Текст книги "Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years "

Автор книги: Майкл Эсслингер

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 35 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

The plan for the Alcatraz escape started to take shape in December of 1961. It was a complex strategy that involved the design and fabrication of ingenious lifelike dummies, water rafts, and life preservers, all made from over fifty rain coats acquired from other inmates (some donated and others stolen), and a variety of crudely fashioned tools.   In later interviews with the FBI and Alcatraz Prison Officials, West indicated that he had masterminded the escape, and had brought Morris in last of all, after the Anglins. Although it is still unclear who actually conceived the scheme, West’s interview provides significant insight into the planning and details of the escape. It establishes that he was at least a key participant, and likely the most reliable source of a specific chronology for the planning sequence and the escape itself.

In the FBI interview, West stated that he began pondering the idea of escaping from Alcatraz in May of 1961. It was apparently common knowledge among inmates that there were eight ventilator holes in the ceiling of C Block that had not been used for several years. The vent covers had allegedly been cemented closed, according to many of the inmates in the general prison population. West stated that during a routine painting assignment he noticed that one of the ventilators had not been cemented shut. He said that after covertly examining the vent opening, he determined that that it would be possible, with minimal labor, to make a successful escape onto the cellhouse roof. West also claimed that during one of his painting assignments he had noticed that there was a vent duct which ran down the side of the cellhouse. He stated that given these two factors, he felt that a well-planned escape could conceivably succeed.

During a routine painting detail, inmate Allen West noticed that one of the roof ventilators had not been cemented shut. This marked the beginning of his collaboration with Morris and the Anglins on one of the greatest prison escapes ever recorded.

At around this time plumbers were working in the utility corridor, and after they had completed their work, West was ordered to clean out the refuse from inside the narrow space. While cleaning smaller particles from the floor on his hands and knees, he noticed something wrapped in soiled paper and hidden beneath a cement support. When he opened the package, he found that it contained several old rusty saw blades and some makeshift metal files. He guessed that they had been hidden for ten to twenty years, based on their severely rusted condition.

West said that sometime after making this discovery he reported his finding to John Anglin, who was apparently already aware of the possibility of escaping through one of the ventilation openings in the roof. The two engaged in a lengthy conversation about the odds of success, and various methods of breaking out of the prison and swimming to the mainland. After considering several other options, one of which involved cutting the cell bars, they determined that the best escape route would be through the six-by-nine-inch iron ventilation grills at the rear of their cells. West explained to Anglin that he had already studied civil engineering references that he had obtained through the prison library, which contained a formula to break down the composite structure of cement by heating it to a temperature of 500 to 900 degrees. He also confided to Anglin that at one point he had obtained element wires similar to those of a bread toaster, and had plugged the wires into the electrical outlet in his cell, but could not generate enough heat to affect the cement.

West alleges that he brought Clarence Anglin and Frank Morris into the scheme in December of 1961. John Anglin had apparently gotten hold of a sharpened spoon, and had started digging around the ventilator grill inside his cell. He had already made significant progress in penetrating the cement. After several weeks’ time, the three inmates were all able to procure more spoons, and they initiated a concerted digging schedule that began after the 5:30 p.m. count and continued until 9:30 p.m.

A magazine subscription request by Frank Morris. The list included several technical magazines, including Popular Mechanics, from which Morris would extract useful information on crafting materials to aid in his escape plot.

This March 1962 issue of Popular Mechanics was found in Morris’ cell, and it was believed to have helped provide him with examples and ideas for fabricating the life vests that were used in the escape.

Because the Anglins shared adjacent cells and Morris and West were also neighbors, they alternated daily digging schedules while the cellmates opposite stayed on lookout. After nearly a full month of work the inmates had made considerable headway, digging over fifty small holes around the perimeter of the vent. The excess debris was flushed down the toilet or brushed back into the corridor. Once each hole was completed, they used a mixture of soap and toilet paper to fill it in, and touch-up paint to conceal the tiny cavities. They also fabricated fake grills out of cardboard, painstakingly matching the paint finish. The fake grills were amazingly convincing and difficult to detect.

