‘Greatest Escapes With Arturo Castro’ Episode 7: The Empty Raft of Alcatraz

Mental Floss is partnering with FilmNation and iHeartPodcasts to bring you the transcripts for Greatest Escapes, a podcast hosted by Arturo Castro about some of the wildest escape stories across history. In this episode, JD Pardo (Mayans M.C., The Terminal List) tags along for Arturo’s tale of three escape artists (Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin) who attempted to break out of the one of the most infamous prisons of all time: Alcatraz. Read all the transcripts here.

Arturo Castro: Welcome to Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories of all time. Today, we’re getting into the story of three escape artists who broke out of America’s most infamous supermax prison: Alcatraz.

I’m Arturo Castro, and I’m here with the incredibly charismatic actor and wonderful human being and producer and buddy of mine: JD Pardo!

[Theme]

Woo! Wow. What a great theme song by Ben Chugg. I f***ing love it. [German accent] “Do you like the untz untz, JD?”

JD Pardo: “[I’m] untzing all the time.”

Arturo: “Untz untz, baby!”

JD: “Dungeon Hour. You come here often?”

Arturo: “Yeah. I’ve been here for three days. I just got out at 7:00 a.m. Yeah. Do you like the Berlin–?” [laughs]

JD: Oh my god.

Arturo: JD! Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for being here, brother.

JD: Anything for you.

Arturo: Oh, thank you brother.

JD: Are you two buttons down by the way? What are you–

Arturo: Uh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s just my regular go-to. I … I’m like a naturally hairless person–

JD: I know.

Arturo: –so I’ve been able to like rock that low–

JD: I’ve been thinking about getting–

Arturo: –low v-neck.

JD: –hair implants, like, on my chest.

Arturo: Yeah. [laughs]

JD: You know what I’ve always loved? I’ve always loved those moments in films like, especially like in the ’70s and, like, in the ’80s where, like, the girl is like laying on his chest and she’s just like, playing around with like his—his chest hair and I was just like, “I wish I was that guy.”

Arturo: Oh … oh my god. I … I wonder if there’s like a merkin for that. You know what I’m saying? Is that what it’s called? Uh, a Merkin. My overlords, uh, producers? The thing that they put for pubic hair, the fake pubic hair?

Overlord: Correct. It is a French invention.

Arturo: It is a merkin, huh? Son of a b*tch. I’m so good at English.

1. JD’s Escape
2. CHAPTER 1: From the Beginning to the Battle
3. CHAPTER 2: Escape from Alcatraz
4. CHAPTER 3: The Raincoat Boat
5. CHAPTER 4: The Mystery—Did They Survive?
6. Outro
7. Credits

JD’s Escape

Arturo: What do you consider your greatest escape?

JD: Yeah, there—there was this … Well, I’ll take it—I’ll take it international since … since there’s no proof of this.

Arturo: F*** yeah.

JD: Um, and it was really weird, especially with like … after I saw Hostel and everything like that. Um … I was in Milan.

Arturo: Ya?

JD: And—uh, yeah, untzing—and well, yeah. I actually went to this club, and it was like 3:00 a.m. It was after a job that I did, a—a modeling gig, back in my Zoolander days. Um, one of the most–

Arturo: With Tommy Hilfiger, weren’t you?

JD: Tommy Hilfiger campaign. Uh, and then I did a—a job for Gucci in, um—in Milan. And it was a beautiful experience.

Arturo: We get it. You’re hot. Jesus Christ, JD.

JD: Yes, I’m hot. I was so—I was so hot.

Arturo: God damn it. Yeah, you are so hot. So you’re in Milan?

JD: I do this thing, right? And, uh—parties there like start like at 2:00 a.m., you know, end really late. And I was with a couple of guys, and we’re going back to the apartment, and this guy just pulled up in a cab and was just like, “I’ll—I’ll take you guys back.” And we’re like, “OK.” So I’m in the middle. We hop in and we start going. Now we–

Arturo: Do you know these other two guys that you were with?

JD: Yes, I knew the other two, I knew them. And we all lived in the same place.

Arturo: OK.

JD: Now we have been there for a few months now, so we know our way around, and we’re talking, and you know, we’re—we’re kind of wasted. And then all of a sudden one of the guys just starts freaking out—says, “Where is he taking us?”

Arturo: And you’re out the window just going, “I just wanna dance!”

JD: “I want to untzing! What happened?”

Arturo: OK. And so you—you can sense there’s something f***ed up?

JD: Well, yeah. You know, like, one of—one of the guys like starts screaming like Italian to the guy. Like, “this is not the way.” And then the other guy on my side is like, “this is not where we’re—we’re not supposed to go.” Like, “where’s he taking us? Where’s he taking us?” Like, “we’re that way.” And the guy’s like screaming at him. And then the driver starts screaming at us.

