All language subtitles for The UnXplained Special Presentation s01e12 Criminal Masterminds.eng

WILLIAM SHATNER:
A master of deception,

who was known
as "The Great Impostor"...

an elusive serial killer

who taunted the police
with puzzling messages...

and a gunslinger
from the Wild West

who may have faked
his own death.

Throughout history,
there have been clever criminals

who managed to outsmart
both the police and the public.

These larger-than-life figures
capture our curiosity

and make us wonder,
just what were they thinking

when they pulled off
their daring crimes?

As we investigate the misdeeds
of infamous outlaws,

can we unravel the complexity

of the criminal mind?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

As the Korean War
rages around it,

the Royal Canadian destroyer
HMCS Cayuga

brings aboard 19 badly wounded
South Korean soldiers

requiring immediate surgery.

Dr. Joseph Cyr,

the ship's
newly arrived physician,

is called upon to perform

a series of procedures
to save the men's lives.

There's quite a few wounded men.

They're taken on board
and the ship captain

tells Dr. Cyr,
"You have to operate.

You have to save these guys."

So, according to all accounts,

Dr. Cyr takes
this relatively calmly

and goes to it.

SHATNER:
While the patients are prepped for surgery,

Dr. Cyr reviews a medical
textbook in his private quarters

to prepare himself for what
would be the defining moment

of not only his career
but his entire life.

HENDLEY:
He performs a number of operations

on these wounded
South Korean soldiers,

removing bullets,
doing chest surgery,

and by all accounts,
he was successful.

SHATNER:
The story of Dr. Cyr's valiant performance

hit Canadian newspapers
and spread like wildfire.

Across the country,
people read about

the naval doctor's
heroic efforts

to save the lives
of the Korean soldiers.

But there was at least
one woman who was stunned

by the news that Dr. Joseph Cyr
had become a national hero.

And as it turned out,

she had a very good reason
to be surprised.

HENDLEY: The mother of Dr. Joseph
Cyr was reading the newspaper

and reads this account
of her son.

So she phones her son up
and her son is sort of like,

"Uh, no, I'm still posted
in New Brunswick.

I'm not on a ship,
what are you talking about?"

And it becomes obvious
very quickly

that the guy on board
the destroyer is an impostor.

The mother of the real doctor
contacts the RCMP-

Canada's equivalent of the FBI-

and the shipboard captain
on the destroyer is told,

"Uh, well, your surgeon
is an impostor.

Uh, we've, uh, got to take him
into custody."

He's taken back to Canada,
he's put before a court

that would reveal
that he's Ferdinand Demara

of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

SHATNER:
An American from Massachusetts

masquerading as a Canadian Naval
doctor in the Sea of Japan?

But how, and why?

HARVEY ROSENSTOCK:
Ferdinand Demara is a very fascinating man.

First of all, he came
from a middle-class family,

very comfortable.

But then, they suffered
the Great Depression.

They had to move, they had
to downgrade, as it were.

They get to a poor neighborhood,

less of the affluent
or semi-affluent amenities.

So, he went from a lot to less,

but it seemed to bother him
more than his parents,

the best that we can tell.

And therefore, he had
to fill in the difference.

HENDLEY:
By all accounts, he's a very smart kid.

You know, does well at school.

But he drops out of high school

and he starts this weird
sort of moving around

and trying on new personas.

ROSENSTOCK:
It turns out

that he has the ability
to memorize very quickly.

He even claimed that he had
a photographic memory,

so that he could
look at something,

say, "That really
belongs to me,"

and with a very good intellect,
he could carry this off.

And he found he could borrow
any kind of credential

and become that person
represented by that credential.

HENDLEY:
He starts that from a very early age,

and he joins the military,

goes AWOL, joins other
branches of the military.

And one of his
very early impersonations,

he pretends to be a Trappist
monk and joins a monastery.

At the time he was pretending
to be a Christian monk,

he made friends with a Canadian
doctor named Joseph Cyr,

and he then goes to enlist
in the Canadian Navy

and announces
that he's Dr. Joseph Cyr,

and uses the same credentials
that the real doctor had.