A crudely fashioned wrench made the inmates used to remove the bolt of the ventilator grill.

Photographs showing drill holes around the cell vent grill. These photos show cells B-346 and B-134, the homes of Robert Williams and June Stephens. Both cells were found to have drill holes around the ventilation grills.

Morris and John Anglin finished digging their holes first, and John assisted Clarence by digging from the back wall of his cell. West later told officials that he had decided to leave his grill intact, to avoid arousing the suspicion of anyone doing maintenance work in the corridor. In May of 1962, Clarence Anglin was the first to climb the maze of plumbing and make it to the cellblock ceiling. Using a screwdriver, he attempted to loosen the 18½-inch-diameter metal coupling that secured the ventilator, without success. West then learned that the prison’s vacuum cleaner was broken. He was permitted to attempt a repair, and while inspecting the machine, he found that it utilized two motors. He carefully removed one of them and managed to get the other working, to avoid raising suspicion. Morris was able to modify the smuggled motor into a motorized drill. They attempted to use it in drilling out the roof ventilator, but achieved only limited success. The motor proved too noisy and not very effective.

Robert Williams

June H. Stephens

After some lobbying, Morris was able to secure a work detail that required him to paint the uppermost areas of the cellblock. He fashioned a clamp out of clasps he had taken from his bed and bolted together, and this tool provided ample leverage to loosen the sticking bolts. He left the ventilator in place to avoid detection. Meanwhile with John’s help, Clarence had created their first dummy head. It was crudely fashioned from soap packed over a bundle of white cotton rags, painted with flesh tones from an artist’s paint kit, and topped with human hair acquired from the barbershop. In his official statement West remarks that Clarence, in jest, had named the dummy head “Oink.”

The inmates used clever decoys to fool the guards during the late night counts. The amazingly detailed and lifelike dummy heads that were tucked under the blankets were fashioned primarily from scrap bits and pieces. The materials used included soap chips, concrete, wire, plaster, glue, paint, and hair that had been smuggled from the prison barbershop.

Thomas Kent (pictured) along with Darwin Coon were two of several inmates who helped to smuggle materials that were used in the escape.

Concealed contraband materials that were used in the escape, and were later found in one of the inmates’ cells.

Using glue stolen from the glove shop, the inmates then started to cut and bond the raincoats into a makeshift raft and life preservers. Each evening following the completion of their self-imposed work details, they would hide the materials on top of the cellblock to minimize any chance of being caught with the contraband goods. The inmates also acquired an elaborate array of forged tools. West was able to lift an electric hair clipper while working on a paint detail in the barbershop. He used the clipper, along with drill bits stolen from the Industries Building by another inmate, to fashion a makeshift motorized drill. The motor later proved too small, and the drill would require something more effective.

After months of preparation, the inmates had fashioned all of the gear they needed to aid them in their escape, and they had meanwhile continued loosening the ventilator grill on top of the cellhouse. John carefully completed the valve assembly on a six-by-fourteen-foot raft constructed from raincoats. Morris modified an accordion-type musical instrument called a concertina, which would be used to inflate the raft. While the others progressed well in their activities, West fell behind in digging out the ventilator grill at the rear of his cell. His primary role had been to construct the life preservers and special wooden paddles for the raft, which didn’t require him to leave his cell.

On the night of June 11, 1962, Morris indicated that the top ventilator was loose enough, and he felt that they were ready to make their attempt. At 9:30 p.m., immediately after lights-out, Morris brought down the dummies from the top of the cellblock and announced that the escape would take place that night. Clarence Anglin attempted to assist West with his grill from the utility corridor, but was unsuccessful. Applying great force and dealing hard kicks to the grill proved futile. In the end, Morris and the Anglins had no choice but to leave West behind. The inmates made their final thirty-foot climb up the plumbing to the cellhouse roof, traveled one hundred feet across the rooftop, and then carefully scaled down the fifty feet of piping to the ground. This would be the last anyone ever saw of Morris and the Anglin Brothers.