Arturo: No. He’s like, “Where are you guys taking me?” He was like, “Well, you’re f*** driving!”

JD: The next thing I know, the guy on my left bolts out. Jumps out of the car.

Arturo: Whoa.

JD: The other guy jumps out. The driver slams on the brakes and grabs a bat that’s right next to him.

Arturo: No.

JD: He goes out to the left. I immediately, without thinking, just—just jumped out of the car to my right and he starts screaming at me and I run down an alley.

And I—I jumped behind, like, this dumpster and like, this car—and I just kinda like … in the fetal position. I had no idea what was going on. Like it—this was—it just happened so quick where our guy called him out for taking us somewhere that we weren’t supposed to go, and they were … Dude, I—it still kind of freaks me out to this day, because I feel like I had someone, like, looking over me. And the guy was walking through the alley, and I could hear—it was like a movie, dude. I could hear the footsteps, like ...

Arturo: Oh my God. What a f***ing—like what a horror film f***ing moment.

JD: I’m just like, “Just don’t breathe. Just don’t breathe. Just don’t breathe.” And then he just turned around and went the other way. And he just started swearing, got in the car, and drove off.

Arturo: [Speaks Italian]

JD: Yeah. Yeah. “You f***ing American!” You know, like–

Arturo: Wow, well I’m glad you survived that.

JD: Thank you.

Arturo: Um, I wanna check in on the taxi driver to see his—his side of the story, cause I don’t— they’re like, “man, I don’t know what the f*** happened. These guys just like grabbed–”

JD: “Now. OK. I got your side of the story. Let me hear—let me hear what he was–“

Arturo: “Uh, our next guest is actually Federico. Federico, come here.”

Alright, well listen, let’s get ready for a big old escape. How about that?

JD: OK, I’m excited.

CHAPTER 1: From the Beginning to the Battle

Arturo: So we’re headed to California’s infamous island prison, Alcatraz. Hollywood has loved this place for years. Tons of classics, like Birdman of Alcatraz, Point Blank, The Enforcer …

JD: The Rock.

Arturo: … and The Rock. The f***ing Rock. Such a cool movie. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about why—like the fact that Alcatraz was originally made into a federal prison as a PR stunt for the government. The reputation of Alcatraz was kind of just the point of it, you know, so—so we’ll get into that. But some people haven’t been fans, starting with the prisoners who were locked up on the island. Who is the first person you think of when I say “Prohibition”?

JD: I think of, like, Tom Hardy.

Arturo: Yeah, playing what? Al Capone. Right?

JD: Right.

Arturo: So in 1930, splashy stories about mobsters like Al Capone had been super embarrassing for the government. So President Hoover decided that he needed to do something to save the government’s reputation. His answer to these super criminals was to create a super prison. So in 1933, the new Bureau decided to create a super prison to hold only the worst of the worst. They selected this military prison on Alcatraz Island. They wanted it to be, you know, [accent] a symbol of the government power to smash organized crime!

I don’t know what accent that is, but I figure that’s what people in power sound like.

JD: It had a lot in there, so that was good.

Arturo: Yeah.

JD: Yeah. You’re covering all your bases.

Arturo: It’s for all our listeners everywhere in the world.

JD: Yeah, yeah.

Arturo: So let me give you a little history on the island.

JD: OK.

Arturo: And the prison. So Alcatraz itself was originally named by Don Juan Manuel de Ayala.

JD: Oh.

Arturo: Um—so when the Spanish were laying claim to California, [they] called it La Isla de los Alcatraces, or “Island of the Sea Birds.” So the island was held by the Spanish until Mexican independence.

JD: Mm-hmm.

Arturo: Now the USA took it in 1847 and the army built a fort there, right? Where cannons were put to watch the San Francisco Bay during the Gold Rush. Which I’m sure—I mean … like, that makes sense, right? Everybody during the Gold Rush, being like—I’m sure it … it led to a lot of criminality and anxiety.

JD: Oh, for sure it did. Absolutely.

Arturo: Oh man. I—I see gold now, I f***ing go crazy.

JD: Yeah.

Arturo: And then in the American Civil War, Fort Alcatraz was packed with soldiers and guns guarding the harbor. Right? Since it was home to like 200 soldiers, there were plenty of buildings, you know, barracks to lodge troops, separate housing for the officers. A bakery, a bowling alley. It had a bowling alley. Yeah, baby.

JD: Yes! I love it.

Arturo: I love them being just like, “Yeah, so listen guys, we’re gonna—we’re gonna have to have to shoot some people, right? But that does not mean that I can’t strike a f***ing perfect 98, OK?”