There's a war going on
at the time in Korea,

so they don't ask
too many questions.

They're just delighted
to get a surgeon.

SHATNER: In addition to posing
as a military surgeon and a monk,

Demara tried his hand
at impersonating

a number of other professions,

including civil engineer,
zoologist, psychologist,

philosophy professor
and lawyer, among many others.

Demara became so adept
at impersonation

that he eventually became known
by his most famous alias of all,

"The Great Impostor."

Ironically, Demara's life
went full circle.

After pretending to be

all these different identities
his whole life,

in the end,
he became famous for who he was.

Oh, I've been
a surgeon lieutenant

in the Royal Canadian Navy.

-You operated on people?
-Mm-hmm.

(audience laughter)

Isn't that rather dangerous?

-Uh, you might say that.
-Mm-hmm.

Where did you steal
your new credentials?

-I acquire these things.
-Yeah.

I know,
you keep telling me that.

I hate to bring the word "steal"
into this conversation.

HENDLEY: He appeared on You
Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx,

and he makes it clear
that he "acquired credentials,"

and that he's going to use
his prize money

to buy more credentials.

Were you in jail
in-in, uh, Canada?

-No. No.
-In the United States, have you ever been in jail?

Yes, I have been in jail.

I spent a year
in the Texas State Penitentiary.

Well, it's about time, I...
that somebody nailed you.

What were you in there for?

Uh, I was in there
as deputy warden.

Oh.

(laughter)

As a result of that,
everybody wants to meet him,

wants to talk about him,
wants to hear about him.

-Are you Martin Goddard?
-Yes, I am.

And your real name
is Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr.?

ROSENSTOCK:
And then, when Tony Curtis

acted in The Great Impostor,

he became famous
because he could fool the world.

ALEXANDER STEIN:
In many respects, to be an impostor

is fairly normal,

although we think of them
as somehow pathological.

In fact, there are many people
who do it for work.

Actors are a form of impostors.

There are people
who put on a costume

or a uniform to transform
themselves in some way

that gives them some measure
of authority in their work.

SHATNER:
Let's face it,

at one time or another,
most of us have fantasized

about trying on a new identity,

like when we engage
in role-playing games

or wear costumes on Halloween.

For most of us, of course,

the fantasy remains
simply that: a fantasy.

But in the case
of Ferdinand Demara,

the Great Impostor,
by pretending to be a surgeon,

is it possible that,
in his mind, at least,

he actually became one?

Ferdinand Demara
impersonated a surgeon.

He wasn't a surgeon,
but during the Korean War

while he was on a ship,
he saved lives.

His ability to adapt
from impersonation

might have given him
the ability to adapt

under a stressful situation.

Con man, of course,
"con" is a kind of a nickname.

The origin of that word
is "confidence."

In the case of someone
like Ferdinand Demara,

because of his success

in being able to truly believe
every one of his fantasies

as one new piece of reality,

he can act it out
in such a real way

for a limited period of time.

SHATNER:
By the time of his death,

from a heart attack
on June 7, 1982,

Ferdinand Demara had spent

the last several years
of his life

as a Baptist minister,
and later, a counselor

at Good Samaritan Hospital
in Anaheim, California.

In his obituary, Demara's lawyer
and good friend Melvin Belli

is quoted as saying,
"I never heard him say

he had any regrets
about anything."

And why should there be?

After all, most of us can
only live one life at a time.

Ferdinand Demara
was able to live several.

SHATNER: Sandra Boss, a recent
Harvard Business School graduate,

marries Clark Rockefeller,
a man who is known to her

as a member of one
of the wealthiest

and most powerful families
in America.

After the couple's
fairy-tale wedding,

Sandra went to work

for a prestigious
consulting firm in Boston

while Clark resumed working
on international poverty relief.

But the fairy tale
didn't last long.

MARK SEAL: He claimed he was
working on so many high-level things,

but he wasn't contributing
to the marriage financially.

