Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 207. Escape from Alcatraz

Transcript

207. Escape from Alcatraz · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:11
Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
0:16
Speaker 1: The history podcast that is not your history class, with me,
0:19
Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books.
0:24
Speaker 1: And it has been, it has been a week. It
0:27
Speaker 1: has been a hell of a week because, listen, Listen,
0:32
Speaker 1: I don't know who messed up, right? But there has
0:35
Speaker 1: been a wayward boat on the River Styx, some paperwork
0:38
Speaker 1: got mixed up down in Hades and the Grim Reaper
0:40
Speaker 1: came to collect far too many decent people. I'm sorry,
0:45
Speaker 1: we lost Dolly Parton and Tim Curry on the same day? Pardonnez-moi,
0:50
Speaker 1: but what in the actual fuck? Now, okay, I understand
0:55
Speaker 1: that this is a very weird thing, the parasocial relationships
0:59
Speaker 1: that we have with celebrities. But these two people, they
1:03
Speaker 1: had such a large cultural impact and Dolly Parton did
1:08
Speaker 1: so much good in the world and she just did it.
1:11
Speaker 1: She kept on going, she kept learning with a world
1:14
Speaker 1: that was moving as fast as it did and she
1:16
Speaker 1: just kept giving and learning and working. She invested in neighbourhoods,
1:22
Speaker 1: communities and she is responsible for so many of the
1:25
Speaker 1: amazing movies and TV shows that we hold so dear. Like,
1:29
Speaker 1: something amazing will have come out and then you'll find out, oh,
1:32
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton was involved in that. Like, yes. And listen,
1:37
Speaker 1: was she 100% perfect all of the time? No, because
1:40
Speaker 1: none of us are because we're fucking human. And this
1:42
Speaker 1: obsession with someone having to be practically perfect in every
1:46
Speaker 1: single way is, is, I feel like it's a trap.
1:53
Speaker 1: You know, it's a trap that we set up in
1:55
Speaker 1: order to catch someone out as if we are not
1:58
Speaker 1: multifaceted human beings you know good people can do bad
2:02
Speaker 1: things bad people can do good things you know we're
2:04
Speaker 1: not monoliths all right but Dolly Parton genuinely good person
2:12
Speaker 1: and something you might not know I mean you might
2:15
Speaker 1: if you've been listening to me and watching me like
2:17
Speaker 1: since the get-go but when I first started making videos
2:21
Speaker 1: to go along with a podcast and People would comment
2:25
Speaker 1: on the way that I dress because, listen, I got
2:27
Speaker 1: to fill some pair of fun bags and sometimes, no
2:29
Speaker 1: matter what you're wearing, they're going to be on display.
2:31
Speaker 1: And also, eh, listen, gravity's going to take over someday,
2:35
Speaker 1: but right now, eh, it's fine. But yeah, so people
2:39
Speaker 1: would comment on the way that I dress. They would
2:41
Speaker 1: call me a whore and a slut and et cetera.
2:44
Speaker 1: And like when I first, you know, would read these comments,
2:47
Speaker 1: obviously I was a little bit annoyed and angry, but,
2:50
Speaker 1: you know, possibly a little self-conscious. Then, well, then I
2:56
Speaker 1: remembered a quote from Dolly Parton, which is, it takes
2:59
Speaker 1: a lot of money to look this cheap. And I
3:04
Speaker 1: remember like good interviews of her talking about how she
3:08
Speaker 1: saw like, you know, these women with their long nails
3:11
Speaker 1: and their hair and they were all done up in
3:14
Speaker 1: like the town Jezebel and how she thought it was
3:17
Speaker 1: the most beautiful person she'd ever seen. And I was like,
3:21
Speaker 1: own it, you know? own it and I embraced it
3:24
Speaker 1: and so I came out and said hi I'm not
3:26
Speaker 1: a whore I am a harlot because that is how
3:30
Speaker 1: this came about because people were trying to like slut
3:32
Speaker 1: shame me for having I don't know boobs and really
3:34
Speaker 1: good tasting clothing so I am who I am and
3:38
Speaker 1: I look fucking fabulous so Tim Curry what can I
3:42
Speaker 1: say about Tim Curry well my first introduction to him
3:45
Speaker 1: I think was Home Alone 2 followed by A Muppet
3:49
Speaker 1: Treasure Island. And as everyone knows, I fucking love Muppet
3:52
Speaker 1: Treasure Island. It is one of my favourite films of
3:56
Speaker 1: all time. I used to watch the VHS, so the
3:59
Speaker 1: video cassette, and I would rewind it and re-watch it, right?
4:04
Speaker 1: And then I got older and I saw Rocky Horror
4:06
Speaker 1: and Clue, which, like, ooh, the final ending of Clue
4:11
Speaker 1: is one of my favourite things in the world. And
4:13
Speaker 1: I always joked that if I did a live reading
4:15
Speaker 1: of Clue, which I still want to do, friends and neighbours.
4:20
Speaker 1: I always joked that I would be Miss Scarlet. Like, granted,
4:23
Speaker 1: I think I've aged out and I'm now Mrs. White,
4:25
Speaker 1: but the butler, Wadsworth, the butler, he is the character.
4:30
Speaker 1: So one day, one day, just like when he's running
4:33
Speaker 1: around and then he did it like this and then
4:34
Speaker 1: like this, all that running about. Love it. 10 out
4:37
Speaker 1: of 10. I would love to have that level of, like,
4:41
Speaker 1: Chaos Goblin to just do it. I think, I think
4:44
Speaker 1: I could. Maybe. Although, That's, I love it. I'm like,
4:48
Speaker 1: I could be Mrs. White as if I would have
4:50
Speaker 1: the comedic range of Madeleine Cannes, like. So, yeah, tour news,
4:56
Speaker 1: by the way, tour news. More tour dates will be released.
5:00
Speaker 1: They are coming soon. But for all the dates that
5:05
Speaker 1: are currently out there, if you haven't got your tickets yet,
5:07
Speaker 1: what are you waiting for? But I know what you
5:10
Speaker 1: are thinking. You're thinking, Katie, please, quit your jibber-jabber and
5:13
Speaker 1: fact me. In fact, you are well, but first, we've
5:17
Speaker 1: got to get our source on. Our sources are Alcatraz Escape,
5:25
Speaker 1: the FBI files from the vault. Right? I read the
5:29
Speaker 1: FBI files. They're not that exciting, but I read them.
5:33
Speaker 1: There are still less on the escape from Alcatraz than
5:36
Speaker 1: there were on the Texarkana Moonlight murders. Okay? Thousands of
5:44
Speaker 1: pages there were on the Texarkana Moonlight. No, I'm not
5:45
Speaker 1: getting into it. Okay, so, Alcatraz, The Gangster Years by
5:49
Speaker 1: David Ward. Riddle of the Rock, The Only Successful Escape
5:54
Speaker 1: from Alcatraz by Din Denevy. Escape from Alcatraz by James
5:59
Speaker 1: Campbell Bruce. The Escape from Alcatraz by Stephanie Watson. Now
6:07
Speaker 1: we also have newspaper articles from the San Francisco Chronicle,
6:10
Speaker 1: the Oakland Tribune and even National Geographic and of course
6:14
Speaker 1: our old favourites, biography.com. and history.com.
6:21
Speaker 2: But the question is, are you sitting comfortably?
6:25
Speaker 1: Good, then let's begin. Lads, I cannot tell you how
6:30
Speaker 1: sick I am of talking about Nazis, right? And so
6:34
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to need a palate cleanser
6:36
Speaker 1: after August, so I thought I would talk about another
6:39
Speaker 1: of my special interests, jailbreaks. Maybe it's my personal distaste
6:44
Speaker 1: of how prison systems tend to operate. Maybe I just
6:47
Speaker 1: like people breaking out of stuff. Hymns to say. But
6:51
Speaker 1: this is a month of jailbreaks and of course I
6:53
Speaker 1: had to start with one of the most famous or infamous.
6:58
Speaker 1: The escape from Alcatraz. And it's practically a folk tale now.
7:02
Speaker 1: But to talk about the escape, we first have to
7:07
Speaker 1: talk about Alcatraz. Now, some of you may know Alcatraz
7:11
Speaker 1: as a prison. It's now a historical landmark. A tourist attraction.
7:16
Speaker 1: And yeah, you probably know it best as a prison.
7:18
Speaker 1: Because Alcatraz Prison is built on Alcatraz Island, which gained
7:24
Speaker 1: its name from a neighbouring island, Yuba Buena Island, right?
7:30
Speaker 1: That's what... That was it. So Yuba Buena was originally, like,
7:35
Speaker 1: named Alcatraz, right? So basically... There was, you know, the
7:41
Speaker 1: colonising Spanish, they're sailing about, they see an island covered
7:45
Speaker 1: with pelicans and of course decided to call it.
7:50
Speaker 1: The Island of the Gannets. Now, I'm not here to
7:54
Speaker 1: mock the naming traditions by a European man on a
7:57
Speaker 1: boat sticking a flag into anything he liked and claiming
8:00
Speaker 1: it as his own. But a gannet, although a seafaring bird,
8:04
Speaker 1: does not look, one iota, like a damn pelican. I
8:07
Speaker 1: mean the beak, if nothing else.
8:09
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
8:11
Speaker 1: Anywho, Isla de Alcatrazes got swapped over to the island
8:16
Speaker 1: now known as Alcatraz by an Englishman on a boat.
8:19
Speaker 1: So just like another European fella being like, hey, we've
8:22
Speaker 1: put our flag in here now too. Que sure, right?
