?

211
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:16,000
And he said, in effect, don't ask questions, just do as I tell you, call the U.S. Marshals Office to set up a meeting.

212
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,000
And I said, well, I'm not going to do that unless I know why.

213
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,000
And he said, do you know who I am?

214
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:22,000
And I said, no.

215
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,000
He said, read the newspaper, and he hung up.

216
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:30,000
The FBI set up a phone tap in Eugenia McGowan's office, hoping the man would call back.

217
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:37,000
He never did, and they eventually ended the surveillance, dismissing the call as a prank.

218
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:44,000
A few weeks after the break, Clarence Carnes claimed he received a postcard from the escapees.

219
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:48,000
In it, they gave the prearranged code words that confirmed their success.

220
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:52,000
The card read, gone fishing.

221
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:59,000
If they had made it to shore, the first thing they would have had to do was take something off of somebody.

222
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:06,000
They would have had to get a car, they would have had to get money, they would have had to do something that would have certainly been noticed.

223
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:11,000
There were no reports of robberies or car thefts attributable to the escapees.

224
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:15,000
However, the men may have been helped by someone on the outside.

225
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:20,000
Clarence believed the convict secured the aid of an Alcatraz inmate named Bumpy Johnson.

226
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:32,000
Clarence shared with me that Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, black capone of Harlem, under world king of Harlem,

227
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:40,000
had arranged for a boat to be out there to pick the Anglans and Morris up.

228
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:52,000
Now it would have been pitch black out there, but my guess is that they did get to that boat that was waiting for them.

229
00:32:52,000 --> 00:33:01,000
According to Clarence Carnes, the boat then took the convicts to Pier 13 in San Francisco's Hudders Point District.

230
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:12,000
My feeling is that that's just something that Carnes has dreamed up and that there is not the slightest possibility there's any truth in it.

231
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:25,000
My opinion of Clarence Carnes is that he's an inmate of Alcatraz and any information he received from him would have to be taken with a grain of salt because of his background

232
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:32,000
and that you would have to seducesly verify everything that he said so far.

233
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:40,000
There's never been any indication of what he has said has any truth concerning the fact that they have escaped.

234
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:43,000
Come on, Wes.

235
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:50,000
Co-conspirator Alan West was questioned about these outside contacts. He denied that it existed.

236
00:33:51,000 --> 00:34:06,000
Wes wouldn't have copped out. He wouldn't cop out. You know, Wes was people. He was solid people. I don't believe he ever, to this day, I don't believe he ever told them nothing.

237
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:14,000
Today the FBI and prison authorities have not changed their opinion.

238
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:19,000
They believe the men drowned within minutes of hitting the water.

239
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:27,000
The escape was just another dismal failure in our opinion.

240
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:39,000
Of course, we never are cock-sure enough to say, well, we know they're dead, but we were pretty sure that they were dead because there was no trace of them whatsoever.

241
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:45,000
However, they're still on the missing list and not the dead list.

242
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:53,000
Six months after the escape of Morris and the Anglin brothers, another attempt proved that they could have survived the swim.

243
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:56,000
It began in the storeroom located underneath the kitchen.

244
00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:02,000
Over a period of time that must have been years, a succession of convicts sought away at the bars on a window.

245
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,000
Some believe they used a spatula stolen from the kitchen.

246
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:15,000
Another theory is that the inmates used pieces of string, covered them in wax, and then dipped them into ordinary kitchen cleansers, making a crude and fragile file.

247
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:19,000
Imagine the frustration of trying to saw through steel with a piece of string.

248
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:25,000
But by December of 1962, two men were ready to make the final cut.

249
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:35,000
John P. Scott and Lee Parker, two convicted bank robbers, made the last cuts on the bars on December 14, 1962.

250
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:40,000
The cold waters quickly convinced Parker to give up the swim, but Scott was undaunted.

251
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:49,000
He was carried by the current over three miles to the south base of the Golden Gate Bridge, where he washed ashore half frozen and nearly dead onto a rocky beach.

252
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,000
Some children thinking he had fallen off a boat alerted authorities.

253
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,000
Scott was immediately taken into custody.

254
00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:01,000
His escape attempt is the only known case of an inmate surviving the frigid waters,

255
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:06,000
which that December would have been the same temperature as the water in the Bay today.

256
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:13,000
On Alcatraz, one of the few privileges granted to inmates was a prison library,

257
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:21,000
and it was here, according to authorities, that the Anglin brothers and Morris had access to two magazines that may have aided their escape.

258
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:28,000
The March 1962 issue of popular mechanics contained an article on watertight sailing jackets,

259
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:35,000
and the May 1962 edition of Sports Illustrated featured an article on makeshift rubberized boats.