JD: Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Arturo: Listen, so there were also separate warehouses on this island where … where the Union Army stashed all their guns and ammunition to keep the equipment away from Confederate sympathizers on the mainland, right? So over the years, Alcatraz slowly became a military prison. One historian says that after the Civil War, it became a holding pen for quote “assorted misfits and societal problems,” which is what I—what they would call us actors in—back in the day.

JD: Yeah, it sounds like normal, but–

Arturo: It was just a bunch of actors, really. They’re like, “these f***ing guys, problematic. F***ing put ’em in there.” So if—if the Army captured someone and didn’t wanna deal with them, they just dumped them on Alcatraz and locked them up in the newly constructed jail house on the island.

JD: Sounds about right.

Arturo: That included military deserters, stowaways on American ships, and even war protestors during World War I. Now, here’s a really f***ed up part: It also included Indigenous men trying to keep their children out of U.S. government schools. It’s a moment worth remembering. And … and it’s actually really important in the history of the prison.

JD: Yeah.

Arturo: There’s, uh … there’s a tribe that’s fighting for the rights of—that the island belongs to them to this day. Um, so we hope they win. But how f***ed up is this, bro, that like they put you away because you don’t want your kids being indoctrinated by the people that have come to f*** you over?

JD: It’s very sad, very tragic. I … I mean, look, history is ugly. And I think I told you, I—I think you, uh … when we were filming Roadhouse, that [I’m] producing a show with FX called Bandido, and it takes place in this time.

Arturo: Oh, wow! Yeah.

JD: In the late 1800s and early 1900s. And what I was so fascinated to find, and I think it did have something to do with Alcatraz, was that during the Gold Rush, this is where they wanted to push out the Indigenous—they wanted to push out the—the Mexican, or the dark colored skin, you know, natives, uh, who are considered Californios. Right. Um, cause it was separate.

Arturo: Yep.

JD: Um, but during the Gold Rush you had, you know, people from New York, you had Irish, you had Australian, you had everybody coming over. And what they ended up doing, um, if I remember correctly, was passing a foreign tax law for gold. If you were indigenous–

Arturo: Wow.

JD: –or Mexican, like native, you were considered a foreigner and you had to pay a tax law.

Arturo: No …

JD: And if you were caught taking gold without paying your taxes, you were thrown in, uh—in prison.  I think it had to do with—uh, with Alcatraz. So the—the crazy thing to me was like, even then there were these laws that—that they were putting into place to, man, hold people down.

Arturo: Yeah man. This is great—but thank you for that, dude. I did not know most of that.

So, as the army added to the number of people locked up in Alcatraz, they eventually decided to clear the center of the island and build a huge cell house. The cell house was built as a massive space. Towers of cells were stacked on top of each other in the middle of the room. That was the prison that President Hoover wanted to be his main showpiece in the 1930s. They planned to use Alcatraz to quote, “segregate degenerate minds”—these are his words, by the way—“from the rest of the inmates in federal custody.” “That’s what we wanna do!” He sounded like this for some reason, in my head.

Now, when the Bureau of Prisons picked the island to be their new federal super prison, they decided it would be a prison for escapees, right? Almost half of the men sent there had tried breaking out of other prisons and some had even succeeded. Now, the guards stationed there were very aware of that fact, right? One senior officer, uh, was quoted by saying–

Ben:  “The inmate’s job is to get out and our job is to keep ’em in.”

JD: I love it.

Arturo: Yeah, they’re like, “This is our slogan at Alcatraz.” Um—now the prison was rebuilt to be “escape proof” and—and yeah, I mean that’s kind of always the f***ing idea with prisons, isn’t it?

JD: Yeah, that’s the point.

Arturo: But Alcatraz—yeah. I love that they were like, “This one, you can’t escape from.”

JD: “Dammit. How did he do that?”

Arturo: Yeah, but with Alcatraz, the stakes were super high, right? The cells were built using tool-proof steel, new steel bar doors, and grates that were installed on every opening of the prison. The Rock, as its nicknamed, was selected precisely for the kinds of inmates who wouldn’t be scared off by a high wall or some barbed wire. So when it opened in the 1930s, prisoners like Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly were held in Alcatraz. That was before he made a terrible album. Just kidding.

JD: Yeah, right.

Arturo: Um—it made the prison the most infamous in the country. And the first major escape attempt came in 1937. Two prisoners secretly cut through the bars blocking a window of the building where they worked inside the prison.

Now carrying heavy tools from the model shop—this is a shop where they built people like you, um, JD—the model shop. Wow. What a terrible dad joke. So they broke through the lock on the gate, clambered down the cliffs, and hit the water where they dove in and swam towards the mainland. The men disappeared, but given the cold, choppy water that day in December and the tide running out to the Pacific Ocean, prison officials assumed that the men died in an attempt to swim to the bay.

JD: How far is that swim, by the way?

Arturo: I believe it’s a mile. Overlords?

Overlord: The closest land is a mile and a half.