8:26
Speaker 1: The island was privately owned up until 1846. when it
8:31
Speaker 1: was purchased by John C. Fremont, like, in the name, like,
8:36
Speaker 1: on behalf of, kind of, the US government, and he
8:40
Speaker 1: purchased it for $ 5, 000, which in today's money is a
8:43
Speaker 1: grand total of $ 216, 829. 87, approximately. So, This is the thing,
8:58
Speaker 1: like he expected to be reimbursed or perhaps even paid
9:02
Speaker 1: handsomely for his acquisition of the island. But following the
9:07
Speaker 1: Wall of Mexico, the 13th President of the United States,
9:11
Speaker 1: Millard Fillimore, ordered that the island be set aside for
9:15
Speaker 1: the military. So when they bought California, they invalidated the
9:20
Speaker 1: sale and paid him nothing. Right, so there was like
9:24
Speaker 1: legal disputes that lasted for years and his family took
9:28
Speaker 1: the government to court. And what do you know? They lost.
9:31
Speaker 1: So as the gold rush kicked into full swing, the
9:34
Speaker 1: US government decided that lighthouses were a necessity along the coast.
9:40
Speaker 1: Almost as if, you know, not crashing into the rocks
9:44
Speaker 1: has kind of been a good thing for as long
9:47
Speaker 1: as seafaring has existed. But who am I? Who am I,
9:52
Speaker 1: a non-mariner, to make such a quip? So. In 1853,
10:01
Speaker 1: the Alcatraz Lighthouse was built, making it the first and
10:05
Speaker 1: oldest navigational lighthouse on the West Coast. In 1853, under
10:11
Speaker 1: the direction of the amazingly named Zealous B Tower. Zealous
10:16
Speaker 1: B Tower. And that is a white man. I know
10:18
Speaker 1: you all know this, right? You know what? We stopped
10:21
Speaker 1: giving people cool names. That's all I'm saying, right? Like,
10:26
Speaker 1: I tried with my kids, but, you know, like, Zealous
10:31
Speaker 1: B Tower? Like, that's a name! Anyway, so, Zealous B
10:39
Speaker 1: Tower of the United States Army Corps of Engineers began
10:43
Speaker 1: fortifying the island. When the initial version of the Fort
10:46
Speaker 1: Alcatraz was complete, the first garrison of about 200-ish soldiers
10:51
Speaker 1: or so arrived at the end of 1858. So basically,
10:57
Speaker 1: it was a proper defensive... It's on the San Francisco Bay.
11:03
Speaker 1: It's got this fort with a high central citadel, a
11:08
Speaker 1: drawbridge and a moat, right? Who needs medieval when you've
11:15
Speaker 1: got a fort with a moat When the American Civil
11:19
Speaker 1: War broke out in 1861, the island mounted 85 cannons
11:26
Speaker 1: and then added up to like 105 cannons five years later.
11:32
Speaker 1: But the garrison on the island was so small that
11:35
Speaker 1: like basically only a few of the cannons could actually
11:37
Speaker 1: be used at one time. So it wasn't like, it
11:40
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly efficient, you know. Also, in addition furthermore, It
11:46
Speaker 1: was the San Francisco arsenal for storing firearms to stop
11:50
Speaker 1: Confederates and Confederate sympathisers getting their hands on them. So
11:55
Speaker 1: it held like 10,000 muskets and around 15,000 cartridges of ammunition.
12:01
Speaker 1: But like during the whole war, right, this fort and
12:05
Speaker 1: all of its cannons never once fired a shot at
12:09
Speaker 1: an enemy.
12:11
Speaker 2: Right.
12:11
Speaker 1: So it was supposed to make up a triangle of
12:14
Speaker 1: defence with, like, Fort Point and Lime Point, but, like,
12:17
Speaker 1: Lime Point never actually came to fruition. So, yeah. But
12:22
Speaker 1: during the Civil War, the fort imprisoned, you know, Confederate soldiers, sympathisers, deserters, and,
12:28
Speaker 1: I shit you not, privateers. So, yes, during the American
12:34
Speaker 1: Civil War, Alcatraz Island had pirates.
12:39
Speaker 2: HE CHUCKLES.
12:42
Speaker 1: Everything comes back to pirates. Upstage, lads. This is my
12:47
Speaker 1: only number. That is a quote by Tim Curry as
12:52
Speaker 1: Long John Silver, and aim up at Treasure Island if
12:54
Speaker 1: you are unaware. So, by 1861, the fort was the
13:00
Speaker 1: military prison for the Department of the Pacific. It would
13:04
Speaker 1: house Civil War prisoners, well, prisoners of war, of the
13:08
Speaker 1: Civil War prisoners, Then, in 1863, the military also held
13:13
Speaker 1: private citizens accused of treason. It was used as a
13:19
Speaker 1: training garrison for a wee bit and then, over time,
13:22
Speaker 1: it shifted to being, like, from a point of defence
13:25
Speaker 1: to just being a detention centre. You heard me. A
13:31
Speaker 1: detention centre. So, prisoners were confederates and some hoppy Native
13:36
Speaker 1: American men, which is around the 1870s, These were indigenous
13:43
Speaker 1: men who refused to send their children away from their
13:47
Speaker 1: families and to the boarding schools. So the residential schools,
13:52
Speaker 1: the boarding school system, which we touched on in the
13:55
Speaker 1: Inherited Wounds episode. Like this was one of the punishments.
14:00
Speaker 1: Like you had people being starved, you had people being imprisoned.
14:04
Speaker 1: This is it. And of course they got imprisoned in
14:08
Speaker 1: the most brutal, terrifying furthest away option, which was Alcatraz. But, like, right,
14:18
Speaker 1: I say most terrifying. It's just the most remote at
14:21
Speaker 1: this point, and I think that was kind of, like,
14:24
Speaker 1: the scary part. Now, the prison numbers were actually pretty small. Like,
14:29
Speaker 1: it had less than 30 prisoners for the most part. Then,
14:33
Speaker 1: when the Spanish-American War broke out, the prison population increased
14:37
Speaker 1: to over 450 men. Then, when the 1906 San Francisco
14:44
Speaker 1: earthquake happened, civilian prisoners were sent to the island for safekeeping.
14:49
Speaker 1: They were like, we can't keep them in our, you know,
14:52
Speaker 1: broken-ass prisons. Off to Alcatraz. It's the only one unaffected. But, like,
14:57
Speaker 1: at this point, it was basically still a minimum security
15:01
Speaker 1: prison and most prisoners were pretty chill about being there.
15:05
Speaker 1: They had to do, like, you know, work and building
15:10
Speaker 1: and digging and everything, it's fine. The only really dangerous
15:14
Speaker 1: part was the freezing cold, choppy waters that led to shore.
15:21
Speaker 1: A year after this, Alcatraz was designated the Western US
15:26
Speaker 1: Military Prison and another eight years after that, it was
15:31
Speaker 1: the Pacific Branch US Disciplinary Barracks. And when the original
15:36
Speaker 1: citadel collapsed... It was demolished and the new concrete prison
15:41
Speaker 1: was built by the military prisoners, which is around the
15:46
Speaker 1: time it gets its nickname, The Rock. So the building
15:51
Speaker 1: was modernised in 1934 when it reopened as a federal penitentiary.
15:57
Speaker 1: It was transveiled during peacetime to the Bureau of Prisons,
16:00
Speaker 1: which was on the lookout for a high-security site to
16:04
Speaker 1: combat prison escapes and prison breaks connected by to the
16:08
Speaker 1: Prohibition and Depression era crime wave. Now, Prohibition had its
16:13
Speaker 1: own flavour of criminal. You had bootleggers, underground clubs, gangs.
16:20
Speaker 1: And then you have the Depression. Desperate people do desperate things.
16:27
Speaker 1: And so there is this surge in violent crimes during
16:29
Speaker 1: this period too. And so the notorious Alcatraz Prison was born.
16:39
Speaker 1: But let's slip into our stats a second. The island
16:44
Speaker 1: is about one and a quarter miles from San Francisco, California.
16:48
Speaker 1: It's in the San Francisco Bay. And the island itself
16:52
Speaker 1: measures like 1,675 feet by 590 feet. And it is
16:56
Speaker 1: 135 feet tall at the highest point during mean time.
17:07
Speaker 1: And the total area of the island is about 22 acres. Now,
17:13
Speaker 1: I did say before that the water on the island
17:15
Speaker 1: is choppy. Right? You have strong tides. You have winds.
17:20
Speaker 1: It is Baltic, meaning it's cold. Some might even say
17:24
Speaker 1: it would freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Which
17:26
Speaker 1: is another sailing term. You're welcome. So... I love pirates.
17:32
Speaker 2: So.
17:33
Speaker 1: The sharks, oh yeah. Did I? Did I mention the sharks?
17:36
Speaker 1: It's also shark-infested waters, right? So, it's the perfect prison. Now,
17:43
Speaker 1: back when it was a military prison, it did have
17:45
Speaker 1: its fair share of escape attempts. So there was 29
17:48
Speaker 1: attempts with 80 people. 62 were caught, three made it
17:52
Speaker 1: to land and were never seen again, and the rest
17:54
Speaker 1: vanished without a trace, most claimed by the cold waters
17:58
Speaker 1: in the bay. But now it's had some extra work done,
18:03
Speaker 1: And everyone starts blaring that this is now impossible to
18:06
Speaker 1: escape from. And of course, some guys took that as
18:10
Speaker 1: a challenge. And in fact, many did. This was part
18:15
Speaker 1: of a very public war on crime. This was during
18:19
Speaker 1: a very public war on crime. And so the stories
18:23
Speaker 1: of Alcatraz, well, they're kind of like ghost stories for
18:30
Speaker 1: hardened criminals. Like the last place you wanted to be
18:34
Speaker 1: sent was the rock. Devil's Island, Alcatraz. In a total
18:39
Speaker 1: PR move, it was claimed to be the worst of
18:43
Speaker 1: the worst and worst of all. You couldn't escape it.
