All language subtitles for HistorysGreatestEscapeswithMorganFreemanS01E01Alcatraz

- The most infamous
prison on Earth.

- Alcatraz is the true pioneer
of the supermax prison concept.

- Surrounded by
the freezing waters

of the San Francisco Bay.

- An average prisoner
would have succumbed

to hypothermia in
under three hours.

- Four inmates think
they can beat the odds

and make their way to freedom.

- They were paired in twos.

One would keep watch as
the other did the digging.

- Can they escape The Rock?
- You can't look back.

You can't contact family.

You've got to
basically disappear.

- Some of the greatest
stories ever told

start behind bars.

Locked up in the most
notorious prisons

in the world,

spied on by guards

and fellow prisoners.

It takes a devious mind

to find a way out.

It could lead you to freedom

or it could cost you your life.

But wouldn't you try

when you have
nothing left to lose?

Alcatraz, The Rock.

This is the most notorious
prison in American history.

It's a grim concrete fortress
planted on solid rock,

surrounded by the frigid
waters of San Francisco Bay.

This place is always cold.

And it has a way of
breaking the spirit

of the most hardened criminal.

Even Al Capone said,

"Alcatraz has got me licked."

- Alcatraz is the true pioneer

of the supermax prison concept.

- Alcatraz opened back in 1934.

They had a huge ratio
of guards to prisoners.

- You had, like,
this tool-proof steel

that was touted that
nobody could use

a regular file to file through.

- There were remote-controlled
canisters of tear gas

and that could be opened
in the event of a riot

or escape attempt.

There also was a number
of metal detectors around.

- They were really boasting
the metal detection.

They called it, you know,
"the invisible eye."

- The prison's
construction is unlike

anything that had ever
been built before.

- The cell structure is like

a three-tiered building
inside of a building.

It's three stories high

and the cells all faced outwards

so the guards could
walk the corridors

and look inside
each cell as needed.

Gun galleries up along the ends

so guards could shoot
into the prison if needed.

Once you're outside
the main cell building,

there are additional
fences and 20-foot walls.

There are thick concrete walls

and guard towers on the corners.

- Six watchtowers.

Each one of them had an
armed officer in that tower.

This was gonna be the facility

that there was no
escaping, no way out.

- Even if you managed
to get out of your cell,

scale the walls,

and evade the watchtowers,

you still faced the
biggest obstacle of all:

San Francisco Bay.

Its waters are cold enough
to kill you in an hour

and the currents can drag you

clean out into
the Pacific Ocean.

- An average prisoner

would have a functional
time of about

an hour and a half to two hours.

And then after
that, they'd just be

kind of, like,
bobbing and floating

and wouldn't be able
to really function

and they would
succumb to hypothermia

in about under three hours.

- Here's how criminals start
to talk about Alcatraz.

"If you don't follow
society's rules,

"you go to prison.

"If you don't follow
the prison rules,

you end up in Alcatraz."

- All the federal prisoners
knew if you went to Alcatraz,

the other prisoners
who were there

were the worst of the worst

in the federal prison system.

- Many of the most famous
criminals of their day

spent time at Alcatraz.

These include the infamous
Chicago crime boss,

Al Capone.

Other Depression era
gangster figures,

like Machine Gun Kelly.

Bumpy Johnson, the
Godfather of Harlem

spends time in Alcatraz,

as does Whitey Bulger,

the Irish American crime boss

turned FBI informant.

And of course, Robert Stroud

known as "The
Birdman of Alcatraz,"

who was transferred
from Leavenworth

after he killed a guard.

- But in 1962,

all of these big name
mobsters and murderers

will be overshadowed by a gang
of four small-time crooks.

It's not what they did to get
in that makes them famous.

It's their attempt to get out.

- Our team of Alcatraz escapees.

We have Allen West.

- West was a...
mostly a car thief

and he had a lot of larceny

and a lot of different
escape attempts.