Arturo: Mile and a half. Thank you, my overlords.

JD: That was like God.

Arturo: Yeah, I know. I’m telling you, bro, it’s the best f*** thing in the world.

JD: God?

Overlord: Yes, my son.

JD: See?

Arturo: Yeah. [laughs] OK. So in 1946, there was a super violent escape attempt that became known as the Battle of Alcatraz. It included a massive shootout between prisoners and Marines that were called to the island to fight them. After that, the prison was no longer seen as a symbol of the government’s power to win. No! Instead, it became a symbol of chaos and violence.

Now … this was obviously exactly the opposite of what the government wanted. You know, it undermined their whole PR project.

JD: Right.

Arturo: Cause the Bureau of Prisons responded by adding so many extra layers of security that no escapes were attempted for the next seven years. Eventually, though, prisoners would try to escape again, and the jailbreak in 1967 is about as different as you can get from the battle. That’s when three men, Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin actually made it out of the island prison.

CHAPTER 2: Escape from Alcatraz

Arturo: Let’s move on to the escape. So Frank, John, and Clarence—these three guys weren’t mobsters, you know? They weren’t killers. They were the other kind of inmate that Alcatraz was built for. They were the escape artists, right? Now—also, why … I love that they—they get deemed escape artists. You know what I’m saying?

JD: Yeah, “I’m an artist!”

Arturo: Uh, it’s a—it’s the best rebranding that … that escapees have ever done. Um …

JD: Yeah.

Arturo: It’s better than mayo turning into aioli. That rebranding: chef’s kiss. Mwah! So John and Clarence Anglin were farm boys. Good farm boys, right? Their parents were seasonal farm workers and lived much of their lives between farming towns. Now, one month they’d be picking tomatoes in Florida and the next, they’d be picking cherries in Michigan. They’d also bring along their 13 children as they moved from place to place.

JD: That’s tough, man. Cause I have two and I’m already on man-on-man defense, you know what I mean? Like I feel like one more, I’m heading into the zone and something’s gonna slip through the seams.

Arturo: Plus, the traveling! You have to have a bus, bro. Anyway, it was in Lake Michigan that John and Clarence learned how to swim. And as the story goes, they would even go swimming in the freezing cold, when the lake was still icy.

Oh. Have you ever done a polar plunge, JD?

JD: I want to. I want to.

Arturo: Yeah. It seems like it’s a fad now, doesn’t it?

JD: I love cold plunging. I absolutely do.

Arturo: Everybody’s like “dude.” It’s a thing!

JD: It’s a—it’s a thing, man.

Arturo: Yeah, well, as they—as these guys grew older, they grew wilder, right? They hot-wired cars. They stole tractor batteries. They broke into stores. Clarence even got locked up in a Florida juvenile detention center when he was 14. Now–

JD: Oof.

Arturo: Yeah, 14. Ooh, rough.

JD: Studmuffin.

Arturo: So soon enough, two of the brothers had four year sentences for breaking and entering, but they also started breaking out of the various jails where they were held. One account says that they broke outta jails in Fort Myers, in West Palm Beach, in Pompano Beach, Perry City, and Floral City.

JD: They sound like resorts. [laughs]

Arturo: That’s—yeah. So they got out of their all-inclusive timeshare and in Floral City–

In the escape from Floral City, Clarence sawed a hole through a wooden floor in the jail and was even shot in the shoulder as he jumped the prison fence.

JD: Nice.

Arturo: So the Anglin’s biggest crime was the robbery of a bank in Alabama in 1958. John, Clarence, and another Anglin brother all worked together, and they used a toy gun to hold up the employees and got away with $19,000.

JD: Whew.

Arturo: Woo. Particularly for, you know, farm boys at the time, I mean, this is a f***ing ton of money, isn’t it?

JD: Nineteen. Geez. There you go, baby.

Arturo: So for five days they went from place to place, staying with family, but then someone tipped them off to the police and they were caught in Hamilton, Ohio. Probably like a judgmental tia, you know, being like, “Oh no, mijo, listen.”

JD: “No, what’s it doing? It’s bad.”

Arturo: “You know, mijo, listen, let me, What are you doing?” That’s, uh—I would get ratted out so quick, bro. My family and be like, “What are you doing?”

JD: I would rat myself out. I’m like … I’m just a very—I’m like—I can’t lie, dude. It’s … it’s hard for me to lie.

Arturo: They narrowly ducked the death penalty in Alabama, so instead they got 25 years each.

JD: Hey, that’s—that’s, that’s a win, right?

Arturo: That’s a win.

JD: Back then?

Arturo: With even bigger—Yeah, of course…

JD: “I’m—I didn’t get the death penalty? Woo!”

Arturo: –and Alabama just seemed like they would—yeah. They’re like, “F*** it.” They’re like, “I’ll just escape.”