18:48
Speaker 1: But on the night of the 11th of June 1962,
18:53
Speaker 1: three men managed to escape the unescapable fortress and the
18:57
Speaker 1: story became the thing of legends. On the 12th of June, 1962,
19:11
Speaker 1: inmates lined against the bars of their cells for the
19:15
Speaker 1: morning headcount, like they did every morning at 7.15. But
19:20
Speaker 1: the numbers weren't quite adding up. They were down by three.
19:26
Speaker 1: The count went on again, still down. Now, the first
19:30
Speaker 1: assumption was that maybe some prisoners had slept on. It
19:34
Speaker 1: can happen. It had happened, and so the guards... checked
19:38
Speaker 1: the cells to see who was still in bed. And
19:41
Speaker 1: what do you know? Cell 158. Inmate still was tucked
19:47
Speaker 1: up under the covers. And so the guard reaches through
19:50
Speaker 1: into the cell and taps the pillow beside the sleeping
19:52
Speaker 1: prisoner's head but he did not stir so he's like
19:56
Speaker 1: alright taps him on the head nothing still he shouted
20:03
Speaker 1: at him and still no movement now He sees a
20:10
Speaker 1: body not moving. He thinks, maybe, maybe, maybe the prisoner
20:13
Speaker 1: is dead, right? Died in his sleep. Now the other
20:16
Speaker 1: guards come over to peek. And this one guard, he's
20:21
Speaker 1: so annoyed, right? That he just takes a whack at
20:24
Speaker 1: the prisoner. Only for the decapitated head to roll off
20:29
Speaker 1: the pillow and onto the floor. And then that poor
20:33
Speaker 1: meatball went right out the door. Sorry, that is a classic,
20:39
Speaker 1: classic song. I think, I don't know if it's a
20:41
Speaker 1: folk song or if it's just by The Singing Kettle,
20:44
Speaker 1: but I know it from The Singing Kettle. It's like,
20:47
Speaker 1: like on top of spaghetti, sidebar all covered with cheese.
20:53
Speaker 1: I lost my permeable when somebody sneezed. Anyway, okay. Listen,
21:00
Speaker 1: it's a classic. So, with this head, it landed with
21:06
Speaker 1: a crack And in a sheer panic, the covers were
21:09
Speaker 1: ripped off the bed to show a mound of clothes
21:12
Speaker 1: in the shape of a body, instead of the inmate
21:15
Speaker 1: that should have been lying there. They rush in to investigate.
21:22
Speaker 1: And in the back of the wall of the cell,
21:25
Speaker 1: there was a small square hole, just about wide enough
21:29
Speaker 1: to fit a person. Right? Just enough to squeeze through.
21:35
Speaker 1: In the search, two more cells had holes in the
21:37
Speaker 1: walls and dummies in the beds and all three inmates
21:41
Speaker 1: were missing. As the guards searched the cells, one Mr
21:48
Speaker 1: Alan West, not to be confused with the best Batman
21:52
Speaker 1: of all, Adam West, called out from his cell. And
21:57
Speaker 1: he claimed that he was the mastermind behind the whole thing.
22:00
Speaker 1: I'd say almost gloating, but he was absolutely definitely gloating.
22:06
Speaker 1: 33-year-old Alan Clayton West was a career criminal. He was
22:11
Speaker 1: arrested over 20 times during his life. In the 50s,
22:15
Speaker 1: he was caught for grand theft auto. Yep, he was
22:18
Speaker 1: stealing cars. He was sent to Atlanta Penitentiary, where it's
22:23
Speaker 1: said that he met the Anglin brothers, and they became
22:27
Speaker 1: associates of such. Then, as he toured the penitentiary system,
22:33
Speaker 1: he spent some time in Florida. Right, so he was
22:38
Speaker 1: in Florida State Prison and after an escape attempt, he
22:41
Speaker 1: was transferred to Alcatraz as inmate AZ-1330. He was violent
22:50
Speaker 1: and aggressive and the guards at Alcatraz absolutely despised him.
22:56
Speaker 1: More often than not, he was put in isolation and
23:00
Speaker 1: then he was given.
23:01
Speaker 2: Well, I'd say the job, um.
23:07
Speaker 1: The task, I suppose, as a maintenance orderly, as punishment.
23:13
Speaker 1: He was mainly on the painting crew, so he had
23:15
Speaker 1: access to tools, and he put that to good use.
23:20
Speaker 1: He and a few other men managed to steal over
23:22
Speaker 1: 80 tools all in all. But he was on the ball.
23:27
Speaker 1: When he was in the present barber shop, he nicked
23:30
Speaker 1: a pair of electrical clipples for the mota. He also
23:34
Speaker 1: comes across like a defunct vacuum cleaner on point and
23:37
Speaker 1: he's like, can I have this to try and fix it?
23:40
Speaker 1: And everyone's like, I guess, right? We live in concrete,
23:44
Speaker 1: but sure, why not? Why not have this, right? So
23:51
Speaker 1: he basically MacGyver's this thing into a drill, but I
23:55
Speaker 1: am getting ahead of myself, right? I mentioned two fellas
24:00
Speaker 1: that he met before, the Anglin brothers. John and Clarence, right?
24:05
Speaker 1: They'd met West before, and then in Alcatraz they ended
24:09
Speaker 1: up in neighbouring cells. 32-year-old John William Anglin and his
24:14
Speaker 1: younger brother, the 31-year-old Clarence, were two of 13 children
24:20
Speaker 1: to two seasonal farm workers, so needless to say, their
24:23
Speaker 1: childhoods were not exactly ones of privilege. They moved around
24:28
Speaker 1: a lot, unsurprisingly. Georgia, Florida, Michigan. Like, in Michigan, they
24:35
Speaker 1: used to swim in the lakes, in the cold, chilly lakes, right?
24:41
Speaker 2: In Michigan.
24:43
Speaker 1: They have a tolerance for this. As they grew, they
24:47
Speaker 1: decided that farm life wasn't for them and went on
24:50
Speaker 1: to the completely typical route of robbery. They began robbing
24:56
Speaker 1: banks and other establishments as a team in the early 1950s.
24:59
Speaker 1: In January 1958, John, Clarence and their brother Alfred robbed
25:06
Speaker 1: the Bank of Columbia in Columbia, Alabama. And they did
25:10
Speaker 1: so with a toy gun. Sidebar. The town where I
25:17
Speaker 1: went to school, secondary school, high school, it is known
25:21
Speaker 1: for a few things. One, for being the darkest place
25:24
Speaker 1: in all of Ireland, like geographically. And also because a
25:30
Speaker 1: guy decided to rob a bank on our he tried
25:34
Speaker 1: to rob a bank with a banana. And this was
25:40
Speaker 1: in like the 90s. This wasn't like way back when.
25:45
Speaker 1: This is in living memory, at least for me. A
25:48
Speaker 1: man tried to rob a bank with a banana because
25:51
Speaker 1: he was on a stag do from Belfast. And instead
25:55
Speaker 1: of asking anybody for some cash, he was like, I'm
25:58
Speaker 1: gonna go rob a bank with a banana. And I'd
26:02
Speaker 1: like to think that or tell you that, you know,
26:05
Speaker 1: that's the kind of funny crime we have. Yeah, yeah. No,
26:13
Speaker 1: a double agent, a double agent from During the Troubles
26:19
Speaker 1: actually got, like, assassinated in that town. And I think
26:24
Speaker 1: that was in the 2000s. That was when, I want
26:28
Speaker 1: to say, like, 2010, maybe. But yeah, so, like, not all,
26:32
Speaker 1: Like jollies and squiggles, yeah. But yeah, the boys, they...
26:40
Speaker 1: They robbed the Bank of Columbia with a toy gun
26:44
Speaker 1: and made off with $ 19, 000. The FBI captured them and
26:49
Speaker 1: all received 35-year sentences, which they were serving at Florida
26:54
Speaker 1: State Prison. Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and then Atlanta Federal Penitentiary
27:02
Speaker 1: After repeated attempts to escape from Atlanta, right? Here's the thing.
27:09
Speaker 1: They kept escaping and being caught and put back in,
27:11
Speaker 1: or at least trying to escape, and they just kept
27:13
Speaker 1: being moved up, like. And... John tries to ship Clarence
27:22
Speaker 1: out of Leavenworth, right? Right. Right. This is so funny.
27:29
Speaker 2: So.
27:31
Speaker 1: He gets a gig in the prison bakery and they
27:34
Speaker 1: have these like bread boxes for delivery and so he
27:37
Speaker 1: cuts the top out of one and the bottom of
27:39
Speaker 1: another and like he stacks them. Clarence is inside and
27:44
Speaker 1: he puts like bread on top, right? Some loaves. So
27:49
Speaker 1: he's there like pushing this, you know, thing of boxes
27:55
Speaker 1: and the truck is ready to haul Clarence into the boxes,
27:58
Speaker 1: you know, to a farm. When a supervisor was suspicious
28:04
Speaker 1: of the weirdly heavy box that John was pushing, which,
28:07
Speaker 1: you know, should have been empty, and, haha, lifts up
28:11
Speaker 1: the box and there's Clarence ducking inside these bread boxes.
28:17
Speaker 1: And so, yes, one tiny flaw in their otherwise foolproof plan. So,
28:24
Speaker 1: John and Clarence were transferred to Alcatraz. John landed on
28:28
Speaker 1: October 24th, 1960 as inmate AZ-1476 and Clarence arrived a
28:36
Speaker 1: few months later on January 16th, 1961 as inmate AZ-1485.
