ALCATRAZ was as soon as an “escape-proof” jail in San Francisco Bay, house to a number of the world’s most infamous criminals.
Through the years many tried to flee from the maximum-security jail dubbed Satan’s island-unsuccessfully.
This weekend marks the seventy fifth anniversary of the Battle of Alcatraz, a failed escape try in 1946, the place two officers and three inmates have been killed.
Alcatraz or The Rock is positioned 1.25 miles off the coast of San Francisco, California and was initially used as a fort earlier than changing into a jail in August 1934.
It was thought-about America’s strongest jail because of its location, surrounded by chilly waters and robust currents.
It’s believed the jail remains to be “haunted” by Al Capone who notoriously stated: “It appears to be like like Alcatraz has acquired me licked.”
The gangster who was convicted by tax evasion served 5 years in Alcatraz, from 1934 to 1939.
Different well-known prisoners embody Alvin ‘Creepy’ Karpis, who served 26 years and George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly who served 17 years, each for kidnapping.
Additionally, Robert ‘Birdman’ Stroud who served 17 years for homicide and James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, Jr who was convicted for armed theft.
However the jail’s most well-known prisoners are the three who’re believed to be the one ones who might need escaped.
The FBI reopened a chilly case of three prisoners who’re stated to have managed to flee in 1962.
Brothers John, 32, and Clarence Anglin, 33, and their confederate Frank Morris are believed to have died after tunnelling out of their cells utilizing spoons and vanishing into the tough waters.
The bank-robbing brothers had a historical past of jail breakouts, having beforehand escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary whereas serving a 10-year sentence.
The siblings who have been inseparable and have been identified to be expert swimmers, have been transferred to the Alcatraz to stop additional escapes.
However their escape in June 1962 is regarded as the one profitable one within the jail’s historical past.
After utilizing spoons to dig out holes for months, they positioned papier-mache heads of their bunks to trick guards into considering they have been asleep on the evening of their escape.
However now a brand new photograph seems to point out two brothers, thought to have drowned in 1962 throughout essentially the most infamous breakout try from Alcatraz, alive and effectively in Brazil in 1975.
And kinfolk of John and Clarence Anglin consider the boys might nonetheless be alive at the moment.
Regardless of a ten-day search operation over the realm and a 17-year investigation, their our bodies have been by no means discovered.
The FBI concluded the inmates more than likely both drowned within the fierce, chilly currents of San Francisco Bay or died of hypothermia and closed the file in December 1979.
A 2015 historical past channel documentary explored additional circumstantial proof to see if the three had actually survived.
Ken, 54, and David Widner, 48, of Georgia, declare in a documentary simply screened within the US that their uncles have been actually picked up in a ship by a prison affiliate.
He then whisked them to freedom in South America.
In addittion a thriller letter that was revealed in 2018, claimed to be written by one of many escapees, John Anglin, who stated “all of us made it.”
The letter, despatched to a San Francisco Police Division in 2013 reads: “My identify is John Anglin.”
“I escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris.
“I am 83 years outdated and in unhealthy form. I’ve most cancers… Sure all of us made it that evening however barely.”
“That is no joke. In case you announce on TV that I will be promised to first go to jail for not more than a 12 months and get medical consideration, I’ll write again to let precisely the place I’m.”
The FBI lab analysed the letter for DNA and fingerprints however their outcomes have been inconclusive.