What's Beneath Alcatraz? (Full Documentary) | Dark Crimes

[Music] three desperate convicts prisoners sentenced to alcatraz were all hard asses an escape-proof prison they asked me you know if i wanted a piece of the action and an unsolved mystery and i'd say we're moving uh out toward the west i am just puzzled why these three bodies would never [ __ ] it's going with the current man it's taking line did they make it to freedom or die try these guys had a lot of reason you know to want to make it certainly more than i do five four two one mark one mark one when investigators look for new answers you don't close a case when you don't have a body the journey takes us beneath alcatraz [Music] june 11 1962 alcatraz federal penitentiary in the dead of night three prisoners did the impossible desperate and dangerous they escaped from alcatraz only traces of their bold breakout were found in the frigid san francisco bay the men were never seen or heard from again their fate has remained a mystery did they survive their bid for freedom or did they lose everything to the san francisco bay now a new team of investigators want answers to this unsolved mystery the role of mystery is uh superb this is a superb mystery novel i even the participants don't know from the minute they left the island whether they're in mexico or where they went to or someone killed them or they died i don't know what happened to them i don't know what the aftermath was today the bay area zone scientists and researchers are looking to the san francisco bay for new answers scientists like dr ralph chang an expert in the bay's hydrodynamic properties tom belcher a specialist in underwater investigations the bay models hydraulic engineer dan schaff record-breaking rough water swimmer fred ferrogiaro and alcatraz historian jolene babia oh it's a nasty place to work the currents are just tormenting and the wind is annoying it's a tough place to to work except on very few days a year oh baby and i don't mean to dramatize it but these are these are tough conditions it's not a warm pool with lane lines and walls and people there to help you if you do fail with high-tech tools decades of research and hands-on knowledge they'll determine whether morris and the anglins made it to freedom i asked myself is this possible that as a scientist i would ask the question you say there were three people who attempted escaping from alcatraz their bodies were never fun so i take that stand and take a look at it there are five key questions to answer what were the tie conditions the night of the escape was their homemade raft seaworthy if their raft floundered would they be able to swim the mile and three quarters to their intended destination in angel island if they couldn't reach angel island where would they go and finally if they drowned what happened to their bodies alcatraz the rock located a mile and a quarter from shore in the heart of the san francisco bay in 1934 it opened as the nation's first ultra maximum security prison its purpose to house america's most incorrigible prisoners the 260 single man cells filled with gangsters like al capone doc barker and creepy carpus there were bank robbers kidnappers and cold-blooded killers prisoners sentenced to alcatraz were all hard asses they were prisoners who caused trouble in other prisons federal prisons and they were always prisoners that tried to escape these are men who came there for their behavior which meant they worked their ways up from the reform schools the state prisons the federal prisons and ultimately to alcatraz they came there because of their behavior they were long-term incarcerated men with a ratio of one guard to every three prisoners full body metal detectors four guard towers and minimal communication with the outside world the security at alcatraz was designed to suppress the troublemakers you could never get away from the guards it was very difficult every time there was a major movement there was a count and there were counts all through the night and the counts were checked with the control center and you know you just had this absolute tight security for the prisoners the isolation the repetition and the proximity to the freedom of nearby san francisco made life on the island depressing if not intolerable the only relief was the dream of escape that was the greatest fantasy in the world to keep from going crazy it was a game that we played we plotted escapes all the time i would say that constantly there was always at least 50 or 80 inmates out of the 200 who were scheming ways and avenues of escaping from alcatraz [Music] over the years the escape attempts varied from overpowering guards to sawing through cell bars to constructing a makeshift raft to masquerading as a military officer all prisoners had three main challenges to overcome the constant security to find a way out of the cell house and to get across the san francisco bay the water was always the biggest obstacle cold and filled with extreme currents a number of guys jumped in the water turned around and came back because you know it was too cold immediately they realized they were in trouble it was also rumored to be full of sharks there is the uh the possibility of a shark attack this is a very large great white shark breeding ground to the to the north of us here from marin up to mendocino well we encouraged the belief that there were sharks out there in the bay and indeed there were but they weren't managers although on occasion i've seen a great white out there circling around in the penitentiary's 29 year history there were 14 documented escape attempts none were successful five convicts were presumed drowned seven were shot and killed and two were executed all ended up either back in the island prison or dead [Music] by 1960 there had been 12 escape attempts from alcatraz the most daring breakout was yet to come historian jolene baviac is one of the foremost authorities on alcatraz and its most famous escape by 1960s the plan on alcatraz was to improve every other plan that had happened beforehand i mean this was the 13th escape attempt so they had a lot of knowledge about prior escape attempts that had gone wrong and exactly why they had gone wrong and so the stage was set for four convicts with the help of countless other prisoners to plan and execute an escape unlike any other tom kent one of the prisoners who assisted the team remembers when the plan was hatched this escape got started with alan west that was his idea