- He finally gets out of prison,

goes into the military
for a short time,

gets a dishonorable discharge,

back in prison, and
believe it or not

ends up in Alcatraz in 1954.

- West is the guy who comes
up with the escape plan.

He gets the idea while
working at his prison job.

- West was one of the prisoners

who was trusted with
the maintenance.

So he would be cleaning,
he would paint,

he would do different things.

There's like a seven foot gap

between the ceiling or
roof of the cell structure

before you get to the bottom

of the actual cell
building itself.

And there's ventilation
through there,

there's plumbing
pipes, there's wires.

While he was up on top

cleaning the top tier
of the cell structure,

he noticed one of the
vents was not turning

and there's little motors
in there to pull air through

and he's noticed one
of them was broken.

He thought that was a way
out of the cell building.

- That's when the
wheels start turning.

This could be
access to the roof.

This could be the way out.

- West comes up
with the idea that,

"Yeah, we can do this."

So he knows the other people

who have a history of escape,

and he starts talking to 'em.

- West starts looking
for collaborators,

guys he can trust.

And one man he did time with

at the U.S.
Penitentiary in Atlanta

stands out above the rest.

- Next on the island we
would have Frank Morris.

He's our lone wolf.

He's very smart.

- People claim Morris
had an IQ of 137.

- He's got the most escapes

out of our four guys.

- He's been incarcerated
at 11 different facilities

from a very young age, and
Frank Morris was able to

successfully escape from
all 11 of those facilities.

- Morris recruits two
more members of the team,

a pair of escape artists
who also served in Atlanta,

John Anglin...

And his younger
brother, Clarence.

- John and Clarence, my uncles,

they robbed a bank in 1958,

which was the biggest crime
they had ever committed.

They used a toy gun to do it

because they didn't want
anybody to get hurt.

When they went in, the
president of the bank

got real hysterical and
he wound up passing out.

Well, they stopped
what they were doing

to get him a glass of water
to make sure that he was okay.

They did, you know,
tie their hands up

so they couldn't, you know,
call the police or whatever,

but they never hurt anybody.

- What the Anglin brothers

lack in cold-hearted
criminality,

they make up for in ingenuity

and persistence in
escape attempts.

- They had the reputation
inside of the family

as being their era of MacGyvers.

They could take nothing and
make something out of it.

- They had tried
several different,

and sometimes ingenious,
little escape attempts.

Leavenworth was the main one.

They both worked there together.

They had a prison camp
where they'd make bread

and then they would ship
it to and from the prison,

you know, and then they'd
send the empty boxes back.

They're large boxes,
so Clarence helped John

hide in these big bread boxes.

He concealed his
brother in there,

and then one of the
guards caught 'em

as they were going out.

- After their foiled
escape from Leavenworth,

the brothers get
shipped off to Alcatraz.

They're more than
happy to team up

with West and Morris

on another breakout scheme.

- I can tell you that
John and Clarence both,

they were always
planning escapes.

I can assure you that

they were thinking of
ways to get out of there.

- The four prisoners
have teamed up,

and their first task
is to get themselves

assigned to adjacent cells.

Given their escape record,
the Anglin brothers

are separated when
they get to Alcatraz.

- So there's a really
interesting note

in the case file.

And the sending warden
from Leavenworth

makes the statement
that the two brothers

should not be celled
next to each other.

And they had been
known to plot escapes

from every other
facility they'd been at

when they were together.

- After months of good behavior,

the warden allows
the Anglin brothers

to move to adjacent cells.

West and Morris also get
locked up side by side.

- It took some time
to get these guys

nearly all lined up on B block.

- Now that they
are all together,

they begin formulating a plan

to get through the roof vent,

down the side of the building,

past the fence,

and across the icy cold bay.

Step one, escape your cell.

Easier said than done.

The inmates know the bars
can't be cut with a saw

and stepping out the door

puts you directly in firing line

of machine-gun-toting guards

on either end.

The only possible way out

is somewhere else.

- Below the sink at
the back of each cell

is a small 6x9 inch grated vent.

