Ever find yourself rooting for the bad guys? Yeah, me too. (Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.) There’s something weirdly satisfying about a prison break that actually works—especially when it’s from a place literally nicknamed “The Rock” because it was supposed to be escape-proof.
The 1962 Alcatraz escape is basically the holy grail of prison breaks. Three guys who might’ve actually beaten the system and lived to tell about it… or became fish food in San Francisco Bay. It’s the criminal equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat—both dead and alive until we open the box.
The Masterminds Behind the Madness
Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin weren’t your average inmates. These guys had IQs that would make your high school valedictorian nervous. Morris especially—testing in the top 2% of inmates—because nothing says “I’m gonna use these smarts responsibly” like planning the most infamous prison break in American history.
They spent months digging through their cell walls using spoons and a homemade drill cobbled together from a vacuum cleaner motor. (Meanwhile, I can barely assemble an IKEA shelf with actual instructions.)
The Night That Made History
On June 11, 1962, the trio placed dummy heads made of soap, toilet paper, and real human hair on their pillows. I’ve seen these things in person at Alcatraz, and they’re both impressively realistic and deeply unsettling—like department store mannequins designed by someone who’s only seen humans in their nightmares.
The men squeezed through ventilation ducts (that they’d widened using those MacGyvered tools) and climbed up utility corridors to the roof. From there, they slid down a kitchen vent pipe and scaled two 12-foot barbed wire fences.
At the shore, they inflated a makeshift raft created from 50 raincoats sealed with heat from the prison workshop. Then they disappeared into the night and the cold, swirling waters of San Francisco Bay.
And then… nothing. For decades.
The Plot Thickens (Like Blood in Cold Water)
The FBI concluded they drowned. Case closed, right? Not exactly.
No bodies were ever found—which is weird considering the bay typically coughs up its dead within days. (Sorry for that mental image while you’re eating lunch.)
Then in 2013, the San Francisco Police received a letter allegedly from John Anglin himself:
“My name is John Anglin. I escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962… Yes we all made it that night, but barely!”
The letter claimed Frank died in 2008 and Clarence in 2011. John, apparently still kicking, offered to return to prison for a year in exchange for medical treatment.
The FBI analyzed the letter but results were “inconclusive”—which is FBI-speak for “we have no freaking idea.”
The Family Knows More Than They’re Saying
The Anglin family has been suspiciously quiet-not-quiet about the whole thing for years. Their nephew, Ken Widner, has straight-up said he believes his uncles survived.
Family members claim they received Christmas cards signed by the brothers for years after the escape. And get this—a forensic expert actually confirmed the handwriting matched.
In 2015, History Channel dropped a bombshell—a photo allegedly showing John and Clarence on a farm in Brazil in 1975. The family insists it’s them, standing there, alive and well, basically giving the middle finger to Alcatraz from South America.
Ryan (my husband) thinks the photo looks about as reliable as those blurry Bigfoot snapshots, but I’m not so sure. There’s something about their ears that matches perfectly—and ears are like fingerprints. They don’t lie.
Did They Actually Make It?
Here’s where it gets interesting. The official story says the currents in the bay would have swept them out to sea and certain death. But what if they timed it differently than we thought?
Tide experts (yes, that’s a real job) have suggested that if they left earlier or later than the presumed midnight departure, they could have hit a slack tide—meaning calmer waters and a fighting chance.
Or maybe they never planned to paddle across the bay at all. Some theories suggest they might have attached themselves to a departing prison ferry or had accomplices waiting with a boat.
The U.S. Marshals Service still has an active file on the case. They’re not giving up, which tells me they’re not convinced these guys are fish food either.
The Verdict?
Sixty years later, we still don’t know for sure. But I’m weirdly invested in believing they made it. There’s something deliciously satisfying about imagining these three guys sipping cocktails on a Brazilian beach while the FBI tore their hair out looking for bodies.
Would I have been rooting for them back in 1962? Probably not—these weren’t exactly choir boys. But with the passage of time, their escape has become less about the crimes they committed and more about the audacity of hope against impossible odds.
And honestly? That’s the kind of true crime story I live for—where the mystery is more compelling than the murder.
Sleep tight tonight. And maybe check that your ventilation ducts are secure. Just saying.