JD: “Oh, I was gonna escape anyway!”

Arturo: After various unsuccessful attempts from other federal prisons, John arrived in Alcatraz in October of 1960, and Clarence Anglin followed him there in January 1961. And once they got there together, they struck up a little bromance with a man named Frank Morris, and the three of them cooked up a plan that put their jailbreak into the history books!

CHAPTER 3: The Raincoat Boat

Arturo: Now thinking that there was no risk of them escaping the island, the prison warden put John and Clarence in side by side cells. So the cells were B Block 150 and B Block 152. Frank Morris was just a few cells down in 138. Now, that wasn’t the first time they had met Morris, though. They had previously made his acquaintance at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta.

JD: OK.

Arturo: Throughout his teens, Frank committed a series of armed robberies that had him locked up many times. But he had escaped custody over and over before he was finally shipped to Alcatraz. The Rock.

JD: The Rock.

Arturo: The Rock. Now, together with a fourth man, Allen West, Frank and the Anglin brothers hatched to plan to break out of Alcatraz.

So knowing that you have to escape the island, what—what are some of the things that you would factor in to your island escape? What do you think you would need, JD?

JD: I don’t even know what I would need, you know? But what’s impressive, a few of them were—they were just farmers, right? And it’s just your imagination, right? Like–

Arturo: It goes to show you that, yeah, being assertive and being creative is just—yeah.

JD: Being assertive and being creative and like, looking at the walls around you and saying, like, “No, it’s not holding me. This isn’t holding me.”

Arturo: I love that. I love that moment of empowerment. Looking at the walls around you and saying, “No. No walls. You will not catch me here.”

JD: “No. no. I am not going to–”

Arturo: “I refuse.”

JD: “–stay here for 25 years,” or whatever it is. Like, I … that’s impressive to me, because you have to have such imagination about the other side. And not only that, like, they used each other’s minds and they read the room and they were aware.

Arturo: They read the room.

Arturo: Let me tell you how they—how they actually started their escape, cause it’s f***ing wild. OK.

JD: Talk to me, goose.

Arturo: They started—so here’s the thing, right? Get in real close.

They started their escape with spoons. OK.

JD: No.

Arturo: For almost—yeah. For almost a year, they used them to scrape the concrete walls of their f***ing cells, man, widening the vent hole in the back wall until they could get into the utility corridor behind. The prisoners also had access to all sorts of tools in the prison shops where they worked, right?

JD: Yep.

Arturo: So they used art supplies and putty to build decoy gates that they could put in place during the day. So basically—they built it to make a decoy vent cover so that the guards wouldn’t know that they were actually breaking out. They stole a drill bit and a small motor from a broken vacuum, dude, and jury rigged that sh*t to help them drill–

JD: That’s some MacGyver sh*t, dude.

Arturo: –to help them drill through the steel bolts. Like can you believe?

JD: I love it.

Arturo: One of them even, Yeah. One of them even lifted a flashlight from the pocket of a guard so they could work in the dark.

JD: Oh, yes.

Arturo: Crazy. But listen, getting past the walls was only the first thing that they needed to do, right? So they started collecting rubber raincoats from all the prisoners in B Block. What do you think they’re gonna do with raincoats?

JD: Build a raft.

Arturo: There you go. There you go. You see? Yeah, I would f***ing pick you as my escapee.

JD: Right.

Arturo: Hey man, you got this.

JD: I’m not a stupid model.

Arturo: And these four walls, I say, “No, no.”

JD: “No, you’re not gonna hold me.” OK. So they built a raft.

Arturo: Well, they took inspiration from the magazine Popular Mechanics, which was a 1960 issue that described how to use resin to seal lampshades. They didn’t have resin, but they did have liquid plastic from the prison shops. Now, by melting the rubber raincoats together and sealing the edges with liquid plastic, they were able to make two rafts that they could use to float across San Francisco Bay.

JD: OK. Time out. Time out, time out, time out.

Arturo: Yep. Yep.

JD: Where do they store this raft?

Arturo: Probably in their cells, man. Probably underneath their beds. I don’t–

JD: Didn’t they toss cells?

Arturo: Or, or—no, because—OK, here’s the thing. Since they’ve already gotten through to the other side and they have fake decoy gate things, they probably put ’em on the other side. Do you know–

JD: Ahhh.

Arturo: Uh—there you go. That’s why you need me in the group.

JD: So you’re saying they had to go out several times and like, not that, “we got out of it and like, let’s take off,” but they—they had to like, repeatedly set things up outside?

Arturo: At least leave their cells. Yeah. See? Yes, yes–

JD: And so they’re like, “OK, so is it today?” “No, not today. Today’s the raft day.” “Got it.”

Arturo: Got it.

JD: “OK. Tomorrow?” “No, not tomorrow!”

