Eric Braun - Escape from Alcatraz: The Mystery of the Three Men Who Escaped from the Rock

At the crack of dawn, Carnes, a longtime prisoner, lay on his bunk, already awake. Hed barely slept all night. Suddenly, the wake-up bell rang out, just as it did every morning, and the prisoners began to stir. They had 15 minutes to get out of bed, go to the bathroom, and get dressed. Some stayed in bed to grab a few extra minutes of sleep.

After 15 minutes a whistle pierced the air, and the prisoners walked to the front of their cells. It was time for the morning head count.

Carnes was one of the first at the front of his cell. He stood eagerly at the bars and looked around. He listened as the guards walked down the aisle and counted prisoners one at a time. He had reason to believe that the count might be short this morning. His friends had planned a daring overnight escape from the escape-proof prison. He hoped they had made it.

What Carnes heard next made his heart leap. One of the guards called for a recount. It was possible that the guard had simply made a mistake and needed to count again. But Carnes didnt think so. His friends were smart, and they had a good plan. They had been working on their escape for months and had been painstaking about every last detail. Right now, Carnes imagined, they were breathing fresh outside air. He suppressed a smile as Officer Lawrence Bartlett, the guard on duty, counted again.

Officer Bartlett soon noticed that prisoner John, J.W., Anglin had not gotten up. He walked over, reached between the bars, and tapped the prisoners pillow. But Anglin did not respond. Bartlett called Lieutenant Bill Long down for a look. He told Long that Anglin was either dead or he had been replaced by a life-sized dummy.

Long poked Anglins head. Still, Anglin just lay there. He poked it again, harder, and this time his fingers pushed right through. Startled, he swatted the head, and it rolled off the bunk onto the floor. It was a dummy! Long jumped back.

Long reached through the bars, yanked the blanket down, and saw rolled up blankets and clothes that Anglin had placed there to look like his body. He quickly went to the next cell, that of Clarence Anglin, Johns brother, and pulled off his blanket. Clarences bed was also filled with blankets and a fake head. There was one more prisoner missing from the head count Frank Morris. Long dashed over to Morriss cell and pulled the covers off his dummy head and blankets. He was gone too!

A call was made to acting Arthur Dollison. He lived in a duplex on the island with his family. When the phone rang in his home, Dollison felt a chill of dread go through him. It could not be good news to get a phone call right after the morning count. As he and more officers rushed to the cellblock, an escape alarm blared throughout the prison and all across the island, indoors and out.

Adding to the commotion, another prisoner was calling out to the guards from his cell.

I planned the entire escape, Allen West cried out. In his hands he held what looked like a vent cover, only it was made of cardboard.

Meanwhile, officers climbed up on top of Cellblock B, which was constructed of prison cells stacked three-high. Looking up, they saw a roof vent that had its bars removed. The prisoners had gone through there. The vent shaft led to the roof and was capped by a rain hood. But when officers got to the roof, they saw that the rain hood had been knocked aside. On the north side of the building, barbed wire had been cut from the fence. Outside the fence, the grass was matted down as if people had been there. The officers could hardly believe their eyes. The Rock, the impenetrable fortress of Alcatraz, had been breached.

Dozens of officers fanned out all over the island. They searched the cell house, the workshops, storerooms, and other buildings. They checked an old dungeon below the cell house. They scoured the beaches, tramped through shrubbery, and inspected the caves along the shore. By boat, they patrolled the water around the island looking for bodies in the cold, churning sea.

At this point, Alcatraz officers realized that Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin were most likely not on the island anymore. They called the San Francisco office of the FBI and informed them of what had happened. The FBI alerted the local police, the California Highway Patrol, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and all the sheriffs offices in the area. A search was begun by land, air, and sea. It was 7:55 a.m., about 40 minutes after the morning head count, and a federal investigation was underway.

Back in Cellblock B, officers questioned other prisoners, including Clarence Carnes and Allen West. Years later, Carnes claimed to know a lot about the escape. He said he had helped Morris and the Anglin brothers with several details. But he kept his mouth shut at the time and hoped others would too. Many prisoners had learned about the escape. They had heard the men digging in their cells at night. But nobody said a word to the officers.

The situation was different for West. In the back of his cell, where there should have been an air vent, was a gaping hole. He had chipped away the concrete around the vent and knocked it out, and he had created a fake vent cover from cardboard. It was obvious that West was supposed to escape with the others, but something had gone wrong for him. He knew he could not hide his involvement with the plan, so he gave short answers to the officers questions. But he was careful not to reveal too much. Chances are he didnt want to sabotage his friends shot at freedom.

While West was being questioned in the wardens office, the rest of the cell house was searched. Up above Cellblock B, investigators noticed that blankets had been hung from the bars that enclosed the area between the top of the cellblock and the ceiling. What they found behind the blankets was stunning a secret workshop full of tools, including a homemade wrench, a foot-long file, a stapler, a mirror, a flashlight, three spoon handles, and more. They also found a rubber raft and a life preserver, both of which the prisoners had made out of raincoats and left behind for West. There was even a vacuum cleaner motor that the prisoners had used to power a drill.

In Frank Morriss cell, they found magazine articles that explained how to make rafts and life jackets. John Anglins cell contained art supplies and the paint that had been used on the dummy heads. Clarence Anglins cell had knots of human hair left over from the dummy heads, and more paint.

One of the more interesting things the investigators found was in Allen Wests cell a road .

The scope of the escape was incredible and complicated. All those stolen or improvised tools. A virtual hardware store hidden behind blankets. Holes dug through 8 inches of concrete with spoon handles and other rigged utensils. It was clear that the escapees had planned it for a long time. They had thought of everything. And they had a nine-hour head start.

The search expanded rapidly and was conducted by sea, land, and air. It covered the entire western United States. Highway patrol officers stopped and searched vehicles. Photos of the men appeared on newspapers all over the world. Where could they be?

The the men turned up there or made a phone call to their relatives.

A week after the escape, Warden Olin Blackwell received a postcard dated two days earlier. It said, Ha ha we made it, and was signed Frank, John, Clarence.

Blackwell gave the postcard to the FBI, but they didnt have enough handwriting samples from the prisoners to make a good comparison. They thought it was probably fake. But as the days went on and no bodies turned up, it seemed more possible that the men had successfully escaped.