28:44
Speaker 1: But there was a final member of this crew and
28:49
Speaker 1: who many say is the actual mastermind behind all of this,
28:53
Speaker 1: Frank Morris. 36-year-old Frank Lee Morris was born in Washington, D.C.
29:01
Speaker 1: to a woman named Clara. Now, Clara was a runaway
29:04
Speaker 1: and she named, like Frank, after a civil engineer that
29:08
Speaker 1: she said she had married, but no, they hadn't even
29:12
Speaker 1: gotten hitched. And also, he was very much not Frank's father. Basically,
29:17
Speaker 1: from the get-go, Frank was placed in a foster home
29:21
Speaker 1: and then in an orphanage when his mother would visit
29:23
Speaker 1: him twice a week. He was kind of quiet as
29:31
Speaker 1: a kid. He was just sort of reserved into himself
29:34
Speaker 1: and he didn't really cause problems. Except when he was
29:41
Speaker 1: six years old, he would steal. Like, he'd rummage through
29:47
Speaker 1: other children's lunchboxes. And he would just, like, steal small
29:51
Speaker 1: bits of change from a teacher's desk. Like, he would
29:54
Speaker 1: just do these little things. And this would happen after
29:58
Speaker 1: his mum would visit. Now, this could be a response
30:00
Speaker 1: that's happening to him feeling, you know, sort of rejection
30:04
Speaker 1: and despair and him being a child. He could have
30:09
Speaker 1: been really fucking hungry, you know, and wanted to eat
30:12
Speaker 1: his feelings. You know, there's so many things that could
30:15
Speaker 1: have caused this. But by 11, he was an orphan
30:22
Speaker 1: and he spent the rest of his childhood in foster homes.
30:26
Speaker 1: He was convicted of his first criminal offence at 13.
30:31
Speaker 1: And throughout his teens, he was arrested for everything from
30:35
Speaker 1: drug-having to drug-running to armed robbery. And when he was older,
30:40
Speaker 1: he was arrested in Miami Beach, Florida for grand larceny,
30:44
Speaker 1: auto theft and armed robbery. Frank Morris served time in Florida,
30:50
Speaker 1: Georgia and the Louisiana State Penitentiary. to serve 10 years
30:55
Speaker 1: for robbery and possession of marijuana. I've got to stop
31:00
Speaker 1: saying it like that. In April 1955, he escaped from
31:04
Speaker 1: Louisiana Pediatry with another inmate. They spent a couple of
31:07
Speaker 1: months in New Orleans. New Orleans. I've been told that
31:12
Speaker 1: I say it wrong, but over on this side of
31:15
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, we say Orleans, and it's like, My friend Sahara,
31:20
Speaker 1: she's always like, just say it in French, right? Because
31:22
Speaker 1: if you say it in French, you're closer to the
31:24
Speaker 1: correct pronunciation. And I'm like, I was like, Orlan? Orlan? Non, Orlan?
31:31
Speaker 1: And I was like, people are going to think I'm
31:33
Speaker 1: taking the piss when I'm just trying to be like,
31:35
Speaker 1: New Orleans. It sounds really pushy. Like it's pushing out
31:40
Speaker 1: my throat and I feel like I'm doing it wrong.
31:43
Speaker 1: And I don't want people to think I'm like being
31:45
Speaker 1: a dick. I just have trouble with certain pronunciations. Especially
31:49
Speaker 1: when you've been, like, made to pronounce things a certain way, like,
31:53
Speaker 1: for most of your life. It's why I still have
31:55
Speaker 1: an extra syllable in the word road, as in you
31:57
Speaker 1: drive on a road. So, he escaped with another inmate.
32:05
Speaker 1: They go to New Orleans. Aha! They went to Kansas City, Missouri.
32:10
Speaker 1: Not Kansas City, Kansas. I have been in both of
32:13
Speaker 1: those places. I was like, I know those places exist.
32:16
Speaker 1: So this is where he was recaptured while committing a
32:18
Speaker 1: burglary one year later. So he was sent to Alcatraz
32:23
Speaker 1: on January 18th, 1960 as inmate number AZ1441. Because he
32:30
Speaker 1: just kept breaking out of places and they were like, no,
32:34
Speaker 1: you're going here, lad. Fun fact, Frank Morris's official occupation
32:41
Speaker 1: on his prison documents was escape artist. I love, I
32:47
Speaker 1: love that. It's my favourite thing. So, the Anglins and
32:52
Speaker 1: West had reunited and they realised that they had a
32:54
Speaker 1: great many things in common, like a fondness for Peach
32:57
Speaker 1: Cobbler and wanting to escape the unescapable prison. Alan West
33:03
Speaker 1: was Frank Morris' cell neighbour and he clocked just how
33:07
Speaker 1: smart and clever Frank Morris was. Now, Alan West knew
33:13
Speaker 1: they needed someone, like with brains, for this plan to work.
33:19
Speaker 1: And by December 1961, all four were in on it.
33:31
Speaker 1: So Frank Morris, he is a very interesting dude. Like
33:38
Speaker 1: he very much keeps to himself. Like he doesn't really
33:42
Speaker 1: interact with other inmates very much. He likes his own company.
33:47
Speaker 1: he plays the accordion, you know, like, and at one point,
33:51
Speaker 1: I think, as the neighbouring cellmate, Alan West also gets
33:57
Speaker 1: himself an accordion, and it's just like, can everybody play
34:02
Speaker 1: the accordion here? Like, is he playing it well? Is
34:05
Speaker 1: he playing it well enough? Like, is he, like, Is
34:09
Speaker 1: Frank giving him accordion lessons through the bars? What's happening?
34:14
Speaker 1: I have questions that will never be answered. But yes,
34:21
Speaker 1: Alcatraz was a concrete structure, which was one of the
34:25
Speaker 1: factors as to why it was deemed so impossible to
34:28
Speaker 1: break out of. But concrete cracks over time, especially when
34:34
Speaker 1: near so much salt. Anyone who has iced a concrete
34:38
Speaker 1: driveway or de-iced a concrete driveway with salt can tell
34:43
Speaker 1: you that. And the thing about being in prison is
34:46
Speaker 1: that you do have a lot of time to think
34:50
Speaker 1: and look around your cell and maybe notice that the
34:54
Speaker 1: concrete is not holding up as it once was. And
34:59
Speaker 1: these men realised fairly sharpish that the concrete flaked away
35:04
Speaker 1: pretty easily when it was chipped at with any kind
35:08
Speaker 1: of sharp implement. Now remember the holes in the back
35:13
Speaker 1: of the wall that I mentioned earlier? Those are vents. See,
35:18
Speaker 1: at the back of the cell, there was a small
35:20
Speaker 1: vent measuring about 6 by 20 inches. The inmates removed
35:25
Speaker 1: the grill that covered the vent and widened the vent
35:28
Speaker 1: hole until a human could pass through it. So to
35:32
Speaker 1: dig these holes, they needed digging tools. Now, knives were
35:36
Speaker 1: of no use because the guards counted them after every
35:40
Speaker 1: meal in case, you know, someone tried to turn it
35:42
Speaker 1: into a shiv. Or, it's a knife, you don't really
35:45
Speaker 1: need to convert a knife into a shiv. It's already
35:48
Speaker 1: a stabbing tool. So, they counted the knives after every meal,
35:53
Speaker 1: but you know what they didn't count? Spoons. So they
35:58
Speaker 1: took spoons. They took spoons. They took bloody spoons, okay?
36:02
Speaker 2: Okay?
36:03
Speaker 1: They sharpened them. Of course, they weren't animals. But how,
36:08
Speaker 1: you may ask, did the men manage to dig through
36:11
Speaker 1: concrete without anyone hearing them? Well, of course, my delicious friends,
36:15
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked because I'll tell you. They worked
36:20
Speaker 1: under the cover of accordion. Weird Al would be proud. Sidebar. Okay,
36:28
Speaker 1: so I've been talking about this, about Daniel Radcliffe. And
36:32
Speaker 1: I have decided, I think it's a good idea that
36:35
Speaker 1: any sort of male, white, celebrity, preferably straight if gender
36:43
Speaker 1: orientation is not known, okay? Let's just go with that.
36:46
Speaker 1: And I say we get like every cis-het white male
36:51
Speaker 1: that we know of, right? Celebrity-wise. We get Daniel Radcliffe
36:54
Speaker 1: to play them in the biopic, right? Why not? Just
36:59
Speaker 1: put them in a Ryan Murphy wig, And away you go.
37:02
Speaker 1: And I said it before and I'll say it again. Now,
37:05
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy has made some questionable artistic choices, but my god,
37:10
Speaker 1: that man is keeping web makers in business. So. After
37:17
Speaker 1: dinner and before lights out, the inmates were permitted to
37:19
Speaker 1: listen to slash play music. Al Capone had his banjo,
37:23
Speaker 1: lest we forget. Yeah, like, like, people were there. People
37:29
Speaker 1: were in Alcatraz like Al Capone now Al Capone was
37:33
Speaker 1: able to bribe his way like through a lot of
37:36
Speaker 1: jail but like this but he did have his banjo
37:44
Speaker 1: so inmates would play instruments and the fellas could dig
37:47
Speaker 1: away and each night they would swap roles one would
37:50
Speaker 1: play and another would dig they would dispose of the
37:55
Speaker 1: extra concrete by flushing chunks down the toilet or by
37:58
Speaker 1: sweeping it away in corridors or scattering them outside. As
38:05
Speaker 1: for the vents, eventually their work, you know, it was
38:12
Speaker 1: getting hard to hide. Because initially it was obscured by
38:15
Speaker 1: like bits and pieces, strategically draped clothes, a carefully placed box.