And if you could actually
remove that grate,

what it provided access to

was a maintenance corridor

that ran the length
of the cellblock.

- The concrete around those
vents was deteriorating

so they figured if they
could make a big enough hole,

they could get out of
the back of the cell.

The digging begins

in September of 1961.

- They stole spoons
out of the cafeteria

and broke the tips off of 'em

and used 'em like picks

to pick away the concrete
around the vents.

And slowly, methodically,

over the course of six months,

the four men began to enlarge

the opening at the
back of their cell.

- Morris exploits his
job in the repair shop

to steal a vacuum motor and
build a makeshift drill.

They hope it will help them
break through the vent faster.

- West and Morris
both supposedly

read a book about engineering.

They said if you
use a hot plate,

heat the concrete
up, like, in the back

of the cells as they're
chipping away with it,

they said it would
help make the concrete

fall apart more easily.

And I think they did experiment

for a time with that.

- They couldn't all four
work at the same time.

They were paired in twos.

The Anglins were
next to each other

and one would keep watch

as the other did the digging,
and then they'd trade off.

Same with Frank and Allen.

- And then finally they could
actually pass through it.

- Clarence Anglin is the first

to break through the back wall.

Freedom is so close
he can taste it.

He reaches the roof vent

but discovers that
it's bolted shut.

After months of
patiently chipping away

at their cell walls,

their dreams of escape

could be over.

- Clarence Anglin
has snuck through

a hole in the back
of his desolate cell

to a grungy maintenance corridor

with an air vent that
leads to the prison's roof.

But instead of an
easy path to freedom,

he discovers that the
vent is bolted shut.

He and his co-conspirators

are going to have to
cut through the bolts

in order to escape.

But they've got one
hell of a problem.

How can they keep sneaking
into the maintenance corridor

without the guards noticing
they're not in their cells?

- To work on the
vent on the top,

they would need to have
something look like

they're in their cells.

- The escapees
were true artists.

They fashioned fake heads

out of anything you
can find in a prison.

We're talking wadded-up sheets,

we're talking
soap, chicken wire.

- They were able to collect
plaster, concrete mix,

and they were able
to form dummy heads

that they put inside their beads

to make it look like
they were still sleeping.

- The dummy papier-mache heads

were incredibly convincing.

- John and Clarence
took up painting

and they wound up painting

some portraits of
their girlfriends.

Well, they needed the
flesh-colored paint

for the dummy heads, so
they talked the guards

into letting them have
the flesh-colored paints

for the portraits, which
was actually a ruse

for the dummy heads.

- And the way to
really make it human

was to add human hair.

- Clarence Anglin worked
in the barbershop,

so he was able to collect
hair from other prisoners.

- While he was cutting hair,

he would let some of the hair

fall in the cuffs of his pants

and he would walk it back
to his cell every day.

So the dummy heads actually
had real human hair.

- They would shove blankets
and pillows in for the body

and then the head
sleeps near the rails

or near the bars that
the guard walks by.

So the guard could
just look inside.

If they see a head there,
they don't worry about it.

Or unless you go touch it

or actually get
really close to it,

you wouldn't worry
too much about it.

- Then there's the
issue of disguising

the chipped away holes
at the back of the cells.

- During the day, they concealed

the enlarged grates by
creating false fronts

with a grate and cardboard

painted to look like
the prison walls.

- They were able
to actually secure

some of the actual
paint from Allen West

that they're using to paint

in certain parts
of the cell blocks

so it perfectly matches.

This was not something that was

just in place for two weeks.

These were things
that were, you know,

being utilized for
months and months.

So they were actually
pretty compelling

in terms of how
they crafted these.

- Covering their tracks turns
out to be the easy part.

The hardened steel
bolts on the vent

are almost impossible to cut.

And the vent is
above the cellblock,

exposed to any guard who
happens to glance upward.

The escapees need a way to
work without being seen.

- Allen West came up
with a really good plan

to hide in plain view.