Arturo: “No, not tomorrow.” So then they used chair legs to make paddles for the rafts and even cobbled together a hand pump so they could use it to inflate their makeshift rubber pontoons.

JD: Dude, people in this, like—in this, like, craft room must have thought they were geniuses. You know? Like, “God, they’re like, Picassos.”

Arturo: [laughs] Allen West took the lead on assembling the rafts. That left him behind schedule when it came to cutting open his escape hole. But he planned–

JD: Uh-oh.

Arturo: Yep. He planned to finish opening his cell on the night of the escape itself. Allen, you’re cutting it close, buddy.

JD: Dude, that—that just made me anxious.

Arturo: Buddy. Like what?

JD: I don’t even like showing up to the movie theater late.

Arturo: I know.

JD: I want to see the trailers. I want my popcorn. I want everything, like—yeah.

Arturo: Now Clarence, who worked in the prison barbershop, started collecting human hair. What do you think this is for?

JD: Human hair, uh … are they creating like a dummy to lay in the bed?

Arturo: Yeah, buddy. You got this. You got—I … my job here is done.

JD: Like I said, it’s never been proven that I’ve escaped, but …

Arturo: That’s right. So using cement dust, toilet paper, and soap, the men sculpted full heads for their pillows. They cover them with real human hair—uh huh—and painted on the skin tones with paint from the prison art kits.

JD: Can you imagine like me being like, “Arturo, hey Arturo, you think this looks like me? Too light? I’m this light!”

Arturo: “No, too light, bro. You’re not this light!”

JD: “I’ve been in the sun. I’ve been in the sun all day.”

Arturo: So on June 11, 1962, just over a year after the Anglins arrived at Alcatraz, they were already ready for their escape. So John, Clarence, Frank climbed out of the vent holes in the back of their cells, scaled the walls of the utility corridor. So—you see they’d, they’d already cut–

JD: Dun dun ... dun dun dun dun ... dun dun.

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right. They had already cut the metal bolts holding an air vent closed. They pushed the vent open and then boom, they were out on that prison roof. [airhorn sound]

JD: Wait, wait. OK. Was this during the day or at night? God?

Arturo: I believe it was a night. God?

Overlord: [Pause] This was at night.

JD: Oh.

Arturo: Yes. OK, good. Cause otherwise, like, f***—like the guards would be just like, “What the f*** are you guys doing?” But–

JD: “Uh, sorry, this is supposed to be tonight. I’ll be back.”

Arturo: “You guys, um, you’re not supposed to be out there.”

So when they got there, they realized that Allen West, f***ing procrastinator, was not with them.

JD: Yeah. Wonder why.

Arturo: So, yeah. So one by one they climbed back down and tried to help him out. Oh, that’s nice.

JD: That’s really nice.

Arturo: And he had not—he had not been able to finish cutting open the vent hole, so he found that there was actual steel reinforcing his vent. Just his vent.

JD: God, luck of the draw, man.

Arturo: I know. Eventually Frank and the Anglins left him behind. Carrying their–

JD: They did?

Arturo: Yeah. I mean, you have to right? Carrying their raft, they slid down a smokestack to the ground. Wow. This is crazy. They jumped the prison fence and made their way to the water, but they did leave behind one raft in case Allen was able to cut his way out.

JD: “Hey, in case you get through the steel, I’m gonna leave a raft for you!”

Arturo: “It’s gonna be here. Don’t worry about it!” And then they floated out off the northeast side of the island–

JD: Three of them. Three of them?

Arturo: –and into the night. Yeah. Which, I wonder if the … uh, I wonder if these rafts are made to just hold two a piece, you know? And like taking a third one was—was a dangerous move.

JD: Sitting on a lap—oh.

Arturo: Uh, yeah. Or for the weight purposes, that might’ve been a dangerous move.

JD: Oh yeah. Like, “we’re going down.” It like was choppy water, you know, water getting in there.

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So on June 12, 1962, guards discovered the empty cells and the dummy heads. They sounded the alarm and began the search.

JD: [Imitates siren]

Arturo: OK. Guess what, JD? These men … were never found.

JD: What? They were never found?

Arturo: They were never found. Prison officials declared that the men had drowned in the San Francisco Bay. They emphasized that the prison was very definitely inescapable and that therefore–

JD: Oh maybe that’s why they wanted to come out and say, “No, they drowned.”

Arturo: “–and the men could not have escaped because this is—” … I love the—I love that press conference: “Guys, they did not escape. This is inescapable.”

JD: “Calm down, calm down.”

Arturo: “Thank you, we will not be taking any questions at this time.”

JD: “Even if you get past the prison, you gotta get past the water. And that’s where they died.”

Arturo: “Guys, you know, water kills people, so … let’s move on.” That was the kind of circular logic meant to defend the prison’s reputation right?