38:19
Speaker 1: But eventually they used arts and crafts privileges to make
38:24
Speaker 1: fake cardboard grills for their sales. And, like, from a distance, eh,
38:29
Speaker 1: nobody really noticed. After they broke through into the back
38:35
Speaker 1: of the cells, they knew they couldn't go any further
38:37
Speaker 1: until they found a way to cover up the fact
38:39
Speaker 1: that they were there. So back to the arts and crafts. See,
38:44
Speaker 1: the guards did a body count every hour at night
38:47
Speaker 1: from 9.30pm, which was lights out, and so just stuffing
38:51
Speaker 1: the bed wasn't going to cut it. So they mixed
38:55
Speaker 1: that excess concrete they've been collecting, they had toothpaste, plaster
38:59
Speaker 1: dust and what has been described as a sticky soap
39:05
Speaker 1: and that with some toilet paper. They made this sort
39:08
Speaker 1: of paper mache and created fake heads that was painted
39:13
Speaker 1: the colour of flesh and with hair stuck on it,
39:17
Speaker 1: which was just lifelike enough to look like a head
39:21
Speaker 1: in the dark of night. like they attached, like they
39:24
Speaker 1: had hair on it, like eyebrows and eyelashes. So like,
39:30
Speaker 1: they would talk to other inmates that were like arty
39:34
Speaker 1: or they knew had sort of any kind of art
39:36
Speaker 1: skill whatsoever and they were like how do I make
39:38
Speaker 1: a flesh tone like how do I make this and
39:41
Speaker 1: even with the sweeping away of the concrete like other
39:43
Speaker 1: inmates were in on it like there's an honour amongst
39:46
Speaker 1: thieves right and because Alcatraz being Alcatraz it was very
39:51
Speaker 1: much like an F you to everyone and so yeah
39:57
Speaker 1: Alan West he was still on painting duty so when
40:00
Speaker 1: he was painting the top of the sail block what
40:02
Speaker 1: he was doing is he would sweep dry like paint
40:04
Speaker 1: chips and flakes and dust like to make a mess
40:09
Speaker 1: that it would annoy the guards so much that like
40:12
Speaker 1: the place was just an absolute state that they were
40:15
Speaker 1: incredibly grateful for the quiet and reserved Frank Morris for
40:20
Speaker 1: his idea to make a blanket wall to stop the
40:24
Speaker 1: crap from getting everywhere. And the guards agreed. So they
40:31
Speaker 1: hung these like blankets, like from, like from up high.
40:37
Speaker 1: And they did this to obscure the vent, right? So Basically,
40:43
Speaker 1: they were able to remove the ventilation shaft at the
40:46
Speaker 1: top of the cell, right? Because that's what they would
40:49
Speaker 1: have got caught doing. There was no way they wouldn't
40:51
Speaker 1: have been. So they have these blankets out which obscure
40:56
Speaker 1: this completely. And they manage to do this without issue.
41:02
Speaker 1: The paper mache heads were put in the beds and
41:04
Speaker 1: the cells and the men would continue working through the night. Now,
41:09
Speaker 1: the Anglin brothers are the ones who came up with
41:11
Speaker 1: the idea for the raft. They knew they needed life
41:13
Speaker 1: jackets because the Anglin boys were experienced swimmers and the
41:16
Speaker 1: other two were not. So waterproof material was kind of important. See,
41:22
Speaker 1: inmates were given US Army-issue rubber raincoats, which was like
41:26
Speaker 1: that olive colour. And, you know, these fellas, they'd managed
41:32
Speaker 1: to save some. And others were donated by other inmates
41:35
Speaker 1: who would claim that they lost them or misplaced them
41:38
Speaker 1: or they were stolen. Like, so many people were in
41:42
Speaker 1: on it It's so fun. So, like, thanks to a
41:47
Speaker 1: 1962 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine, right, there was an article.
41:54
Speaker 1: Your life preserver. How will it behave when you need it?
41:57
Speaker 1: And it had a selection of different options and the
41:59
Speaker 1: guys got to work. They sewed together 50 raincoats to
42:03
Speaker 1: make these. They also assembled a 6x14 foot rubber raft.
42:09
Speaker 1: The men carefully stitched the seams by hand and then
42:12
Speaker 1: sealed them with liquid plastic available in the shops and
42:14
Speaker 1: used heat from nearby steam pipes to seal it. Paddles
42:19
Speaker 1: were made from plywood shelving from their cells and other
42:21
Speaker 1: materials they had acquired. Oh, and they did this in
42:25
Speaker 1: a disused cell block that they accessed at night. Like,
42:28
Speaker 1: they had this workshop, effectively. And so, like, they would just, like,
42:33
Speaker 1: collect stuff, like magpies, but just for, like, MacGyver tools.
42:38
Speaker 1: And they would just do this for months. They were
42:40
Speaker 1: planning this six months ahead. Now, Alan West, he wasn't
42:46
Speaker 1: digging as much as the others. He spent a lot
42:49
Speaker 1: more time sewing and sealing. That's what he spent a
42:53
Speaker 1: lot of his time doing. And this could be, this
42:59
Speaker 1: is argued, that this is one of the reasons why
43:01
Speaker 1: he's not actually free. He's kind of.
43:07
Speaker 1: We'll get into it, actually. We will get into that. But,
43:13
Speaker 1: lights out on the 11th of June, 1962. The men
43:18
Speaker 1: put their dummy heads in the bunks. They padded out
43:21
Speaker 1: the beds. They shaped clothes to make the shape of
43:25
Speaker 1: a sleeping figure. They went out to the back of
43:30
Speaker 1: their cell, removed the dummy grill, crawled through the tunnels
43:35
Speaker 1: that they had dug, and enter the utility corridor. Now
43:39
Speaker 1: the utility corridor was going to be their way out.
43:43
Speaker 1: Now there are a couple of things that happen now.
43:48
Speaker 1: One of which is that the Anglin brothers make it
43:52
Speaker 1: out and Frank Morris is too. Now the only one
43:55
Speaker 1: who isn't there is Alan West. There are a few
44:00
Speaker 1: theories slash stories as to how this happened. One was
44:04
Speaker 1: that when Alan went to chip through the last part
44:06
Speaker 1: of the tunnel, because he hadn't, like, finished his bit, right?
44:12
Speaker 1: When he tried to do this, he realised there was
44:15
Speaker 1: a massive fuck-off pipe block in the way and that
44:17
Speaker 1: he couldn't get through it. And so, like, he's calling
44:20
Speaker 1: for help, he's kicking it, he's pushing it, he's trying
44:22
Speaker 1: to get them to bend it. Like, the Anglin brothers
44:25
Speaker 1: are like, tough luck, you're on your own. And Frank Morris, like,
44:30
Speaker 1: tries to get him out. Like, the first thing he
44:31
Speaker 1: does is he comes back and tries to get Alan. Now,
44:37
Speaker 1: The second theory or story that comes out of this
44:42
Speaker 1: was that even though they were digging the hole, they
44:46
Speaker 1: had to reinforce it as well. And so the concrete
44:49
Speaker 1: that Alan had used to reinforce his tunnel had hardened.
44:54
Speaker 1: And so he couldn't fit through the hole anymore because
44:57
Speaker 1: he'd made it smaller with this sort of reinforcement. The
45:02
Speaker 1: third story was that Because Alan West had spent so
45:08
Speaker 1: much of his time as a lookout and by sowing
45:12
Speaker 1: the life preservers, like because he focused on that specifically
45:16
Speaker 1: because he was more so the lookout and he was
45:19
Speaker 1: sowing the life preservers, you know, to make sure that
45:22
Speaker 1: nobody drowned, because he was focusing on that, that the
45:26
Speaker 1: original plan was that he wouldn't finish chipping out the
45:29
Speaker 1: last bit of his cell anyway and that the others
45:34
Speaker 1: would come back round and punch through that last chunk
45:37
Speaker 1: of the tunnel. But whatever happened, Alan West would not
45:46
Speaker 1: join the men that night. See, there is, I suppose,
45:52
Speaker 1: there is another theory, right? So the idea is that, like,
45:55
Speaker 1: he did manage to chip through that last bit. He
45:58
Speaker 1: gets out. But when he gets out, he realises that
46:02
Speaker 1: the other men are already gone. So he gets up
46:06
Speaker 1: to the little utility room and there's still like some paddles.
46:10
Speaker 1: There's like the smaller raft and there's the dummy head
46:14
Speaker 1: for him. Like they're all there. Like all of this
46:17
Speaker 1: extra stuff is there ready to go. You know, just to,
46:22
Speaker 1: you know, for him, they left the stuff for him
46:24
Speaker 1: so that he could do it, but they couldn't wait
46:26
Speaker 1: any longer. And There is a story that he basically
46:30
Speaker 1: climbs up and like he pokes his head out and
46:32
Speaker 1: he sees all these seagulls and he's like, oh, spooked
46:34
Speaker 1: by all the birds, right? So he does that, he's
46:37
Speaker 1: spooked by the birds. They all fly off and do
46:40
Speaker 1: all their stuff. And he basically gets cold feet, like
46:45
Speaker 1: he chickens out of it and he just like turns
46:47
Speaker 1: his tail and goes back in. Now, whether he was spooked,
46:52
Speaker 1: whether he just felt like he didn't have the right materials,
46:54
Speaker 1: whether he never actually left his cell that night, Nobody
46:59
Speaker 1: will ever really know. But we know that he did
47:04
Speaker 1: not join the other men. Clarice, John and Frank. The
47:11
Speaker 1: three men climbed up to the roof of the cell block.
47:14
Speaker 1: They go through the ventilation shaft and they push it away,
47:17
Speaker 1: which makes so much noise. The guards go outside and
47:20
Speaker 1: investigate for about 45 minutes. Right. So enough chaos has
47:27
Speaker 1: happened that the guards are out looking. But the guards
47:32
Speaker 1: don't go onto the roof because, like, why would they?