By 1:45 a.m. West was finally able to complete the removal of his grill and climb to the rooftop, but by then all of his accomplices had disappeared. With no raft or other means to escape, he was forced to return to his cell. Some of the inmates would later report that they had heard an unusual disturbance among the seagulls during the late evening hours.

A Photograph of Frank Morris’s cell taken on June 12, 1962. This view shows how the cell appeared as the officers conducted their counts on the night of the escape. After lights out at 9:30 p.m., the cellhouse was considerably darker, and the heavy blanketing likely made it difficult to discern the mannequin figures.

The cellhouse utility corridor where inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin emerged from the tunneled openings in the back of their cells, and ascended through the maze of plumbing to the top of the cellblock.

On the morning of June 12, 1962 at 7:18 a.m., Correctional Officer Lawrence Bartlett discovered that Frank Morris was missing from his cell. After some verbal prodding, Bartlett had nudged what he thought was Morris’ head. When it shockingly rolled off the bed and onto the floor, he realized that it was only a decoy. Alcatraz immediately went into complete lock-down status with scores of officers deployed in search of the missing inmates. The FBI quickly arrived on Alcatraz, and using bloodhounds they successfully tracked the inmates’ path to the water’s edge.

The rooftop ventilator through which the inmates made their final exit from the cellhouse.

The inmates quietly trekked across the rooftops of the cellhouse and the hospital before making their descent down a pipe along the west wall of the prison.

In one of the interviews he gave after the escape, Allen West described how their plan had been to use the raft to make their way to Angel Island. After resting, they would reenter the bay on the opposite side of the island and then swim through a waterway called Raccoon Straights and on into Marin. They would steal a car, burglarize a clothing store, and then venture off each in their own direction. West told a correctional officer that he had in fact been the mastermind of the escape. He was immediately taken to A Block under strict isolation precautions. FBI Agents and military personnel combed the bay waters in search of potential leads. The FBI would find several significant pieces of evidence in the bay waters of San Francisco.

The perimeter search map utilized by the prison officials and the FBI. Investigators plotted the presumed path of the escapees to the water’s edge.

On June 14, 1962 one of the search boats found a small eight-by-ten-inch rubber packet floating in an active whirlpool about two or three feet below the water’s surface. The location of the find was approximately 2,700 yards off Angel Island, which is a little more than a mile north of Alcatraz. The container was made from the same olive drab material as the inmates’ raincoats, and held several personal items believed to have belonged to Clarence Anglin. Inside were seventy-nine photographs of family and friends, many with personal inscriptions to Clarence, and several other miscellaneous slips of paper with addresses and phone numbers.

An officer examining the false grill sections behind Allen West’s cell.

A frontal view of Clarence Anglin’s cell following the escape.

John Anglin’s cell (B-158). The towels and clothing were used effectively to hide the ventilation grill.

Allen West’s cell, with a section of the fake ventilation grill visible on the bed. The inmates used cardboard tobacco boxes to create the false grills, and carefully measured and cut the grill patterns using contraband razorblades.

Frank Morris succeeded in covering the ventilation grill inside his cell with the case of his concertina, thus diverting any suspicion from the planned escape.

An officer seen examining the opening where the ventilation grill was originally located.

Also found floating was a makeshift oar, which was later confirmed to have been constructed by the inmates. The Coast Guard of Angel Island located the oar floating just off the Stuart Point Lighthouse on the northwest side of the island. One of the rafts that had apparently been used by the inmates was found just offshore in the same vicinity. It had deflated, apparently due to a breached seal along one of the seams. Another raft was also found in the same condition near the Standard Oil Wharf at Point Richmond on the other side of the bay.