His job was to not
just paint the ceiling

of the cell house, but
also to remove the debris

that he encountered
along the way.

And those areas on
top of the cell blocks

were not often traveled

and they were dusty
as all get out,

and lots of paint
chips up there.

So he made a mess one day

and swept all of that
debris down the tiers.

Alcatraz had this reputation

for having the
shiniest concrete floor

in all of the land.

It just wasn't fit that
it would become dirty.

So he basically
planted the idea,

"Hey, we wouldn't
have this problem

"if I could just put some
drop cloths up there.

"You wouldn't get
mad at the work

"that you need me to do.

"So let me just put a
couple drop cloths up there.

You know, problem solved."

- And believe it or not,
he actually convinces

one of the officers
and also the captain

that he would like to put up

blankets to completely enclose

above the cell block.

His job wasn't that long.

These drop cloths were
up there for months.

- The guards are fooled,

but the rest of the
prison population

knows something's up.

- It really goes to say
a lot that these convicts

never ratted them out.

They stood to benefit a lot

if they would've
alerted an officer

that there was an
escape going on.

And it really gives
credit to, you know,

the entire inmate population

who worked with
them collectively

to ensure that they
were successful.

- They try to
protect each other.

Even if you hate the guy
in the cell next to you,

they'd rather, you know,

basically, screw the guards over

or screw the whole government
and prison system over

and not give up any information.

It's a code in
the prison system.

- With the drop cloths in place

and the rest of the inmates
keeping their mouths shut,

the escapees have time to work

on removing the bolts
from the ceiling vent.

- The ceiling ventilator
itself, this passive vent,

was actually bolted
into the cement up there

so they had to go up,
and utilizing a file,

literally file away
at those bolts.

- And then carefully,

they replace it with
a bolt made from soap.

- I think it just goes to show

they left no stone uncovered

and tried to cover
every single track

so that if they did
go up and investigate,

there would be nothing
to tip them off.

- That's gonna be their escape,

but just because you've
got out of the prison

doesn't mean that
you're home free.

- The second layer of
the Alcatraz defenses

is breached,

but there's much
more work to do.

They need to find a
way down from the roof

and then a way to cut
through the exterior fences.

But most of all,

they need to figure
out how to cross

the freezing San Francisco Bay.

- Frank Morris and
the Anglin brothers

have broken through two of
the main defensive barriers

of this grim hell hole.

They've escaped their cells
via secret backdoor exits,

and they've successfully
filed through the bolts

of a ventilation grate,

giving them access
to the prison roof.

But the manmade
structures on Alcatraz

are only half the battle.

The final and most
formidable barrier

is the frigid water of
the San Francisco Bay.

Only a few prisoners have
ever tried to escape Alcatraz.

Six were shot and killed.

Two of them drowned trying
to swim across the bay.

One prisoner actually
made it to the mainland

but was soon found
incapacitated by hypothermia.

One thing is obvious:

if you want to
make it to freedom,

swimming the bay is
not a workable plan.

- In some ways, it looks like

all that stands
between you and freedom

is a one-mile swim.

But the people who
have achieved that feat

are triathlon-level swimmers.

So the notion that
any ordinary prisoner

would be able to
make that journey

and survive is
incredibly unlikely.

- The escapees needed
flotation devices.

They needed, also, a raft.

Frank Morris, he
was an avid reader.

He also had magazine
subscriptions

that would aid him

in making these
inflatable devices.

- One of the famous
stories told is that

they read an article in
"Popular Mechanics" magazine

that basically gave them the
plans to construct these.

- There was a specific article

about how to take
rubberized material

like a raincoat material

and make a life vest out of it.

- Because of the cold weather,

Alcatraz has hundreds
of heavy raincoats

available for the inmates.

- At that time,
the raincoats were

actually really good material.

They were rubber with a
cotton mesh inside of it,

so they were really sturdy.

- These were being
provided by other convicts.

They were being worn out
to the recreation yard

and then they would
walk away from them.

And then one of our
escapee team guys

would walk back to
their cell with it.