260
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:41,000
Police authorities believe that the men modeled their life jackets and raft on these articles.

261
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:48,000
Was this crudely made raft sturdy enough to survive the forceful currents of the Bay?

262
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:54,000
And if the raft did fail, could the escapees have made it to shore by swimming?

263
00:36:55,000 --> 00:37:00,000
To test the likelihood of the raft's survival, we've constructed a similar raft out of raincoats.

264
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:05,000
Three experienced kayakers will attempt to paddle this raft to shore.

265
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,000
To test the theory that the convicts had to abandon the raft and swim to shore,

266
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:17,000
we've asked endurance swimmer Dave Horning to brave the frigid waters surrounding Alcatraz and swim to a San Francisco beach.

267
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:23,000
Diane and I are standing by with our team of raptors who are just about ready to begin their journey.

268
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:28,000
The only thing that we're not duplicating accurately from the day of the escape is the time of day.

269
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,000
They left at night. Would that have made a tremendous difference?

270
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:38,000
I don't think a tremendous difference, but I think it is to our advantage that we can see and make a plan for the first two obstacles that they had to overcome.

271
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:44,000
First of which is this eight foot sea wall which has these very sharp and slippery leg breaking rocks below.

272
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:50,000
The second is that we can see these swirling eddies and currents that are around Alcatraz and we can make a plan as to how to get out of here.

273
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,000
I think the convicts really didn't know where the current was going to take them.

274
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:59,000
Well, I thank you all very much for your adventures and spirits and we'll be checking in with you all the way along.

275
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:05,000
We've switched now to our swimmer Dave Horning and Dave has swum some of the coldest bodies of water in the world, including in the Soviet Union.

276
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:10,000
Tell people at home who have never been immersed in dangerously cold water what happens to the body?

277
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:17,000
As I go into the water here this morning, it will be like an embracing shock which will go through my body initially when I hit the water.

278
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:22,000
And there will be some question in my mind in regards to how long I'll be able to last in this 47 degree water.

279
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,000
Okay, now that's you. You're very experienced in cold water.

280
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,000
Now, what about these three convicts?

281
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:35,000
I understand that they were not even allowed to take cold showers on Alcatraz for fear that they might acclimate themselves to the bay.

282
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,000
So what do you think their chances might have been?

283
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:43,000
Well, I think they had a chance to stay in the water for a certain amount of time because of the fact that they had a certain thing going for them known as motivation.

284
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,000
The motivation to get off of Alcatraz and escape from the rock.

285
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:52,000
Once they hit that water, that a motivation would concentrate them into being able to generate some adrenaline to keep them growing.

286
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:57,000
And once that adrenaline sunk in, that would help keep them insulated for a certain period of time.

287
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,000
But once they started to really succumb to the effects of the cold water, who knows what would happen?

288
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,000
Okay, well, we thank you very much and good luck to you.

289
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,000
The swimmer and rafter will be off in just a few minutes.

290
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:13,000
And Bob, all I can really say is that I'm just so very happy it's not going to be me in the water today.

291
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:14,000
Back to you.

292
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,000
Thank you, Diana.

293
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:21,000
The route these men will be taking will be the same route it is believed the 1962 escapees followed.

294
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:26,000
The escapees left from the eastern shore of the island, approximately here.

295
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:31,000
If they were attempting to swim to Angel Island about one and a half miles away, as the authorities believe,

296
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,000
the currents would have carried them away from the island out toward the Pacific Ocean.

297
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,000
If they were lucky, they made it ashore at the Golden Gate Bridge.

298
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:46,000
Dave is facing the same conditions, but his plan is to cut across the strong currents here and swim ashore at Chrissy Field.

299
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:53,000
Our swimmer and rafters are now in position. Diana will give them the signal to start. Diana, is everyone ready?

300
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,000
Well, Bob, I'd say we're just less than a minute away from getting underway here.

301
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:03,000
Let me quickly set the scene for you. We have a number of camera crews out here, including one up in a blimp to get the aerial view.

302
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,000
We also have a couple of paramedic teams, and this is why.

303
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:12,000
The water temperature at 47 degrees is colder than the ice water you keep in your refrigerator.

304
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:17,000
And that means that upon entry, the body dramatically and immediately loses heat.

305
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:25,000
And if you're in there for too long, you go into a state of hypothermia, meaning that the bloodstream and the core organs cannot function properly anymore.

306
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:33,000
And literally, you can go into a state of cardiac arrest. So I don't care how expert a swimmer you are, you take this situation very seriously.