A life jacket was found about fifty yards east of Alcatraz by the prison launch during its routine trip to Fort Mason. The Mae West style life preserver was identified as being fabricated from the same materials as the one found on top the cellblock, and it also contained other interesting clues. It had brown stains, which originally thought to have been blood but was later ruled out.   The air valve bore teeth marks, likely indicating that the convict had held it with his teeth to prevent air leakage. This tended to support the theory that the clip may have come off in the icy waters, thus contributing to the inmate’s exhaustion and eventual drowning.

A life jacket that was found just fifty yards east of the Alcatraz Dock. The vest was saturated with stains (originally thought to have been blood but later ruled out as being grease), and there were teeth marks around the air tube. Based on this evidence, it was concluded that the inmate who wore it was desperately attempting to maintain enough air pressure to keep afloat. The prisoners had used binder claps to seal the air inside the vests, and these were probably unable to sustain adequate air pressure.

Allen West’s life vest, shown here fully inflated.

Another lifejacket was found by a couple walking along a section of Cronkite Beach in Marin County, almost four miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. The couple saw an object floating fifty feet from the shore, and waited a few minutes for it to wash up. It was a life jacket identical to the one made for West, which had been found on top of the cellhouse. This one also revealed additional interesting clues. The jacket was deflated, and the paper clip that held the air tube closed was missing. There was also a small tear at the seam, which had allowed air to escape. West stated that their plan had been to cut up the floats once they came ashore, and throw them back into the water.

The inmates concealed their discarded tools and equipment inside a five-gallon container, and then filled it with plaster. Investigators found wire, spoon handles, steel bars, the vacuum cleaner motor, staples, a homemade flashlight, ladle handles, and other bits of contraband embedded in the hardened plaster.

In the aftermath of the escape, correctional officers swarmed through the cellhouse, conducting meticulous inspections of every cell in B Block.

Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, known as the "Al Capone of Harlem," was very well-liked by both inmates and officers. He was considered highly intelligent and a sophisticated inmate who would serve two terms on the Rock. It would be rumored decades later by a fellow inmate that Bumpy had assisted in the 1962 escape by helping arrange a pick-up by boat. This theory was never proven.

For decades people speculated as to whether this famous escape attempt had been successful. The FBI launched an intensive investigation, following every possible lead, and after spending nearly two decades painstakingly exploring physical and circumstantial evidence, the Bureau finally resolved that the inmates had not succeeded. There were several key points of the investigation that would ultimately cast doubt on the success of the escape attempt by Frank Morris, and John and Clarence Anglin. Through careful examination of the available evidence, one can form one’s own opinion as to whether or not the inmates made it to freedom. Numerous other reports were filed, including testimony from Alcatraz Officer Cliff Fish, who adamantly claimed that he had found a boat near the wharf at Angel Island, abandoned with copious amounts of blood on the flooring, which he stated was “impossibly more” that could have resulted from fishing. Another telegram alleged that a deflated raft was found on Angel Island with foot prints that leading away into the rugged terrain. No pieces of evidence were ever recovered or substantiated.

Consider the following evidence assembled by the FBI:

• The formal plan was to steal a car and then perpetrate a burglary at a clothing store. No reports of any such crime were filed in Marin County within a twelve-day period following the escape. None of the other surrounding counties, including San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and Monterey County reported any related or suspicious crimes within a similar time period. It was also rumored that Morris, who had a passion for reading about aviation-related subjects, had talked about stealing a helicopter to make a rapid departure from the Bay Area. The FBI and the FAA came up with no potential leads on this angle, and in any case, it is very unlikely that Morris could actually fly a helicopter, as he had claimed to a fellow inmate.