- They also knew that
there was no tracking

of the issue of raincoats.

You know, the guards never said,

"Well, how many
raincoats are out?"

So they ended up with, you
know, dozens of raincoats.

They cut the backs
out of the raincoats

and then they
started shaping them

to make a raft and life vest.

The way to make them

into something
seaworthy, hopefully,

is a clever use

of three different
ways of binding them.

There's stitching.

There is gluing,

with most likely
bookbinding rubber cement.

- They used some steam
lines behind the cells

to vulcanize and
put heat to the seam

and help seal it even better.

- This is a triple sealed,

homemade life jacket and raft.

- And West claimed that
it would hold a Jeep.

He was an exaggerator, I'm sure.

But he said they would hold air.

- Making high-quality
gear takes time.

It also requires privacy.

With the drop cloths
still in place

above the cell block,

they turned that area into
a secret life raft workshop.

So for at least two months,

our escapees are
going up and down

to their secret workshop
to get everything together.

And they're not
being seen at all

because of the drop cloths

that Allen West
convinced the staff

that he should put up.

So they're able to work
from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.

during music hour.

Any of the convicts
that had permission

and had purchased or borrowed
an instrument could practice.

Maybe they weren't great
at what they were playing

but the sounds that
were being created

really covered a lot of that
scraping, drilling, climbing.

- During music hour,
other prisoners would

either play their radios
louder than normal,

or they would have
instruments to play music

'cause they knew that they
were going to be working.

Even though the prisoners
said "We didn't know

they was gonna escape," they
were noisier than normal.

- There's even this one rumor

that there was a secret melody

that someone would play
if they saw a guard

about to turn and do his rounds.

Something that could be played

to alert the guys,
"Look sharp."

But they're not ratting
Allen and his team out.

And that's probably
indicative of the hope

that every convict had

that someone would
break Alcatraz.

- After they had
their little workshop

built on top of
the cell structure,

they had their rafts built.

They were able to make paddles.

- Paddles are made from
pieces of small wood

that they're able to steal

from different places
around the shop.

- The next big obstacle they had

was the really cold water.

- Even with a raft
and life vests,

San Francisco Bay can easily
kill the untrained boatmen.

But the team finds a
surprise instructor:

the notorious Irish
American crime boss,

Whitey Bulger.

- He said that the
first time he saw John

walking across the rec yard

that it reminded him
of Steve McQueen.

He thought they
were good people.

He thought they
were trustworthy.

He told 'em how to
take the raincoats

and actually make
wetsuits out of them.

He was a scuba diver back
in the early 50s. And

he knew that in order

to help them survive
the cold temperatures,

that they would need something
to protect their skin.

So he told them how to
take some of the raincoats

and actually wear
'em and use 'em

as protection against the cold.

- He also teaches them

how to build up endurance
to the cold water.

- One of the security
features of Alcatraz

was that the water
that they utilized

in the shower area
was always very warm.

And what they wanted to
do was make sure that

the convicts could
never get acclimated

to the cold waters outside.

So that way, that if
they were somehow able

to make it to the shore, as
soon as they hit the water,

they would realize that they
would not be able to sustain.

But Whitey Bulger later stated

that some of the advice that
he gave to Clarence Anglin

was that he was to
utilize wet towels.

So they would actually
take these towels

and then soak 'em in
water that was cold

and drape the towels over them,

and that would help
them get acclimated.

- He also told 'em, "Once
you make it out of here,

"you can't look back.

"You can't contact family.

You've got to
basically disappear."

The plan is set.

The consequences are clear.

On the night of June 11th, 1962,

it's time to go.

- On the night of June

everything literally
came to a head,

and not just the dummy head.

They are placing
those in the bed

for the very last time
to fool these guards.

- The four men decide
that it is time to go.

That they're going to exit
their cells in the evening,

make their way up onto
the roof of the prison,

down into the yard,

over the fence, and to safety.

- The lights out. They
get out of their cell.