47:37
Speaker 1: So they find nothing. Now, sorry, I just remembered another
47:44
Speaker 1: story about Alan West is that he gets to the roof, sorry,
47:48
Speaker 1: and he's about to escape, but he sees that there's, like,
47:54
Speaker 1: let's get out. I was going to say an orderly,
47:56
Speaker 1: an orderly is not the word. Ah, ADHD brain. There's
48:00
Speaker 1: a guard and he's in position. And so the guard
48:04
Speaker 1: doesn't move. He's waiting for the guard to move so
48:06
Speaker 1: that he can escape, but the guard doesn't go anywhere.
48:08
Speaker 1: So he ends up giving up and going back inside. Okay,
48:11
Speaker 1: so anyway, 45 minutes, guards are looking. The investigation is
48:17
Speaker 1: called off and the men kind of shimmy down the
48:22
Speaker 1: kitchen pipes. And reach the ground 50 feet below. I
48:28
Speaker 1: was going to say down. And then below. And I
48:30
Speaker 1: kind of went below. They then vaulted over a 12
48:35
Speaker 1: foot barbed wire fence. And headed for the northeast shore.
48:40
Speaker 1: Like because this. This is the goal. Because according to West.
48:47
Speaker 1: They want to go to Angel Island. Like that is
48:49
Speaker 1: the initial plan. So. I love that there's an angel
48:54
Speaker 1: island and everyone calls this devil's island. It's like, oh,
48:56
Speaker 1: there's angel island, devil island, but The Rock. Watch the movie.
48:59
Speaker 1: It's got Sean Connery, who's a bit of a dick,
49:02
Speaker 1: and Nicolas Cage, who's just Nicolas Cage. We should appreciate
49:05
Speaker 1: him for him being Nicolas Cage. Now, the men make
49:10
Speaker 1: it off the island and this is where things get
49:13
Speaker 1: murky because the next thing we know, it's seven o'clock
49:17
Speaker 1: in the morning and the guards are... adding up the
49:20
Speaker 1: numbers and they are not liking it. That math is
49:22
Speaker 1: not mathing. And Alan West knows there's going to be
49:26
Speaker 1: a search. He knows they're going to go through the
49:29
Speaker 1: cells and they know they're going to find his vent
49:31
Speaker 1: tunnel and so he decides fuck this for a game
49:33
Speaker 1: of soldiers and decides to boost his reputation as the
49:37
Speaker 1: mastermind Behind the escape from Alcatraz.
49:40
Speaker 2: Because, yeah, he calls out to them.
49:46
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, well, boys, I organised it. I planned it.
49:50
Speaker 1: I made it happen. What are you going to do now? Oink, oink.
49:58
Speaker 1: But what happened to the other men? The Bureau of
50:03
Speaker 1: Prisons was just like 100% going, they drowned, case closed.
50:09
Speaker 1: Because there's no way someone could have survived. The FBI
50:15
Speaker 1: get involved. See, two days after the escape, a packet
50:19
Speaker 1: of letters, sealed in rubber, were found in the bay
50:22
Speaker 1: with a life vest and some paddles on the shore. Right? See,
50:26
Speaker 1: these letters, they were allegedly addressed to the Anglin brothers' families.
50:31
Speaker 1: And that they had just appeared, so obviously the men
50:34
Speaker 1: had drowned. Hmm. Hmm. See, here's a fun thing. On
50:42
Speaker 1: the mainland, San Francisco police officer Robert Cheche later reported
50:47
Speaker 1: seeing something, I'm going to say, quite interesting. On the
50:52
Speaker 1: night of the escape, while standing at St. Francis' Yacht
50:55
Speaker 1: Harbour in the Marina District, he spotted a fishing boat
50:59
Speaker 1: floating suspiciously close to Alcatraz. The boat stayed there for
51:04
Speaker 1: around 15 minutes before heading off towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Naturally,
51:11
Speaker 1: this sparked some speculation that perhaps the escapees might not
51:16
Speaker 1: have been planning to paddle their raincoat raft into the
51:19
Speaker 1: sunset after all. Perhaps someone had been waiting to pick
51:24
Speaker 1: them up. Because, like, unauthorised boats weren't supposed to be
51:29
Speaker 1: anywhere near Alcatraz, which is the concerning thing, so there's
51:33
Speaker 1: a fishing boat. It's New Alcatraz. It's not supposed to be. And, right,
51:40
Speaker 1: there's no log of it, there's no register of it,
51:42
Speaker 1: and yet it was somehow allowed. Hmm. Despite this, the
51:48
Speaker 1: FBI essentially looked at Chechi's account and went, nah. Don't
51:55
Speaker 1: believe you, police officer. Also, on Angel Island... it was
52:04
Speaker 1: reported that a makeshift boat was discovered. Now, the plan originally,
52:11
Speaker 1: according to West, was that they were going to head
52:16
Speaker 1: off to Angel Island. They were then going to steal
52:19
Speaker 1: clothes and a car. And the FBI dismissed this because
52:23
Speaker 1: no such crimes were reported. Again, this completely ignores the
52:29
Speaker 1: idea of having an accomplice or accomplices. Like these guys
52:34
Speaker 1: are career criminals and also they're getting help like inside
52:37
Speaker 1: the prison. What's the chances that they might be getting
52:41
Speaker 1: help outside the prison? Like what if? What if someone
52:46
Speaker 1: else was involved? Like you don't need that many people
52:50
Speaker 1: to pull this off, right? And you also don't need
52:54
Speaker 1: a big convoluted tale. Like what if someone just picked
52:58
Speaker 1: them up, right? What if this happened? Or what if
53:01
Speaker 1: they stole a car? but nobody reported it missing for days, weeks, months. Like,
53:09
Speaker 1: what if somebody was out of town or out of
53:12
Speaker 1: state or visiting their family? You know, there were so
53:17
Speaker 1: many reasons and so many options. And what if the
53:19
Speaker 1: car had been stolen previously and then left somewhere for
53:23
Speaker 1: them to find? Like, and then it wouldn't fit the timeline. Like,
53:26
Speaker 1: you have all of these options, but the FBI are like, no, no, no,
53:30
Speaker 1: no one escaped. No one survived the escape. So here's
53:36
Speaker 1: the thing. Like, there were reports of people, right? So
53:42
Speaker 1: as early as December 1962, the Anglin family said that
53:47
Speaker 1: they got Christmas cards from the brothers, right? And that
53:52
Speaker 1: they recognised the handwriting. So their mother, she received anonymous
53:59
Speaker 1: flowers every year on Mother's Day up until the day
54:02
Speaker 1: she died. In 1989, when the father of the Anglin
54:08
Speaker 1: brothers died, two bearded men in heavy makeup were at
54:13
Speaker 1: the funeral. Nobody knew who they were, nobody talked to them,
54:17
Speaker 1: but they were just like wearing a lot of makeup
54:21
Speaker 1: and had big beards. Also in 1989, a woman who
54:28
Speaker 1: identified herself only as Cathy called the tip line of
54:33
Speaker 1: the television programme Unsolved Mysteries. Because of course she did.
54:40
Speaker 1: And she called to report that a photo of Clarence
54:42
Speaker 1: Anglin matched the description of a man who lived on
54:46
Speaker 1: a farm near Mariana, Florida. Another woman also recognised a
54:51
Speaker 1: photo of Clarence and said that he lived near Mariana. Right?
54:55
Speaker 1: She correctly identified his eye colour, height and other physical features.
55:00
Speaker 1: Like Another witness claimed that a sketch of Boris bore
55:04
Speaker 1: a striking resemblance to a man she had seen in
55:06
Speaker 1: the same area. Right, you have all of this happen
55:13
Speaker 1: and then you have prisoners reporting that, oh, you know,
55:16
Speaker 1: we were part of the team that picked them up,
55:18
Speaker 1: but then we killed them and took their stuff. And, like,
55:22
Speaker 1: it's interesting that people are claiming that they're all in
55:25
Speaker 1: the same place. Like, normally... like the idea would be
55:27
Speaker 1: to disperse, right? That would be the smart thing to do,
55:30
Speaker 1: but wouldn't that be the thing that the FBI were expecting?
55:34
Speaker 1: And like, there are these photos that come up and
55:36
Speaker 1: it's all these like two blonder guys and this dark
55:38
Speaker 1: haired fella and they do look like the Anglin brothers
55:42
Speaker 1: and Frank Morris. It is wild. You know, you've got
55:47
Speaker 1: these people who keep going, hey, we think this is
55:51
Speaker 1: Clarence and they keep reporting this guy is Clarence. Now
55:53
Speaker 1: we know that like the human memory is unreliable and
55:56
Speaker 1: that the photo fit thing and that isn't isn't really
56:03
Speaker 1: great it's not I have opinions on that because we
56:08
Speaker 1: studied it all in psychology back in the day and
56:10
Speaker 1: it's like the way that you perceive a face it's
56:15
Speaker 1: a whole thing but yeah there's all these reports of
56:21
Speaker 1: you know these men being in these different locations and
56:27
Speaker 1: Even by people who are like, hang on. It's kind
56:30
Speaker 1: of like the whole List family murders, which I may
56:33
Speaker 1: discuss at some time. But like, there's like a, what
56:40
Speaker 1: was it? A clay or something head that's made of
56:43
Speaker 1: what they think Robert List would look like. And his
56:45
Speaker 1: wife is sitting across from him and she's like, shit.