• Sources reported that these three men had neither friends nor relatives with the resources to come to San Francisco and assist in the escape. The cost of putting a boat in the Bay night after night to assist in the escape would have been thousands of dollars. The families and friends of the trio were investigated regarding their financial resources, and their hypothetical role as accomplices was eventually ruled out. There would have been no possible way for the inmates to communicate with outside contacts in order to confirm the date and progress of their break.

• Critics on the other side of the debate claimed that the fact that no bodies were found amounted to “proof” that the inmates had made it successfully to the mainland. The reality was that it was common for people who perished in the Bay waters never to be found. On the very night of the escape, a thirty-three-year old African-American gentleman named Seymour Webb, reportedly despondent over a failed relationship, abandoned his car mid-span on the Golden Gate Bridge and tragically jumped to his death in front of sixty-two horrified eyewitnesses. Despite a quick response from the Coast Guard, his body was never recovered. The significance of this event is that the suicide entered the water about the same time as the escapees, and his body was never found.

• On June 19, 1962, Robert Panis, an eighteen-year-old Filipino male, also drowned in the waters of Half Moon Bay, approximately twenty-five miles south of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the day of the drowning, a Coast Guard Helicopter noticed a floating body wearing attire that matched that of the missing man. A surface vessel was dispatched to the location, but the authorities were never successful in recovering the body. The FBI cited this as another example of the extreme difficulty in recovering drowned bodies from the Bay. The Bureau also referenced the case of Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe, who escaped from Alcatraz in 1937. Despite intensive searches these men were likewise never located, and it was concluded that they had drowned.

• The Bay water temperatures ranged from fifty to fifty-four degrees. It was determined that exposure to the elements would have affected body functions after approximately twenty minutes. The showers at Alcatraz were always supplied with moderately hot water, in order to hinder inmates from becoming acclimated to the freezing Bay waters.

• On July 17, 1962 the Ship S.S. Norefjell, a Norwegian Freighter departing from Pier 38, reported seeing a body floating twenty miles northwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. The ship was en route to Canada, and the crew noted the sighting in the ship’s log, but did not make a formal report until returning to the United States on August 8, 1962. The SS Norefjell was not equipped with a transceiver that could broadcast on the marine radio bands used in the United States. The crewmembers logged the notation that sometime between 5:45 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. they noticed something bobbing in the water, and used binoculars to confirm that it was a body floating face down. The hands and feet were dangling down in the water, but the buttocks were clearly visible. Although bleached from the ocean and sun, the body was clothed in full-length denim trousers that appeared identical to prison issue. Coroners from San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, and Marin Counties all confirmed that a body could float for five weeks after drowning. The FBI determined this to be one of the most significant leads in the case. Their official report established that there was no other individual missing or drowned at that time who had been wearing similar trousers, and concluded that it was reasonable to state that this was likely to be one of the escapees.

• The families of the Anglin brothers stated that the escape had been a topic of family discussions for several years. None of them have ever been contacted by the brothers, and they felt that had the inmates survived, they would have made contact in some form. The Anglin family would soon suffer yet another tragedy. The third brother, Alfred, was electrocuted on a high-voltage security wire when attempting to escape from Kilby Prison in Montgomery, Alabama in 1964.

Allen West remained at Alcatraz until February of 1963, leaving only one month before the prison’s final closing. He then continued his journey through the Federal penal system until he was eventually released in 1967, in the state of Florida. His taste of freedom was brief, and he quickly landed himself back in prison less than a year later. In 1972 West fatally stabbed another inmate, and thus permanently sealed his fate, condemning himself to a life in prison. Allen West died of peritonitis in the Florida State Prison hospital in December of 1978, at only forty-nine years of age.

The mystery is still being explored decades after the Great Escape, and it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to prove with absolute certainty whether Morris and the Anglins found death or freedom. Frank Morris wrote in an institutional questionnaire in 1943 that if he were granted three wishes, he would wish for the following:

1. To get out of prison.

2. A nice home with everything to go with it.

3. Plenty of money.

He was granted only one.