They had a ten-hour head start

before 7:00 the next morning.

- The officers at
that point in time

probably had so much faith

in the security
components of the prison

that they were becoming
a little bit more laxed

and overconfident that once
they did their final count,

there is no way that
these guys were ever gonna

make it out of their cells.

- They are removing
the fake grill

and fake wall piece from
the back of their cell,

squeezing through that hole.

- But almost immediately,

the plan and reality
start to diverge.

- The first hiccup
is Allen West,

who isn't able to
get through his vent.

The covering that he had
used to conceal his opening

had actually hardened.

- He had re-cemented part
of his cell up too much,

and he couldn't
get back out of it

'cause he thought he
was gonna get caught

so he kinda re-cemented it.

He couldn't break through.

About 9:37 that night,

Frank Morris came back down
and asked for a sip of water.

Then West claimed,
"Hey, I need help

getting out of my cell.
Can you guys help me?"

So Morris said,

"I'll grab one of the other
guys and we'll come help you."

And then Morris never came back,

so that's the last
time West saw them.

- And that's a really
interesting prospect.

If you're putting all this
time and effort into escaping,

wouldn't you be
ready at any time?

And it tells us maybe
he didn't want to go.

Maybe he was scared.

Maybe he wanted the
bragging rights.

That was certainly
on brand for him.

But also too, there's
another possibility,

maybe he was sabotaged.

He was a wildcard,
he was a loose cannon

and maybe they didn't tell him,

"Hey, buddy,
tonight's the night."

- Leaving behind the instigator

of their escape plan,

Morris and the Anglin brothers

race up to the workshop.

The clock is ticking.

- They're climbing up the pipes

to their secret workshop at
the top of the cellblock.

From there, they're
gathering their supplies.

Next, it's time to
get to the roof.

- The top vent cover
being knocked off

made a loud noise

when they dislodged it on
the night of the escape.

The guards actually had a report

at a few minutes after
10:00 that night.

They heard a loud bang,

which sounded like
somebody taking their hand

and hitting the side
of a 55-gallon drum.

- But their fellow
inmates come to the rescue

with a going-away present:

one final distraction.

- Every prisoner in
there made so much noise

because they wanted to hide
where that noise came from.

- The escapees are finally
through the ventilation grate

and up on the roof.

- And they had no idea
what the actual roof

of the building looked like

'cause nobody got
to go up there.

- I always think that
that must have been

such an amazing feeling

to finally make
it onto the roof,

having never seen

the cityscape of San
Francisco at night

without any bars or barriers.

- They're able to
go up to the roof.

First, an inmate goes up

and next, the supplies
need to come up.

The supplies that are coming up

through that air
shaft are paddles,

the inflatables,

a concertina.

A concertina is not the
same as an accordion,

but it is in the same family.

A concertina added a benefit
because of its valve system.

The way it forces air out

would make for a great
way to inflate a raft.

- Carrying all their gear,

the three men dash 100 feet
to the edge of the roof,

careful to avoid being
spotted by the guard towers.

They are now face to face
with their next obstacle:

getting down.

- They're going to have to
go down 35, 40 feet probably.

They work their way to
the north-northwest side

of the cell building

and there's a stovepipe
back there for the kitchen.

- Months of planning
and hard work

and subterfuge will have
all been for nothing

if they can't make it
down this rickety pipe.

No turning back now.

- Inmates Frank Morris,
Clarence Anglin,

and his brother John,

are on the precipice of freedom,

staring down from
the roof of Alcatraz

to the ground 40 feet below.

One slip here would be fatal.

- They end up shimmying
down a chimney

that goes down to
the prison bakery.

- They kind of used it like
a fireman does on a pole.

They wrapped around
it and slid down it.

- It was really rusty and sooty.

And we know they used that
because at the bottom,

after the escape, the
next day they have photos

and there's a whole
bunch of sooty footprints

all along the
ground on the bottom

where they shimmied
their way down the pipe.

- They had acquired
an extension cord

that was 125 foot long.