He said, "Well, to charge
these struggling countries

a fee would be, you know,
unconscionable."

He didn't seem to want to
go out and get a regular job.

And so she was beginning
to get tired of this.

SHATNER:
After more than ten years of marriage,

Sandra Boss finally had enough
and filed for divorce.

It was a decision that would
not only unravel her marriage

but also unravel the strange
truth about her husband.

Clark Rockefeller had
no passport,

no credit cards,
no birth certificate

that she could find.

HENDLEY:
She can't come up with any documentation.

So she really has the whip hand
during the divorce,

and she ends up winning custody
of their daughter, Snooks.

He's absolutely gobsmacked
by this, and he's miserable

because he is actually
devoted to his daughter.

So he comes up
with this hairbrained plan,

and he kidnaps his daughter.

SHATNER: The FBI immediately
launched a nationwide manhunt,

but Clark Rockefeller had
vanished into thin air.

And the reason the authorities
had such a hard time

tracking down Clark Rockefeller
was because...

there was no Clark Rockefeller.

EDWARD SAVIO:
So, I'm at home.

My brother calls me.

He goes,
"Turn on CNN right now."

I turn on the TV,
and I look, and I go...

"That's
Christian Gerhartsreiter."

And it says right across
the top, "Clark Rockefeller."

So we called the FBI and said,

"This is
Christian Gerhartsreiter."

He is a German exchange student
that came to our house.

I was 15 at the time,
and he was 17.

But the FBI, like,
they didn't even know his name.

SEAL:
It was covered in all the media, on television,

and when the Amber Alert
was issued,

he was apprehended.

He was returned to Boston
to face charges.

And that's when
his incredible life

of all these different personas
unspooled.

SHATNER:
At trial, Sandra watched as her husband,

the man she had believed
to be a member of

the Rockefeller family,

was sentenced to
four to five years in prison

for custodial kidnapping.

But what was it that compelled
Christian to lie to his friends,

family and associates
for so long?

ROBBINS:
The phenomenon of an impostor is,

it's an interesting dichotomy
that somebody has to live with.

They have two stories
constantly colliding.

And often, if you're gonna
perpetuate that consistently,

you have to almost have
a form of delusion

to be able to compartmentalize
one of those realities,

so that you can live your life

without having this other one
on the back burner.

SHATNER:
Are impostors who carry out elaborate deceptions

acting out
a kind of wish-fantasy?

And if so, how does this fantasy
first take hold in their mind?

For the answer,
perhaps it's best to look

all the way back
into Christian's past.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter
grew up in West Germany.

By all accounts he was kind of
a bit of an oddball,

prone to fantasy,
little on the nerdy side

and really wanted to get out
of West Germany.

So, in 1978, he travels
to the United States

and shows up on the doorstep
of this family in Connecticut

called the Savios,

and sort of
went into high school,

said he was an exchange student

and things got progressively
stranger from there.

SAVIO: He told me that his father
created parts for Mercedes-Benz,

and of course, you know,
they had money,

you know, servants.

We all knew it was ridiculous.

We laughed at it at the time.

SHATNER:
By 1985, Christian had taken up residence

on the West Coast.

He had also taken a new name.

He moved to San Marino,

which is a rich community
in Southern California,

and assumed the name
Christopher Chichester

and announced that he was part
of the British royal family.

He would go get free lunches

at social clubs
and private members clubs.

He'd start schmoozing up
all the rich ladies in town,

attends a very fancy church.

Ends up living in the guesthouse

of a local woman
named Ruth Sohus.

He lives there rent-free
and all is well for a while,

but then Ruth's son, John,
shows up with his wife Linda.

And John apparently was
a bit suspicious

of this strange guy
living in mom's guesthouse.

And then all of a sudden
Linda and her husband disappear.

SHATNER:
Soon after Linda and John Sohus disappeared

so did Christopher Chichester.

And Christian, the impostor,
moved back to the East Coast,

where he would eventually live
under his most infamous alias:

Clark Rockefeller.

The rest, as they say,
is history.