JD: It’s trippy, man.

Arturo: Now, as for the potential getaway, Allen West said the three men were planning to break into a clothing store in Marin so they could change outta their prison clothes, but no robbery like that was ever reported. It was clear that at the very least, the men had escaped the prison and gotten out into the bay. When police interviewed the Anglins’ mother in Florida, she said that at least 10 of her children turned out to be good. I love that.

JD: “Number 11, 12 and 13. Aw, hell no.”

Arturo: “Nah, hell no.”

JD: “Them’s sons of b*tches.”

Arturo: I don’t even like—she stopped counting it after like 10. She’s like, “I don’t—f*** it. I don’t even know them very well. They were too many.”

JD: “One’s good. Two’s good. Three’s good. Four’s OK. Five’s good.”

Arturo: “Raise your hand if you’re sh*tty!” Yeah. As for John and Clarence, she told police that she hoped they got caught. Ooh, that’s cold.

JD: Ooh. Mom!

Arturo: So the—the story … the story made national headlines, you know, no matter what the prison officials said, the inescapable Alcatraz, home to violence and chaos, had been breached. Then, later that same year, another man broke out of the prison and swam the bay.

JD: Ooh.

Arturo: Yeah, another guy f***ing swam, f***ing swam.

JD: Boom. I don’t need a raft, son.

Arturo: That’s right. So, he reached the shore and was immediately caught. And if you can believe this sh*t, man, he did swim naked in December.

JD: Oh.

Arturo: So, this proved that the prison officials were wrong. It was definitely possible to get out and to cross the water. The prison shut down in 1963. A plan had already been underway since 1961 to close Alcatraz. It just needed extensive repairs and was already a public relations disaster.

JD: Yep.

Arturo: But the escape of Morris and the Anglins was a final nail in the ataúd, which is Spanish for “coffin.”

CHAPTER 4: The Mystery—Did They Survive?

Arturo: The mystery stayed alive because the story leaves us with a question.

JD: Yep.

Arturo: Did the escapees survive—and how can we know if they did, right? So that inspired the Escape from Alcatraz movie in the 1970s, and it’s been an open question ever since. In 2003—here we go—the show MythBusters recreated the escape attempt, even making a rubber raincoat raft.

JD: OK.

Arturo: They were able to land on the Marin Headlands and judge that the escape was possible. [airhorn sounds] Hey, overlords, I need my own air horn.

[Airhorn sound]

JD: [untzing]

Arturo: In 2011, a supervising deputy of the U.S. Marshalls said that he thought that the three men had survived. “I think probably the brothers lived. There’s nobody recovered. I can’t close the case,” he said. This man also spoke like, like Colombo, uh, in my head.

Now, in 2012, the 50th anniversary of the escape, the Anglin’s sister Marie said she never doubted that the two men had survived the escape. Also, we have to remember, these guys are f***ing incredible swimmers and were used to swimming in cold ass water. Right?

JD: Yep.

Arturo: The same year the U.S. Marshals revealed that an FBI report told them that the escapees’ empty raft was found on Angel Island. It was a likely spot for the tides to deposit junk that was washing into the Bay from Marin Headlands.

They also found a waterproof pack of photos on Angel Island. It held pictures of the Anglins and their loved ones. Now, their report also included news that a blue Chevy had been stolen in Marin that night. Alongside that—uh huh—a police report came in later that night from Stockton, California, 80 miles inland. It was a sighting of a blue Chevy carrying three men on the road that were driving at reckless speed.

Ooh, it gets more interesting. In 2013, the San Francisco police got a letter claiming to be John and offering to turn himself in if he would do less than a year in jail.

JD: “Give me 2014 now, gimme 2014!”

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It said that the other two men were dead. Right? So the FBI couldn’t tell if the letter was authentic or not, but they also couldn’t rule it out. Like the investigation of the original escape—the best they could come up with was that it was inconclusive. Now in 2015, a photo circulated the tabloids with a report that it was taken in Brazil in 1975. The two men in the pictures are matched to Clarence and John Anglin, buddy! Yes!

JD: Yeah!

Arturo: Yeah. Everybody has– [sings] At least, by everyone who wants to believe that they escaped, and by face recognition AI used to scan the photo in 2020, it states that was Clarence and John Anglin, and I love that they—that’s how they spent their … you know, they’re just like in Rio de Janeiro being like, “love life!”

JD: Oh, for sure.

Arturo: The U.S. Marshals have still been working on the case, and in June 2022, they created a new age-processed image of all three men, Frank, Clarence, and John. They would be in their nineties today. Just f***ing let ’em die guys.

JD: Bro. At this point, man. Come on.

Arturo: Yeah. They’re still asking for anybody with information about the men to call their San Francisco office, but it’s like you’re getting a little clingy, you guys, you’re getting a—you’re looking a little thirsty.