307
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:39,000
Let me check on shore now to see if Dave and our three rafters are just about ready to embark.

308
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:53,000
Dave, are you ready? Rafters all set? Good luck. Be safe, everybody. And we'll count from three, two, one, go.

309
00:40:56,000 --> 00:41:04,000
We have asked Dave to wear an underwater microphone so that we can communicate with him if any problems should arise.

310
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:16,000
You'll notice from the very beginning that Dave will keep up a very, very rapid stroke pace, and that's because he is going to be chilled, almost shocked when he first enters the water, and he wants to generate a great deal of heat.

311
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:24,000
The rafters are going to have even more problems staying warm because they've got to just kind of float and kick behind them with that cumbersome raft.

312
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:35,000
Dave had told me before that he's probably going to get to shore in about 45 minutes, but let's be accurate about the convicts.

313
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:46,000
We look at Dave over here stroking very powerfully, and even though a couple of the convicts, the Anglin brothers, were from Florida, and I understand very good swimmers, still they weren't in this kind of condition.

314
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:53,000
Obviously they hadn't swum in years, they weren't used to cold water, so they were not going to be stroking as powerfully as this.

315
00:41:54,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Now if you look back at the rafters and see just how slowly they are progressing, this is probably more realistic to what went on that night in 1962.

316
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:19,000
You might have had three powerful people, but still they weren't used to the cold. It was night time, they didn't know precisely where they were going, so I think that this progress that the rafters are doing is probably very similar to what we could expect,

317
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:25,000
and they're probably, if they make it, going to take more like two hours, and that would be just at the edge of hypothermia.

318
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:36,000
Later on we'll be able to see if we talk to him that his face will be quite stiff, his mouth will look as if it's somewhat frozen,

319
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:44,000
and the signs of hypothermia that a trainer would look for as he's swimming, is if he becomes confused, if he swims around in circles,

320
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:52,000
if he hallucinates and is telling you that he's seeing things that aren't really there, that's your sign to take your swimmer out and get him warm.

321
00:42:53,000 --> 00:43:12,000
We are now 20 minutes into Dave Horning's attempt to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco.

322
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:19,000
For years the guards on Alcatraz told inmates that the bay was infested with man-eating sharks.

323
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:23,000
Marine biologist Layton Taylor says that that is a myth.

324
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:31,000
There are not man-eating sharks here in San Francisco Bay. There certainly are just outside the Golden Gate on the outer coastal beaches,

325
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:38,000
and I'd really guess that the guards probably told the prisoners about the attacks in the 1950s and so forth,

326
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:45,000
and probably really put the fear of God in the prisoners about sharks, but it's not true that San Francisco is a shark infested bay.

327
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,000
Has there ever been a shark attack inside the bay?

328
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:56,000
No, there are sharks in San Francisco Bay, but they're mud dwellers and they're on the bottom, and by the time a prisoner got to the bottom, he was out of the picture by then anyway.

329
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,000
I see, well thank you.

330
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:05,000
The men in the Bay of San Francisco inmates believed there were sharks in the bay. This didn't stop some convicts from trying to make a break for freedom.

331
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:10,000
The first escape attempt was in 1936, just two years after the prison opened.

332
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:22,000
Joseph Bowers received a 25-year sentence restuting $16.63, because he robbed a store in the same building as a post office, a federal offense.

333
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:27,000
He was given the maximum sentence with little likelihood of parole.

334
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:32,000
From the island of Alcatraz, a city of San Francisco seems just an arms reach away.

335
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:41,000
On April 27, 1936, Bowers was working at this incinerator. This must have been one of the most tempting spots to try and escape.

336
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:48,000
Suddenly Bowers appeared to go berserk and began to scale the fence, and alert guards spotted Bowers from a catwalk close by.

337
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:52,000
He yelled at him to stop and fired two warning shots over his head.

338
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:56,000
Bowers made it over the top of the fence and began to clamor down the other side.

339
00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:07,000
The guard now aiming to stop him fired again. Bowers was hit. Wounded, he relaxed his grip on the fence and fell 60 feet to his death.

340
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:19,000
In December of 1937, another escape was tried. This was no impulse, rather a carefully planned scheme that might have been successful.

341
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:32,000
Theodore Cole was 25, with a 50-year sentence for kidnapping. His partner was Ralph Rowe, a 37-year-old bank robber with a long criminal record and a 99-year sentence.

342
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:39,000
On December 16, 1937, the two men were making mats in the industrial building north of the cell block.

343
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:47,000
Even for San Francisco, it was a foggy, cold day. At approximately one o'clock in the afternoon, they saw not a shop window and broke through a fence.