But not before
this bizarre story

took yet another
unexpected twist.

In March of 2011,

after Christian was convicted
of kidnapping his daughter,

authorities in California
gathered enough evidence

to charge him
with a more serious crime

than any he had been
charged with before:

the 1985 murder of John Sohus.

SEAL:
Ruth Sohus had passed away

and another couple had
bought her home

and were installing
a swimming pool.

HENDLEY:
Where Christian lived in San Marino,

they dug up the backyard
and discovered human remains,

and the body was
cut up into pieces,

but it was wearing
the same kind of clothes

that John Sohus typically wore-

jeans and a flannel shirt.

And apparently parts were
in bags from schools

that Christian Gerhartsreiter
had attended.

So then he was put on trial
for murdering John Sohus.

He was found guilty,
and he is now an inmate

in San Quentin Prison
in California.

The police detective
that I interviewed said

that the motive was money.

He was to inherit
a sizable amount of money

from Ruth Sohus,
and that's what they believed.

And Linda Sohus had disappeared
off the face of the Earth.

What happened to Linda?

That's still an enduring mystery
of this case.

SHATNER:
Impostors like Christian, who are willing to lie-

or even kill- for the sake
of protecting an illusion

would certainly seem to be
troubled, misguided individuals.

But if that's true,
then why do so many of us

fall for their deceptions?

ROBBINS:
The secret to a con is

not about manufacturing
a whole fake reality.

Instead, it's finding the story

that people are
telling themselves

and just elaborating on it.

They're able to
compartmentalize this reality

because they're not worried
about somebody else.

These together present
opportunity for somebody

to be very evil.

SHATNER: Today, instead of going
by the name Clark Rockefeller,

Christian is known
as inmate number AR3108

at San Quentin State Prison.

Hopefully, his days
of adopting false identities

have been ended forever.

SHATNER:
The city is gripped by fear

after a number of horrific
and unsolved murders

are committed by
a shadowy serial killer.

The panic reaches a fever pitch

when the killer releases
a series of chilling notes,

in which he refers to
himself as the Zodiac.

Three virtually identical
handwritten letters arrived

at the offices of
three California newspapers.

And those letters took credit
for the crimes

and included details
from the crimes,

including the ammunition
that was used,

the positions of the victims,
and things like that.

And then another letter that
was sent on August 4 of 1969,

was the first to use the name
the Zodiac.

The Zodiac's crime spree
is often referred to

as a reign of terror.

And that's because his murders

not only sent fear
throughout the community,

but he eventually threatened to
murder schoolchildren on a bus.

He also said
he was gonna use a bomb.

He threatened to kill
dozens of people over a weekend.

So there were a lot of threats
that sent fear

through the community.

DAVID ORANCHAK: His name really
got out there, and on top of that,

Zodiac's victims were
selected presumably randomly.

And so people felt like, "Well,
he could be around the corner,

ready to kill me or us."

So he became kind of
like a boogeyman

waiting to kill somebody
out of the blue.

SHATNER: The Zodiac's reign
of terror became national news,

not only because of
the frightening nature

of his crimes

but also because some of
his mysterious letters

were written in code.

The Zodiac,
as macabre as this sounds,

turned his killings into a game,

not just for law enforcement
to try to figure out

but for the average citizen.

These ciphers sort of
served as a way

for people to play his game.

Can you figure out who I am?

So, using these codes,

while it made Zodiac
incredibly scary,

it also made him intriguing,
because...

anybody could figure out
who the Zodiac Killer is,

if you know how to play his game
correctly.

SHATNER:
The Zodiac's claim that the ciphers

revealed his true identity

taunted the police
and the public.

Both the authorities
and amateurs alike

poured over
the encrypted letters,

hoping to crack
the killer's devious codes.

JARROUSH:
The first cipher of the Zodiac,

it's commonly referred to
as the 408 cipher.

That was actually solved
in a matter of days by

a couple of citizens
in the San Francisco Bay area.