They used that extension cord

to lower their
gear from the roof.

- Once they were down there

and had all their
stuff down there,

they still had a probably
15-foot fence to get over.

- They took a blanket and
laid it over the barbed wire

so it wouldn't cut 'em as
they were going across it.

- They were able to
climb over the fence

and they could see a spot
where the barbed wire

was pushed down and
they actually could see

where they worked their
way through down the hill,

underneath the water tower.

And they know they went down
that way 'cause they found

a coiled up extension cord

right at the bottom
of that slope.

And then from there, they
know they worked their way

basically to the northwest
side of the island

which was the closest
launching point

for their destination,

which West claimed
was Angel Island.

They didn't want to go
towards San Francisco

because too many people there,

too many people would see 'em,

and it'd be too hard
for them to blend in

or to easily be seen
by local police.

They knew Angel Island
was largely unoccupied.

And they knew it
was a missile base

back in the '50s and '60s

and it was starting
to be deactivated

so there were probably a
few Army personnel there,

but they assumed that there
are gonna be boats there.

They were actually gonna
be able to get a real boat

and get to the mainland.

- Multiple stages of the
escape seem improbable.

The idea that these men

could leave their
cells in the night

for weeks on end

and not be detected, for one,

given the security measures

that we know were in
place in Alcatraz.

And then simply making it
from outside of the prison

and to the shore, that
itself is not a given

and that's part of the escape
that they're not able to scout

and plan with the same precision

as they are the construction
of, say, their raft.

- Against all odds,

they make it to the shore.

They inflate the raft
with the concertina

and push off into the dark

and treacherous
waters of the bay.

- No guard notices
any of them are gone

until the next morning.

- 7:00 headcount,
those three cells,

Morris and my uncles,
the Anglin brothers,

they did not come out of
their cells for headcount.

So one of the guards goes by

and takes his
little walking stick

and taps them on the head.

- And he wouldn't
wake up, and when they

tapped on the head
they said, "He's dead."

Initially said, "I
think he's dead."

They started hitting harder.

- Then that's when
one of the heads

fell out on the floor and
it kind of freaked him out.

He thought somebody had
cut his head off, you know?

He went screaming, and
that's when they realized

that they were gone.

- And they called it
out, "Sound the alarm."

- Whitey Bulger told
us when they discovered

that they were missing
and the sirens went off,

he said everybody in the cell
block just went to cheering

'cause they knew that
they had made it.

He said it was a great
moment in his life.

- Morris and the Anglin brothers

have successfully
launched two things:

their escape raft

and one of the
biggest manhunts ever.

- On the morning
of June 12th, 1962,

all hell breaks loose
when guards discover

that Frank Morris and
the Anglin brothers

have vanished.

- They just started searching
everywhere for them.

- They say it was one
of the largest manhunts

in history at the time.

- And FBI came out and they
called the Coast Guard.

They called the local police.

They sent out BOLOs,

which is a "be on
the lookout for"

to every local agency
in the whole Bay Area

and then statewide after that.

Every police department
was on the alert.

Two days after the escape,
they found a packet of

personal effects that belonged
to the Anglin brothers.

There were photographs,
some written piece of paper.

They said they found
it about 3/4 of a mile

northwest of Alcatraz.

Also, on the night
of the escape,

they found a paddle right
in the Badger Straits,

which is in between Angel Island

and Sausalito area.

It was similar to
the other paddle

that was left on top of
the cellblock for West

so they know it was made
on Alcatraz as well.

- There's a lot of
speculation about

whether Morris and the men

might have actually planned
a different escape route.

That maybe paddling
towards Angel Island

was a diversionary tactic.

Maybe they discarded
one of their paddles

into the water in order to

throw authorities off the chase.

- The next day after
that, they found

a used life vest out
of Cronkite Beach.

They could tell it
was a used life vest.

It was made the same way

as the one left
behind for Allen West

and that was found outside
the Golden Gate North.