344
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:55,000
The current was swift that day, running at eight miles per hour. Grabbing hold of a five-gallon can, they attempted to swim to freedom.

345
00:45:55,000 --> 00:46:04,000
The Rowan Coe escape, 1937, was one that I think was impossible to make. The tide was running very swiftly out towards the Golden Gate.

346
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:16,000
The water is 55 degrees. Alvin Karpus, an inmate, told me that he watched Rowan Coe escape, and as he looked out, you could see the bodies slipping into the bay, and he believed they drowned.

347
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:25,000
Just recently, John Stanley, a San Francisco reporter, discovered this 1941 article in the files of the San Francisco Chronicle.

348
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:34,000
It claims that Rowan Coe survived, fled to South America, and then using a secret code contacted their confidants back at Alcatraz.

349
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:42,000
Federal officials still maintained that Rowan Coe had perished. Perhaps the story was a hoax, concocted by inmates,

350
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:47,000
but to this day Rowan Coe are officially listed as missing.

351
00:46:52,000 --> 00:47:00,000
This newsreel documents the bloodiest of all the escape attempts on Alcatraz. It began on May 2nd, 1946.

352
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:07,000
San Francisco Bay. Here, for nearly 40 hours of murderous mutiny, armed convicts shut it out with guards.

353
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:18,000
Ring-leaders were Bernard Coe, Louisville Bank robber, Joe Kretzett. In cold blood, he shot down unarmed guards in an orgy of murder.

354
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:25,000
Marv Hubbard, Tennessee kidnap her. With one rifle and one automatic, they waged a desperate but futile fight.

355
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:34,000
You can see the smoke from rifle fire and tear gas bombs. As guards fought to rescue prison officials, held as hostages in cell block C.

356
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:46,000
It all began here, in the north end of the cell block. Convicts Coe and Hubbard jumped unarmed guard William Miller, taking his keys and locking him in an empty cell.

357
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:57,000
Coe greased his body and climbed to the top of the cell block where the bars were weakest. Using a homemade tool, he managed to spread the bars and squeeze through into the gun gallery.

358
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:04,000
Over the next few hours, the convicts captured nine guards and held them hostage here in these two cells.

359
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:12,000
Hour after hour, guards and convicts exchanged guns as crowds gathered to watch from the hills of San Francisco.

360
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:19,000
The detachment of Marines scaled the walls and dropped concussion grenades into the cell block from the roof.

361
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:28,000
On the second day, two teams of guards entered the cell block. In a furious shootout, the hostages were rescued and the ringleaders killed.

362
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:41,000
To the guards, all credits. Two of their number were killed, 15 wounded. Assistant Warden Miller shot by Coe, scarred perhaps for life.

363
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:50,000
For the criminal ringleaders, this gruesome end. Coe, Cressa and Hubbard, finger printed as they lie on slabs in the morgue.

364
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:53,000
There's is the final reward for a life of crime.

365
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:09,000
Here's a quick update on both the swimmer and rafters. Dave Horning just off my shoulder here is about 35 minutes into the swim and I would say he's made it two thirds of the way.

366
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:13,000
Just taking a quick look back there to see just how far he had gone.

367
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:23,000
Quickly to let you know how the rafters are doing at the moment, now that they have broken free from the shore of Alcatraz, they're actually making much better progress.

368
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:28,000
I keep going back and forth with the potential scenario of those convicts that night.

369
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:33,000
Just a few minutes ago, I thought, boy, they're barely moving, they're never going to make it to land anywhere.

370
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:41,000
Now they've actually been able to catch the current somewhat. They're going maybe a mile and a half to maybe even close to two miles an hour.

371
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:46,000
So I'm switching back the other way again and thinking maybe they could have made it.

372
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:52,000
I understand that the rafters are getting very cold and frustrated, that they aren't making much progress.

373
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:57,000
Now they're only still a quarter of a mile away from Alcatraz. Let's go to Diana.

374
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:08,000
We have three men here who have kayaked all over the world. They're young, they're strong in excellent shape, and they're having a great deal of difficulty making any progress.

375
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,000
And you can see they're being thrown around by the tide left and right.

376
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:21,000
Probably what was happening that night to the convicts out here was just some desperation, not a goal of getting somewhere, but just to get anywhere.

377
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:30,000
I'm sure the convicts didn't have much traffic out of here on the bay, but our swimmer and rafters today are having a great deal of traffic.

378
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:36,000
We've got barges, tugboats, tourist boats, etc., not to mention a number of seals.

379
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:40,000
So it's somewhat entertaining, although they're casting quite a bit of weight.