BUTTERFIELD: A local high school
economics teacher and his wife,

Donald and Bettye Harden,

decided to take
the killer's challenge

and spend a weekend
trying to solve that cipher.

And they were able
to find a solution.

Unfortunately,
the Hardens' solution

did not reveal
the killer's identity.

But it did begin
with the phrase:

Then he talked about collecting
slaves for his afterlife.

SHATNER:
The shocking content of the first cipher

heightened public panic
about the Zodiac.

But the killer's second cipher,
known as Z-340,

would not be solved so easily.

BUTTERFIELD: The Zodiac's second
cipher consisted of 340 symbols.

Unfortunately, that cipher
was very difficult to solve.

And he may have made it
that way deliberately

because he may have been
upset that his first cipher

was solved so quickly.

SHATNER:
Despite years of effort,

the Z-340 cipher
eluded decryption.

By 1974, the Zodiac had released
more than 20 letters,

in which he claimed
to have killed 37 people.

And then, after
a five-year reign of terror,

his communications
abruptly ceased,

and the case went cold.

It seemed that the codes-
and the crimes-

of this evil genius

were destined
to remain unsolved.

More than 30 years would pass

before software engineer
David Oranchak

became inspired
to take on the Z-340 cipher.

I first heard about
the Zodiac ciphers

when the Zodiac movie
came out in 2007.

And so there was already
kind of a vibrant community

of people involved with
the Zodiac cipher specifically.

So when I saw that, I thought,

"Hey, I want to take
a crack at that."

Because I'm a programmer,
uh, I like puzzles

and it would be very cool
to be able to-to crack that.

SHATNER: To try and solve the
cipher, David Oranchak teamed up

with Australian
mathematician Sam Blake

and Belgian computer programmer
Jarl Van Eycke.

The team became kind of
this collaboration of people

that would run experiments,
try out different ideas,

come up with computer programs

and different kind
of specialized tools

in order to try out these ideas

or to just run a bunch of keys
and try to break the code.

SHATNER: In spite of their
combined efforts, the Z-340 cipher

seemed like it might be
an unbreakable code.

But then, after 15 years
of challenging work,

the team finally cracked it.

ORANCHAK:
It was very satisfying to decrypt the message.

It was very exciting.

Once we had the solution,

I put together a report
and sent it to my contacts

in the code-breaking unit
of the FBI.

And then very quickly
they came back to us and said,

"This looks good,
it looks strong,

looks like the real solution,"

and that's when
the media storm hit.

SHATNER:
The revelation that the Z-340 cipher

had been broken, more than
50 years after it was released,

made headlines around the world.

But unfortunately,
the decrypted message

did not reveal
the killer's identity.

However, the search continues,

because there are
other Zodiac ciphers

that are yet to be solved,
the most fascinating of which

is called Z-13.

This cipher will literally
make you pull your hair out,

because at first glance,

you would think
it's got to be easy.

There's only 13 characters
in the cipher.

What's worse, is that
it starts with the phrase,

"My name is..."

He's literally telling you,
"Here's who I am."

And to this day, no one's been
able to figure it out as of yet.

Until cipher Z-13
can finally be solved,

it seems that the true identity
of the Zodiac Killer

will continue
to remain a mystery.

But there's another
master criminal

whose name is quite well known.

He's the notorious gunslinger
William H. Bonney,

better known as Billy the Kid.

And some people believe that
this outlaw eluded justice

by faking his own death.

SHATNER: Each year, thousands of
tourists travel to this small rural town,

located 160 miles
east of Albuquerque,

to visit a museum dedicated

to the most notorious
outlaw of the Old West...

Billy the Kid.

Among the attractions
is a tombstone where,

according to the history books,

the gunslinger was laid to rest.

DOWNS:
Billy the Kid claimed to have killed 21 men,

one for each year
of his short life.

(gunfire)

(screams)

DOWNS:
He escaped prison at least three times,

he was shot and stabbed,

and these things
all added to the legend

and the lore surrounding him.

At the height of his infamy,

there was a $500 bounty
on Billy the Kid's head,

which was a crazy amount
of money at that time period.