JD: Thirsty!

Arturo: Today, uh, Alcatraz is a tourist attraction like we spoke about, and a bird sanctuary. So la Isla de los Alcatraces once again an Isla–

JD: Bird prison!

Arturo: That’s right. In some ways this PR campaign by the Bureau of Prisons did work, right? So the legend of Alcatraz became so strong, then even after the government abandoned the prison, because it didn’t f***ing work, we kept making movies about it as if it did, right?

JD: Yep, yep. That’s a great point.

Arturo: In fact, one of those key moments in Alcatraz history actually came after the prison closed. In 1964, Indigenous activists took over the island. They were pointing out that under one of the treaties signed by the United States government—this is what I was talking about—all abandoned federal land was to be returned to the Indigenous nation.

JD: Ooh.

Arturo: Definitely a story worth checking out. It was a reminder of the way that the prison had been used in its earlier days and how powerful a symbol the prison had become.

Outro

Arturo: OK. So, JD, we’re getting to the end of our story.  And I want to ask you, OK? After you heard all of that … do you think these guys survived?

JD: I think they made it.

Arturo: OK, cool.

JD: I think they made it. But also because I speak in movie terms. You know what I mean? Like, I just … I love—I love the idea that they escaped, that they were in Brazil, you know, that they were just traveling around–

Arturo: You know, doing this show, what I’ve realized is that that when they f***ing escape, instead of being like, “All right, I’m gonna go lay low somewhere,” they just commit stupid sh*t and [they’re] just like, kind of flashy about it. These guys sound like the type that would be like, “F*** it, we made it through. We’re getting the f*** outta here and we’re never speaking of this again.” And it would make sense that, as an old man, he would be like, “I gotta get this off my chest. Just—it was me. Just please don’t put me in prison and then I’ll tell you everything,” and … you know what I’m saying?

JD: Yeah.

Arturo: These just seem like more even-keeled guys. But I don’t f***ing know ’em.

JD: I’m asking myself now—I do believe that they escaped. I’m putting myself in those shoes and just wondering, if I was going to die, would I want people to know that I did that? I’m legendary—you know what I mean?

Arturo: Would—would you?

JD: You know what I mean? I don’t know.

Arturo: You would. You’re about to die. You’re about to die—the coolest thing you ever f***ing did?

JD: I mean, well—nine—well, I’m probably gonna live to like, 110, so I still have a good 20 years.

Arturo: But you’re about to die in this scenario, right? In this scenario, you’re about to die, and you wouldn’t tell people the coolest f*** thing you ever did?

JD: OK. Forget about—forget about, like, about to die, but like–

Arturo: So you’re dying? So you’re dead. So JD, you’re dying.

JD: So I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m with God, and I’m like, “Just send me—just send me back down so I could just let everybody know.”

Arturo: What’s your—what’s your takeaway from the story? Do you have a takeaway? One part that really stood out to you?

JD: I just love the creativity.

Arturo: Yeah.

JD: It’s almost controversial to say these days that you have a choice, but I believe in the power choice, you know. And I was raised that way with my parents, who were immigrants, you know, and came to this country, like, they didn’t care what was in front of me. They didn’t care what rules were around me. They didn’t care that nobody hadn’t done it before. Like, that’s the mindset that I had, you know, like, there was always a possibility, there was a way. And what I love is that these men had the—the creativity. And like the information was all around them, whether it was Popular Mechanics or, you know, whether it was trusting yourself to another human being and spitballing with them a little bit. You know, like—but like, but their mindset was like, “eh, I’m not gonna be here that long.”

Arturo: Well, to your point, what strikes me is the potential lost. You know, if these guys, they’re so creative, they didn’t let it bring them down. They read the room like you said, and—f***! You—you just like wish that people like this could have like, had the opportunity to become something amazing as opposed to like their biggest feat being escaping from a prison. Right?

JD: I know.

Arturo: Brother, I love f*** talking to you, and I just wanna ask you if—if you have anything that we should look out for.

JD: I’m, uh, home now from Roadhouse. Mayans Season 5.

Arturo: People should binge watch the show if they haven’t. You are incredible in Mayans. It’s such a cool exploration of character. And also because you’re a wonderful human being, dude, and it’s been a f*** pleasure talking to you.

JD: Yeah, thank you, man!

Arturo: Anyway. For the Model shops—for the Model Shop, my name is Arturo. This is JD. We’ll see you in Milan. Untz untz untz!

JD: Yeah, untzing!

Arturo: Bye guys.

JD: Love you guys. Thank you so much!

Credits

Arturo: Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and FilmNation Entertainment, in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Arturo, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from FilmNation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Whitney Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio.

The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who is our other overlord.

Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Ryzack, Sara Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright.

Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we’ll see you all next week.