380
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:56,000
Just to check on Dave's medical condition, we've asked him a few simple questions, like his name, the same way that referees in boxing ask the fighters if they're coherent.

381
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:06,000
He's responded very well, but evidently he is cramping in one leg. Cramps can be very, very serious in the water, but we still assume that he's going to be okay.

382
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:18,000
Dave is only a few yards away from completing his swim. Diana, how's he doing?

383
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:26,000
The one thing I'm concerned about is not the cold, but the cramp in his leg. We still assume that since he's closing in on the beach that he's going to be okay.

384
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:35,000
We should mention here we've talked so much about hypothermia. Your core temperature actually goes down even further once you get out from a spell in cold water.

385
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:42,000
So when he gets out of here, we're going to be able to talk to him very briefly, but three or four minutes after that he's going to have to get warm.

386
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:48,000
And the way he does it is put on a pair of running shoes and go for a jog and generate his own heat. It's actually the best way to do it.

387
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:55,000
Well, it looks conclusive. Dave is literally 20 yards from the shore.

388
00:51:55,000 --> 00:52:03,000
Lifeguards have now entered the water with him for the last few feet, especially having reported a cramp just to make sure that he's able to walk out.

389
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:10,000
And he seems to be just fine. We'll have a word with him in just 30 seconds or so.

390
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:25,000
That was really cool.

391
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:33,000
Alright Dave, I know we don't have much time before you get your running shoes on. Tell me your experience first of all. You came in in just a little bit over an hour. How was it out there?

392
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:43,000
It was great. When I first hit the cold shock of the water, it definitely was embracing. Halfway through the swim, my feet and legs went numb.

393
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:50,000
And in the final 10 to 15 minutes, both legs totally cramped up. And I really had to wonder whether I'd be able to make it in.

394
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:57,000
I can hear just the way you're talking and a slightly bit of slurred speech as your mouth quite frozen in place.

395
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:05,000
Slerred definitely due to the cold chin. I'm glad I didn't have to stay in more than at least another hour.

396
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:12,000
Well listen, this brings us to your opinion now that you've done it. Do you believe they could have made it?

397
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:21,000
There's no question in my mind that they could have made it. The question is how they would have felt. It's the coffee that probably would have been their motivation.

398
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:32,000
Okay, well listen, we thank you so much for your brave effort today. And I'm going to reserve my opinion later because Dave Horning is one thing, the rafters are another thing.

399
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:36,000
So we're going to go back out and check and see how they actually do.

400
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:38,000
What a beautiful day.

401
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:47,000
Dave has succeeded in a swim to Chrissy Field. However, the rafters have only reached this point a quarter mile off Alcatraz.

402
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:51,000
Let's go back to Diana for an update on the rafters.

403
00:53:52,000 --> 00:54:03,000
They are not doing well. They just haven't made much progress. They came around Alcatraz very quickly, but now they're kind of stuck in the front of the island, maybe kept in by that incoming flood tide.

404
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,000
Come on over Bill.

405
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:17,000
So, I know you're strong. It must not be you guys. What's happening out there?

406
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:23,000
We're actually fairly comfortable, but we're not getting anywhere and the boat is starting to fall apart.

407
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:28,000
And we think even with the, we have certain advantages with the type of rig we have.

408
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:34,000
And if we're trying to really assess how the Convicts did, we don't think they did very well.

409
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:48,000
We have a little more modern clothing on and I think that given the situation when they left at night and know where they're going, they're in pretty weak condition from not having much exercise at the prison.

410
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:54,000
They probably at least were very uncomfortable, more likely got hypothermia and just didn't get anywhere.

411
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:58,000
We were actually very confident when we were leaving Alcatraz and the boat was in good condition.

412
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:12,000
But the more time we had to think about it, the more unlikely the whole possibility of them surviving seems, these guys were career Convicts and they haven't shown up since.

413
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:17,000
And you would think over 20 some odd years they would have probably committed another crime and gotten caught.

414
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:21,000
So I have feeling they're fish food.

415
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,000
Did the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris survive their daring escape?

416
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:36,000
Based on what we've seen today it certainly is possible.

417
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:42,000
Yet it seems odd that in the last 27 years so few clues have surfaced to prove that they made it.

418
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:50,000
Whether or not the men survived, their escape compromised the reputation of Alcatraz and less than a year later the prison closed.

419
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:54,000
For that reason alone it can be said the men did beat the rock.

420
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:58,000
Thanks to Diane and Iad, congratulations Dave.

421
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,000
Thank you very much for you brave men on the raft.

422
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:05,000
Join us again next week for another edition of Unsolved Mysteries.