That resulted
in Sheriff Pat Garrett

and his sizable posse
trying to hunt him down.

According to official accounts,

he was shot down
by Pat Garrett in 1881

and laid to rest
in Sumner, New Mexico.

SHATNER: In 1882, Sheriff Pat
Garrett published a book entitled

An Authentic Life
of Billy the Kid,

which described Garrett's
encounters with the outlaw,

including their final showdown
in Sumner, New Mexico.

For decades,
historians considered the book

to be the definitive account
of the death of Billy the Kid.

But then, in the 1940s,
new information came to light

which suggested
that, incredibly,

Billy the Kid had evaded justice

and survived
for more than 60 years.

Investigator and lawyer
William Morrison

visits this rural community

in search of an elderly
prospector and cowboy named

Brushy Bill Roberts.

Morrison has traveled
to meet with Brushy Bill

because he has reason
to believe that Bill

may in fact be Billy the Kid.

NELIGH:
In 1949, William Morrison came across somebody

who said he knew that
Billy the Kid was still alive

and living in Texas

and William Morrison decided

that that's who
he needed to find.

So, he went to Texas

and he found
Brushy Bill Roberts.

When he asked Brushy Bill
if he was Billy the Kid,

Brushy Bill said,
"Okay, I am Billy the Kid,

"and I will tell my story
if you can secure me a pardon

"from the governor of New Mexico

for the crimes
that I committed."

DOWNS: Brushy Bill was hesitant
to admit to being Billy the Kid

because there was
still technically

a warrant out for his arrest

and he'd been sentenced to death
and if he were recaptured,

he technically could
have still been executed.

SHATNER: It may seem outlandish
to consider the possibility

that Brushy Bill Roberts
was Billy the Kid.

But the truth is
that the more William Morrison

investigated Brushy Bill's story

the more he started to believe
that it could be true.

William Morrison thought
that Brushy Bill

very well could be
Billy the Kid.

He had knife wounds
and bullet wounds

that seemed to fit
with the Kid's story.

In addition, Morrison found
several different people

who knew the Kid
in the olden days

who were willing
to sign affidavits

saying that, "Yeah, indeed,
Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid."

SHATNER: While the evidence
in favor of Brushy Bill's story

was compelling, many skeptics
asked an obvious question:

If Billy the Kid
didn't actually die in 1881,

then who is buried
in the grave site

located in Fort Sumner,
New Mexico?

The official account
of Billy the Kid's death

comes from Pat Garrett.

But there's
a lot of inconsistencies

in Garrett's story
from the very beginning.

He said that Billy was armed,

but when the body was examined,
there was no weapon on him.

The body was described
as having facial hair.

Billy the Kid
was always described

as not having facial hair.

The body was also described
as having dark skin,

and Billy was always described
as fair-skinned.

So, all of the inconsistencies
in Garrett's story

raises a lot of doubt
into his version

of Billy the Kid's death

and it opens the door
for the possibility

that Garrett shot the wrong man.

And Billy the Kid
could have survived,

and Brushy Bill Roberts really
could have been Billy the Kid.

SHATNER:
With the help of William Morrison,

Brushy Bill was able
to secure a meeting

with Thomas Mabry,
the governor of New Mexico,

in an effort to finally
receive a pardon

for the crimes of Billy the Kid.

But unfortunately,
the meeting did not go well

for Brushy Bill.

NELIGH:
Brushy Bill's meeting

with the governor of New Mexico
went horribly.

He couldn't remember
Pat Garrett's name.

It's said that
he maybe was suffering

from some kind
of physical ailment.

We don't really know,
but it didn't take long

for the governor
to decide that he wasn't

going to give him the pardon.

SHATNER:
Soon after the governor denied his clemency,

Brushy Bill
suffered a heart attack

and died on December 27th, 1950.

But the town of Hamilton,
Texas still commemorates

Brushy Bill to this day,

where his tombstone
identifies him as being

the notorious gunslinger.

Could Billy the Kid have
actually escaped an early death?