56:48
Speaker 1: And she phones up and she's like, hey. I think
56:54
Speaker 1: it's him. So there were reportings of the men for
57:00
Speaker 1: years and like the FBI closed it. They were like,
57:03
Speaker 1: and then they passed it on to like the Bureau
57:06
Speaker 1: of Prisons who kept it open. But like in 79,
57:11
Speaker 1: they were just kind of like, the FBI was like, no,
57:12
Speaker 1: they're dead. They're dead. Now part of it is like,
57:17
Speaker 1: they obviously didn't want to, like anybody could escape Alcatraz.
57:21
Speaker 1: They were like, nobody could escape and nobody could swim
57:24
Speaker 1: and nobody could do this. But like, The year that
57:27
Speaker 1: Alcatraz opened, like before it opened, a teenage girl, I
57:30
Speaker 1: think she was either 17 or 19, I don't remember,
57:33
Speaker 1: but she was like young. And she swam from San
57:37
Speaker 1: Francisco Bay to Alcatraz. And then she swam back again
57:41
Speaker 1: just to prove it could be done. And like, needless
57:46
Speaker 1: to say, the people opening the quote unquote unescapable prison
57:51
Speaker 1: were none too happy about that. And they were like, no.
57:55
Speaker 1: Oh dear, a no. So, like, here's the thing. They
58:01
Speaker 1: say that nobody ever escaped and lived, right? There were
58:06
Speaker 1: reports of anyone who made it out. They, like, they
58:11
Speaker 1: died effectively. Like, that is what they're saying. There were
58:14
Speaker 1: so many escape attempts. In 1936, Joseph Bowers, who was
58:19
Speaker 1: a prisoner AZ-210... So, like, he used to, like, burn rubbish. So, like,
58:25
Speaker 1: he would be burning the trash in the incinerator. And
58:27
Speaker 1: then he's doing that. And one day, because, like I said,
58:30
Speaker 1: they all had jobs, right? And so that was his
58:33
Speaker 1: thing to do. And so one day he just decides
58:36
Speaker 1: to scale the chain link fence, right? And so he's, like,
58:40
Speaker 1: crawling up this fence like a spider monkey. He's trying
58:43
Speaker 1: to get out. And, like, they're shouting at him to
58:45
Speaker 1: tell him to come down. He doesn't. And so, boom, boom, boom,
58:48
Speaker 1: he is shot, right? So... The following year, Theodore Cole
58:53
Speaker 1: and Raph Rowe had filed through iron bars, like, in
58:58
Speaker 1: the prisons, like... All of this is so tropey, isn't it?
59:01
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, they filed through the bars. Yes, they did.
59:04
Speaker 1: It took them a while, but they did it. So,
59:07
Speaker 1: um it's in the industry's building and it's like a
59:09
Speaker 1: very foggy day and like heathcliff is on the moors
59:13
Speaker 1: and they're like we need to make a break for
59:15
Speaker 1: it so they don't get seen by the guards on
59:17
Speaker 1: the watchtowers because like it's foggy so they get out
59:21
Speaker 1: and then they just jump into the water and their
59:25
Speaker 1: bodies are never found so everyone's like they're dead The
59:29
Speaker 1: following year, 1938, Rufus Franklin and Thomas R. Limerick and
59:37
Speaker 1: James C. Lucas, they attack a guard with a claw
59:41
Speaker 1: hammer in the wood workshop, right? They get onto the
59:45
Speaker 1: roof and then effectively, like, Limerick is shot. Franklin is shot,
59:53
Speaker 1: but he doesn't die. And then Lucas ends up getting
59:56
Speaker 1: cornered by the guards and he's just like, I surrender,
59:59
Speaker 1: I surrender. So the year after that, it's not even
1:00:03
Speaker 1: a full year, I think it's like six months after that,
1:00:07
Speaker 1: seven maybe, Doc Barker, William Martin, Rufus McCain, Henry Young
1:00:12
Speaker 1: and Dale Stample, right, they escape the sale house and
1:00:17
Speaker 1: reach the Alcatraz shore like one January night. They are
1:00:24
Speaker 1: trying to put together this makeshift raft. They are spotted
1:00:27
Speaker 1: by a guard on a watchtower, right? And, like, Doc
1:00:31
Speaker 1: Barker is shot and he, you know, dies of his injuries.
1:00:36
Speaker 1: Dale Stample, he's injured and the rest of them, they
1:00:40
Speaker 1: all get sent to, like, solitary confinement. Now, the next
1:00:43
Speaker 1: escape attempt doesn't happen for the next two years. Joe Kreitzer,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Arnold Kyle, Lord Barkdoll and Sam Shockley Like, they're also
1:00:53
Speaker 1: in the industry's area. It's almost as if this is
1:00:55
Speaker 1: a really easy place to escape from, this particular location,
1:00:59
Speaker 1: the industry's area, right? They jump the guards on duty,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: and they try to saw through the window bars to
1:01:05
Speaker 1: reach the shore, but, like, the bars, they've learned from
1:01:08
Speaker 1: the first time, right, about filing through them, so they
1:01:11
Speaker 1: don't make it through. And, yeah, they end up having to, well,
1:01:18
Speaker 1: they end up having to just surrender. So later that year,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: so that's like May and September, John Richard Bayliss, like
1:01:32
Speaker 1: he's like on the trash detail. He's on the rubbish
1:01:35
Speaker 1: like collection and he jumps into the water and tries
1:01:41
Speaker 1: to swim to San Francisco, but he doesn't. He gives up.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: Two years later in 43, James Borman, Floyd Garland Hamilton,
1:01:52
Speaker 1: Fred John Hunter and Harold Martin Brest, they cut through
1:01:57
Speaker 1: windows bar again, window bars in the industry's building, right? Right,
1:02:04
Speaker 1: so they put together four cans that contained like army
1:02:09
Speaker 1: uniforms and they used them as like these flotation devices.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: They overpower the guards. They bound them, they gag them,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: you know, they tie them up and they flee out
1:02:19
Speaker 1: the window, leaving behind two of those cans, right? One
1:02:23
Speaker 1: of the guards they manage to get his whistle out
1:02:26
Speaker 1: and the other, so this is really fun, so one
1:02:30
Speaker 1: guy gets his gag off. The other guy manages to
1:02:32
Speaker 1: get his whistle out. So one guard has to blow
1:02:35
Speaker 1: the other guard's whistle to, like, get this back. So, Borman, he's, like,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: shot in the head. Right? So, like, they're in the water,
1:02:46
Speaker 1: they're floating, and so Brest is holding Borman. He's been
1:02:49
Speaker 1: shot in the head, right? Like, You know, a boat
1:02:54
Speaker 1: comes around, they pick up Preston, so he lets go
1:02:56
Speaker 1: of Borman, who sinks down into the water. Body's never recovered. So,
1:03:01
Speaker 1: the thing is, as well, is that, like, Fred John Hunter, like,
1:03:06
Speaker 1: he'd injured himself, like, he'd hurt his back and his
1:03:09
Speaker 1: hands from, like, this whole situation. He gives up trying to, like, swim,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: and he ends up in this cave. Like, he ends
1:03:17
Speaker 1: up being... like found because there was bloodstains leading into
1:03:21
Speaker 1: the cave and so they fire a warning shot in
1:03:23
Speaker 1: and he's like surrender so Hamilton they think he's like
1:03:31
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the ocean but he had been
1:03:33
Speaker 1: hiding in the same cave as Hunter like under a
1:03:36
Speaker 1: pile of tires so like he's there for a couple
1:03:42
Speaker 1: days he makes it back up the cliff he climbs
1:03:45
Speaker 1: into the window that he'd escaped out of in the
1:03:47
Speaker 1: industry's building He hides in the storeroom and then he's
1:03:51
Speaker 1: discovered the next day. Later that year, right, Huron Ted Walters, right,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: he managed to slip out of the new Industries building, right,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: where he was doing laundry. Now, his idea was to, like,
1:04:11
Speaker 1: cut through the two security fences and then swim to
1:04:14
Speaker 1: San Francisco, right? The wire cutters that he, like, swiped
1:04:20
Speaker 1: didn't work. So he had to climb both fences. And
1:04:23
Speaker 1: then he falls from the second fence, lands on rocks
1:04:26
Speaker 1: and hurts his back. He makes it to the shoreline.
1:04:30
Speaker 1: But he just can't go any further and the guards
1:04:32
Speaker 1: end up picking him up. Right? So he goes into
1:04:35
Speaker 1: the prison hospital because he's injured as fuck. And then
1:04:38
Speaker 1: he's in the solitary confinement.
1:04:39
Speaker 2: 1945.
1:04:41
Speaker 1: John K. Giles, right? He manages to put together a
1:04:52
Speaker 1: sergeant's uniform, a US Army technical sergeant's uniform, right? Because, like,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: laundry was sent to the island to get laundered, right? Obviously.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: Because why not? And so they were doing that and
1:05:04
Speaker 1: he sort of put this stuff together, right? He boards
1:05:09
Speaker 1: a ferry, right? That was supposed to, like, go around
1:05:14
Speaker 1: all of the government facilities in the bay. So... The
1:05:18
Speaker 1: fairy manages to leave for Angel Island. And so like
1:05:23
Speaker 1: they're counting like the people on the wharf and they're like, hey,
1:05:25
Speaker 1: we're down one. So he manages to get caught at
1:05:29
Speaker 1: Angel Island and he's returned to Alcatraz. The next year,
1:05:32
Speaker 1: there's the Battle of Alcatraz, which I will go into
1:05:35
Speaker 1: in greater detail another time. So it's also known as
1:05:39
Speaker 1: the Blast Out. So you've got Marvin Harbord, Myron Thompson,
1:05:44
Speaker 1: Clarence Carnes, Sam Shockley, which is a really good name,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: That should be a comic book character. Bernard Cawley and
1:05:50
Speaker 1: Joseph Kretzer, right? This was another failed attempt, right? So
1:05:57
Speaker 1: they took control of the cell house, the overpowered guards.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: They entered the weapons room and managed to get the
1:06:04
Speaker 1: keys to the recreation yard door. They wanted to escape
1:06:08
Speaker 1: by boat, right? But they couldn't get the keys to
1:06:11
Speaker 1: the outside door and just decided to, quote, battle it out. So, um,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: they had hostages. They shot one.