And one of the life vests
that was left behind

when the FBI took
it as evidence,

they took it to the lab and
they filled it with air.

They put a weight on it and
it held air indefinitely

so it didn't leak air at all.

They were following up
on leads everywhere.

Relatives, cousins,

anybody who had
anything to do with him.

- I was about 11 years old.

My mom and I was
out raking the yard.

The FBI pulls up

and started asking
my mom questions.

"Have you heard
from your brothers?

Do you know where they're at?"

And she always had the
same answer for them:

"I don't know where they are.

And if I did, I
wouldn't tell you."

Our phones was bugged.

They was listening to everything

that the family was doing,

hoping that they would
get some kind of clue.

But behind the scenes,

they were constantly
harassing the family.

When my grandmother passed away,

of course the FBI was
there at the funeral.

The FBI harassed the family

all the way up
into the late '70s

when they decided to
turn the case over

to the U.S. Marshall service.

- Neither the Anglin
family nor law enforcement

has heard anything
from the escapees

since the night they
pushed their raft

off the shores of Alcatraz.

But that hasn't
stopped the search.

- The investigation is
still ongoing today.

The authorities say they
will not close the case

until they reach the age of 99.

- I worked on this case for
17 years until I retired.

And every lead that
I ever followed

turned out to be nothing.

It turned out to be
dead-end on everything.

There's a couple things that
I didn't really put out before

but I'll put out right now is

they left at, like,
the worst time

they could have left.

The currents at
10:00 that night

just started going
out to the ocean

at an ever-increasing pace

up until midnight.

And that's easily,

easily enough time for
a three knot current

to push them all the
way out into the ocean.

So if they had tried to
paddle towards Angel Island.

More than likely, they
said, "This isn't working.

We're dumping the boat."
Boat went out to the ocean.

And when that happened, that's
when the Anglin brothers

lost their little
packet of information.

Probably fell out
at the same time

and they probably tried
to swim from that point

'cause they were probably
in panic mode at this time

'cause they knew they weren't
going towards Angel Island,

they were going towards
the Golden Gate.

And by now, they're
probably in the water

for an hour so they're probably

getting pretty cold and
they're starting to lose

their functional time
from hypothermia,

And then they would've
finally succumbed to it

and would've probably
sunk to the bottom.

So I can't ever say it 100%

because we don't have
bodies to prove they died.

But I can say, in
all likelihood,

they probably did not make it.

- I'm gonna say this.

The answers to this mystery
are in the FBI files.

It's clear that
they were onto 'em

and close to 'em several times

because they were getting
thousands of leads every day.

People that claimed
that they had saw 'em.

You really don't have that
many leads, in my opinion,

unless some of 'em
were actually true.

- The scope of the investigation

for the FBI was massive.

I mean, it was nationwide.

Thousands of leads
all around the country

'cause everybody saw them.

Even though nobody saw
them, everybody saw them.

- They told the public

that there was no
way they made it

the day after they couldn't
find them, you know?

"Hey, they drowned.

They washed out to
sea, end of story."

It was a big embarrassment.

If y'all really believed

that they died and
they didn't make it,

why are y'all still
looking for 'em?

Why didn't you close the case?

So I really don't
believe that they believe

that they died.

- I think that the
1962 escape of Alcatraz

is a story that affirms
confirmation bias.

I can tell a group of 50 people

the same story, even
open it up for questions.

Every piece of evidence

that could lead for success,

there's something else
that could lead to failure.

And the people that
hear this story

are gonna interpret
it the way they want.

That's what everyone
loves about this story

because they know what happened.

What do I think?

It depends on the day.

- So what happened
to Frank Morris

and his co-conspirators,
John and Clarence Anglin

after they sailed off
into the darkness?

We may never know.

But Alcatraz,

well, it closed
the very next year.

Many inmates later said that
they helped the escapees

because they had a
bigger objective:

shut Alcatraz down.

One thing is certain.

Those three men did make
it off this cold rock.

Dead or alive,

they pulled off one of the most

daring escapes in
American history.