The true fate of the notorious
outlaw remains a mystery.

Just like the fate
of three criminals...

...who may have pulled off one
of history's greatest escapes.

SHATNER:
A little over one mile offshore stands

what was, at one time,

the most secure penitentiary
in the United States-

Alcatraz.

Or, as it is more
famously known...

The Rock.

♪ ♪

Formerly a military stockade,

it was converted to a maximum
security prison in 1934

by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
who wanted to house

the nation's most dangerous
criminals in a place

from which there was no escape.

MICHAEL DYKE:
Alcatraz was Hoover's baby.

And he wanted it for his
public enemy number ones.

And, supposedly,
nobody could escape.

The island is out
in the middle of the water,

the water's 52 degrees
on average

throughout the whole year,

and there's sharks in the Bay.

SHATNER: Since it first began
operations in 1934 until 1962,

a total of 31 prisoners
attempted to escape Alcatraz.

23 were caught.
Six were shot and killed.

Two drowned in the frigid waters
of San Francisco Bay.

MICHAEL ESSLINGER:
With Alcatraz, you had

America's most
security safe prison

in the middle
of the San Francisco Bay.

When it first opened,
they had what was called

the silence rule.

They couldn't talk
to each other.

There was no news coming in.

But they had the sights,
even the smells

of the Ghirardelli chocolate
factory across the Bay.

They could hear
the tour boats in the Bay

-kind of going around
-(people laughing)

and the laughs
and the parties going on.

So it was more of
a psychological torture for them

than it was actually
physical torture.

SHATNER:
In 1960,

an inmate named Frank Morris
was admitted to Alcatraz,

followed by three others-

Allen West, and brothers
John and Clarence Anglin.

ESSLINGER:
Allen West, Frank Morris

and the Anglins had all
served time

in Atlanta Penitentiary.

I think that at least,
you know, by sight,

they would have known
each other,

probably met for certain.

SHATNER: Together, the four men
hatched an elaborate plan to succeed

where other potential
escapees had failed.

Allan West was
on the cleaning detail.

He was up on top of the
cell blocks sweeping up

when he saw that there was
a vent in the roof

that didn't work.

And West, the Anglin brothers
and Morris noticed

that the cement inside
the backs of the cells was

crumbling because
of the salt air.

ESSLINGER:
So, what they would do is

they would take the ends
of these steel spoons

and use them
to route out these holes

through the cement.

And they recreated the grates
using cardboard,

cutting out the exact pattern.

When you actually
compare the grill itself,

the fake ones they made,
to the real grill,

they're pretty convincing
actually.

SHATNER:
The men now had access to the roof of the prison,

but in order to hide the fact

that they were
working there every night,

they needed to fool
the guards into thinking

they were still asleep
in their bunks.

So they devised
an ingenious solution-

they created dummy heads
in their likenesses

and placed them in their beds
while they worked.

DAVID WIDNER:
Each one of them had a part.

They knew that they needed
to make dummy heads.

So they took up paint
to paint these two portraits

of their girlfriends.

That gave them access

to the flesh colored paint

that they needed
for the dummy heads.

Clarence took up haircutting.

He was a barber.

And so, while he was
cutting hair,

he would walk it back
to the cells and that's where

they got the real hair
that's on the dummy heads.

SHATNER:
After 18 months of digging and planning,

the men were finally ready
to make their escape.

There was just one more problem:

Surviving the more than one mile
of treacherous waters

between the island
and the mainland.

They were able to go to all
these other convicts at the time

and acquire all
these different raincoats.

And then Clarence actually
stitched a raft together.

And then they created this valve

kind of like an air stem
where they would blow it up.

They were creating things
that they would be able to use

in the success of their escape.

SHATNER:
On the night of June 11, 1962,

at approximately 9:45 p.m.,

the men put their plan
into action.

As they crawled from their cells
and headed up to the roof,

Allen West elected
to stay behind, fearing capture.

It was the last verified time
anyone would see Frank Morris

and the Anglin brothers again

because their elaborate
escape plan worked.