1:06:22
Speaker 2: Right?
1:06:25
Speaker 1: Another one ended up being, like, killed by friendly fire. So,
1:06:31
Speaker 1: three of the guys, Carnes, Shockley and Thompson, like, they
1:06:34
Speaker 1: returned to their cells because they were like, oh no,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: this is fucked. We're in trouble. And so off they go. Now,
1:06:41
Speaker 1: the other three just continue. Continue with this fight. So,
1:06:49
Speaker 1: The Marines intervene, right? Guards are killed. Prisoners are killed. Like,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: 17 other guards are killed, okay? So the three guys
1:07:04
Speaker 1: that went back into the cells, right? Shockley and Thompson
1:07:12
Speaker 1: were sentenced to death in the gas chamber at San Quentin. Now,
1:07:21
Speaker 1: Clayton Carnes, who was only 19, they're like, you get
1:07:24
Speaker 1: a second life sentence because you're 19, right? And you
1:07:27
Speaker 1: always went back into your cell. But the other guys
1:07:28
Speaker 1: are like, no, you're getting gassed in San Quentin. So
1:07:36
Speaker 1: the next escape attempt does not happen for years. And
1:07:41
Speaker 1: I mean like a decade. 1956, Floyd Wilson disappears, right?
1:07:49
Speaker 1: He's at the dock. Off he goes to spare Scarpers.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: And they find him, 12 hours later, hiding amongst rocks.
1:07:57
Speaker 1: Because he had tried to make a raft out of, like, driftwood,
1:08:00
Speaker 1: but didn't or couldn't. Two years later, Clyde Johnson and
1:08:05
Speaker 1: Aaron Burgett, they, uh... They want garbage detail. They overpower
1:08:12
Speaker 1: a guard and they jump in the water trying to swim, right?
1:08:16
Speaker 1: They tried to use, like, plastic bags that they had
1:08:18
Speaker 1: inflated as flotation devices. In Ironburg, he had tied wooden
1:08:26
Speaker 1: boards to his feet to try and use as fins. Now,
1:08:33
Speaker 1: he drowned. This didn't work. He was found, like I
1:08:36
Speaker 1: suppose he, his decomposed corpse was found floating in the
1:08:41
Speaker 1: bay near Alcatraz later. Now, Johnson, Clyde Johnson, was found
1:08:49
Speaker 1: west deep in the bay. They're like, here he is.
1:08:52
Speaker 1: didn't make it very far. Obviously in 1962 that's what
1:08:57
Speaker 1: this attempt was and I like to say it was,
1:09:02
Speaker 1: it was successful, right? It's, so it's not the Bureau
1:09:06
Speaker 1: of Prisons that have it. It's the US Marshals that
1:09:08
Speaker 1: have the open case, just in case, just in case
1:09:11
Speaker 1: anything happens. So this escape in the run of today,
1:09:17
Speaker 1: it happened in June. 1962 and the next one was
1:09:27
Speaker 1: in December. Daryl Lee Parker and John Paul Scott were
1:09:33
Speaker 1: the very last prisoners to escape or at least attempt
1:09:36
Speaker 1: to escape before its closure. They had created a saw,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: they'd MacGyvered it, cut through the bars on a kitchen window.
1:09:43
Speaker 1: They ran to the edge of the island and jumped
1:09:46
Speaker 1: in the water. So Darley Parker was found 81 yards
1:09:52
Speaker 1: from the main island on this rock formation, like Little Alcatraz.
1:09:58
Speaker 1: John Paul Scott managed to swim three miles and reach
1:10:02
Speaker 1: Fort Point beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. He was discovered
1:10:07
Speaker 1: by a group of teenagers where he was suffering from
1:10:10
Speaker 1: hypothermia and exhaustion. Now, what's interesting is that John Paul
1:10:19
Speaker 1: Scott is the only proven case, like the only one
1:10:25
Speaker 1: that is recognised as an Alcatraz inmate managing to reach
1:10:31
Speaker 1: the shore by swimming. Now Alcatraz ends up being shut down.
1:10:36
Speaker 1: It is shut down because the thing about Alcatraz is
1:10:40
Speaker 1: that it couldn't sustain itself in any way. It was
1:10:44
Speaker 1: far more expensive to run than mainland prisons because Like
1:10:48
Speaker 1: everything had to be brought there. Food, water, like the
1:10:51
Speaker 1: water had to be shipped in because salty island, you know,
1:10:55
Speaker 1: on a salty bay. So it all had to be
1:10:58
Speaker 1: shipped in. But I love an escape. I love a jailbreak.
1:11:06
Speaker 1: I love, it's kind of like the opposite of a
1:11:08
Speaker 1: heist because you're breaking out of somewhere instead of breaking
1:11:10
Speaker 1: into somewhere. And I bloody love heists. I love a heist.
1:11:14
Speaker 1: I love a ridiculous heist movie, okay? I will watch, like,
1:11:19
Speaker 1: the dumber it is, right? Or the more convoluted it is.
1:11:23
Speaker 1: I will watch that heist movie like nobody's business, right? Granted,
1:11:28
Speaker 1: I'm not super into... How are some of the cars?
1:11:32
Speaker 1: Fast and Furious stuff. Not super into that as a
1:11:35
Speaker 1: general rule, but like....
1:11:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe.
1:11:41
Speaker 1: Maybe one day I'll watch them. I don't know. I watched, like,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: two and then apparently they got like wild and crazy
1:11:49
Speaker 1: near the end and I'm like okay cool but now
1:11:51
Speaker 1: I have to watch all of them because I cannot
1:11:53
Speaker 1: start with like film number four or five or eight
1:11:55
Speaker 1: right I gotta start at one although I've seen one
1:11:58
Speaker 1: in two yeah I've seen like too fast too furious
1:12:03
Speaker 1: I've also seen gone in 60 seconds which if it
1:12:07
Speaker 1: doesn't star Nicolas Cage I feel like it should I
1:12:11
Speaker 1: think that's a remake as well I think I've seen
1:12:13
Speaker 1: the original but anyway Out of the movies. There was
1:12:17
Speaker 1: also a movie called Escape from Alcatraz, which is... It's grand.
1:12:21
Speaker 1: There's also a movie called The Rock, which is better.
1:12:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is it better? Or do I just
1:12:26
Speaker 1: like it more? Maybe I just like it more. But
1:12:31
Speaker 1: the US Marshals, like, they have the case kind of open.
1:12:35
Speaker 1: The FBI was like, it's shut and done. Like, they're dead.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: Because they didn't want to have anyone think that anyone
1:12:41
Speaker 1: could actually escape from Alcatraz. Like... They weren't trying to
1:12:45
Speaker 1: keep it low as possible. They weren't trying to have
1:12:48
Speaker 1: the information out there. But obviously, people talk. And then
1:12:53
Speaker 1: the reporters got news of it. And then it became
1:12:55
Speaker 1: the biggest thing. So, the three men. There have been
1:13:02
Speaker 1: reportings of them for years, decades afterwards. And frankly... I
1:13:09
Speaker 1: am convinced that the prison system wanted to cover up
1:13:12
Speaker 1: such a cool escape because they were hella embarrassed, okay?
1:13:17
Speaker 1: But yes, as far as I am concerned, the three
1:13:20
Speaker 1: men escaped and lived happily ever after. So like, sidebar,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: kind of. People always talk about how like, oh, the
1:13:32
Speaker 1: Anglin brothers sent letters back but Frank never did anything.
1:13:35
Speaker 1: Dude was an orphan. Who was he sending letters to? Anyhow.
1:13:40
Speaker 1: With that, my voice is going, as you can hear,
1:13:43
Speaker 1: listen to that. It's so gravelly and gross, it's going away.
1:13:47
Speaker 1: It is recommendation time. For watching, I'm going to go
1:13:55
Speaker 1: with a classic. We're going classic today, lads. 9 to 5,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: starring the one, the only, Dolly Parton. For listening, The
1:14:09
Speaker 1: song Professional Pirate from a Muppet Treasure Island. Because it
1:14:14
Speaker 1: is a classic. And the fact that the Muppet Treasure
1:14:17
Speaker 1: Island soundtrack is not available anywhere, Disney. I'm just saying
1:14:25
Speaker 1: it is a travesty. A travesty.
1:14:28
Speaker 2: Okay?
1:14:29
Speaker 1: Okay, it should be everywhere. Because when you're a professional pirate,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: you'll be honest, brave and free. With a soul of decency,
1:14:37
Speaker 1: you'll be loyal and fair. Sorry, I'm going to... I'm, like,
1:14:40
Speaker 1: punching my chest. Like, um.
1:14:43
Speaker 2: Like, uh.
1:14:44
Speaker 1: Like Long John Silver does. But, like... It's so good.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: But for reading, I'm going to give you something relatively modern.
1:14:57
Speaker 1: Which is a fiction book, of all things. You're welcome.
1:15:01
Speaker 1: Love in the age of serial killers. No judging, guys.
1:15:04
Speaker 1: No judging. Okay. But with that, I will wish you goodnight.
1:15:11
Speaker 1: But before we go, let's just take a moment and
1:15:12
Speaker 1: think to ourselves, what would Dolly do? But I will
1:15:17
Speaker 1: say goodnight to you. Adios. Au revoir. Au revoir, my friends. Bye-bye.