ESSLINGER:
This massive manhunt is initiated.

You've got the FBI,
uh, the U.S. Marshals Service,

the Coast Guard,
everybody is searching

for these three men.

The warden
of the prison comes out

and says that the water
conditions were too extreme.

He didn't feel
that they could have made it.

J. Edgar Hoover comes out.

He indicates that, you know,
they certainly drowned.

It was
a big embarrassment to them.

Alcatraz was supposed to be
escape-proof.

DYKE:
I still to this day will never 100% say

whether they lived or died

because there's
no bodies recovered.

Once they left the island,

nobody knows
what happened except them.

WIDNER:
Digging through the FBI files,

there's no doubt in my mind

that John and Clarence
survived that escape.

Every year on Mother's Day,

my grandmother received roses.

And the card would always say,
"Joe and Jerry."

Well, she didn't know
anybody named Joe and Jerry,

but she did know
who those flowers came from.

SHATNER:
Did Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers survive

their treacherous journey
across San Francisco Bay?

Or did they fall prey
to the rough,

shark-infested waters?

One thing is certain-
they made it off The Rock.

And there are many who believe

that not only did they
make it to the mainland-

they did so with the help
of mysterious

and unexplained forces.

(seagulls calling)

SHATNER:
On June the 11th, 1962,

Frank Morris, John Anglin,

and his brother Clarence,

pulled off what is arguably
the most daring

and difficult prison break
in history.

And if the rumors are true,

it's because they knew
the precise moment

to attempt to get off
Alcatraz Island.

♪ ♪

Long before
Alcatraz became a prison,

it was actually used
by local indigenous tribes

who used the island
for the same purpose.

They sent their own
undesirables there,

their own criminals there,

and they essentially
left them there to die.

Most did die and many of them
were buried on the island.

And that led to speculation

that their spirits still inhabit
the island right up to this day.

ESSLINGER:
Certainly, there were Native American inmates

who were on the island.

Some of the Native American's
believed

that if, you know,
they could actually tell,

that if the birds were
circling the island

and they refused to land,

that there was
some type of negative energy.

Clarence Carnes was
a Native American

who was on the island.

He was very close friends
with Frank Morris

and with the Anglins.

Maybe it's something
that he brought up to them,

but certainly it could've been
one of the stories out there.

SHATNER: On the day of the escape,
while out in the prison yard,

Frank Morris reportedly noticed

the birds were
particularly calm.

According to local legend,
Morris believed

that this was
the island's spirits sending him

and his accomplices an omen

that it was safe
to put their escape plan

into motion on that day.

But not everyone believes
the tale to be true.

I've heard that rumor,

but I've-I've never seen
any proof

that Frank Morris actually
knew about premonitions

or anything to that effect.

(seagulls calling)

I don't think
when the birds were flying

or their activities

or anything like that
had any bearing

on what day they were
gonna make the escape.

They'd worked
on their escape for months

and they hadn't been
caught up to that point,

and I think they were
starting to get worried.

They left when it was
their opportunity to leave

and they thought
they had the best chance.

WIDNER: When my grandmother passed
away, I was about ten years old.

At the funeral,

there were several
FBI agents there,

and they were very noticeable.

I mean, you could tell
that that's who they were.

After the funeral,
there was a lot of talk

about the two women
that showed up.

They sat up front.
They didn't talk to anybody.

And they were very tall women.

And from what we understand,

the FBI actually noticed that
and they was wanting

to question
these two individuals

that actually were men
dressed up as women.

But they disappeared
before they had a chance.

There's no doubt
that it was John and Clarence.

But my question to them was,
"Well, if y'all really believed

"that these guys died
in that water,

"why are you all
still looking for them?

Close the case."

Whether it's convicts who escape
from maximum security prisons,

gunslingers who fake
their own death,

or serial killers
who toy with the police,

outlaws are strangely
compelling figures.

And while we condemn
their devious actions,

these criminal masterminds
continue to be unforgettable.

And their evil exploits
will remain...

unexplained.

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