we all heard it together from him alan west was carrying a paint can he was painting the cells and he said i just found a way out we said what are you talking about way out he's i found an escape route on top of b block alan west was a convict serving 10 years for car theft his job in cell house maintenance cleaning and painting the prison took him to the top of the cell block it was there that he found the exit to freedom an old disused air vent that hadn't been cemented closed well this is the top of b cell block this is the cell block that the three men escaped from back in 1962 and they escaped right out through this vent over my head all they had to do was remove the six bolts pushed the wagon wheel are through the roof and of course they were able to get out west brought in john and clarence anglin two career criminals from the swamplands of florida they'd been transferred to alcatraz after escape attempts from lewisburg and leavenworth federal penitentiaries john was kind of a good old boy aw shucks you know easy going you know congenial drifter not very employable he told us he was a very good swimmer and that was very important he had to be a good swimmer clarence was regarded as the rougher of the two he was much more aggressive kind of a smart ass both of them were loud mouths they seemed to enjoy more breaking the law than abiding by it [Music] the fourth member of the team was a convict named frank morris he was a bank robber and an accomplished escape artist starting as a child he ran away from foster homes then reformed schools training schools chain gangs and prisons by the time he was in alcatraz at age 35 he'd spent less than two years of his adult life as a free man frank was quiet he was intelligent he was very determined to get out [Music] over the months the foursome devised a plan they dig out of their cells through an air vent that led to a utility corridor climb the pipes in the corridor to the top of the cell block escape from the cell house to the roof vent and paddle away from the island in a raft they'd make themselves using stolen navy issue rubberized raincoats all without being detected by the guards and the 24-hour security this was a tremendous fear to be caught on the island in the middle of the night by armed guards trying to escape from alcatraz the odds were that you would probably get shot for months the prisoners chipped away at the concrete surrounding the air vents in their cells using handcrafted tools made from stolen supplies they concealed the openings with painted canvas board grill covers if you walked in the cell you couldn't tell indifference you would have to get down on your hands and knees and look real closely to see that it was there [Music] by may 1962 the anguins and wars were able to get out of their cells and climb the pipes in the utility corridor to the top of the cell block with materials pilfered from the prison industries they began cutting the bolts on the roof vent and crafting the rubber raft life vests and wooden paddles they could only work here up here an hour an hour hour and a half each night this was a long term thing was very slow very patient to do it so the prisoners could leave their cells undetected and work at night on top of the cell block they handcrafted masks which they placed in their beds after lights out at 9 30. dummy heads which the guards counted at night for weeks this is the one of the dummy masks that was used this is actually the most sophisticated of all of them the ear is absolutely almost perfect the head itself was probably made of you know concrete which is just a powder that you mix with water and then you probably have oil paints a very common prison item which forms the skin coloring the support and silence of the other prisoners was essential to the plan anybody who was who was anybody here knew what was going on and probably helped in one way or another i helped i sent drill bits and hollowed out chair legs up to the metal detectors all right let's go june 11 1962 the raft and life vests were complete and the group was ready to go but alan west had waited too long to chip away the last bit of cement around his vent he was crying and weeping and gnashing his teeth i would cry too if i had been in his place was his his escape so his idea around 10 30 at night frank morris and john and clarence anglin pushed off the metal vent cover and climbed out into the cool night air they ran across the roof of the cell house and shimmy to the ground on an exhaust pipe with their raft paddles and life vests they ran over fences through shrubbery and down the steep side of the island at the rocky shore they inflated the raft with an accordion-like instrument called a concertina and pushed off into the san francisco bay at 7 20 the following morning the guards did the stand-up count within minutes the sirens were roaring and so began one of the biggest manhunts in history well the headlines were that big alcatraz escaped i mean the skyways were buzzing with aircraft and there was coast guard and the police the search took investigators over every inch of the san francisco bay the surrounding shoreline and especially angel island don eberle was the fbi special agent in charge of the investigation we had teams of fbi agents going along the shore to ensure that the inmates had not landed over there not only to find out but to alert the people of potential danger investigators quickly uncovered their plan they intended to paddle a mile and three quarters to angel island then crossed the bay again to the mainland in marin county and they intended to get away from the bay area as soon as they could and as fast as they could in the following days evidence began to accumulate first on top of the cell house where they found a life vest a paddle and an unfinished part of a raft then on june 12th the day after the escape a paddle was found floating in the bay near angel island two days later a debris boat found a second crucial piece of evidence a waterproof packet belonging to the anglins it contained dozens of photographs names and addresses contacts to the outside world oscar mcgregor was a deckhand on the boat that recovered the packet it was like they took great pains to keep it watertight and it didn't appear to us that it was wet it was wet it was inside plastic and you could see that it was pictures but and it had he had his name on it one of the anglin brothers name was on there the following day a live vest washed up on cronkite beach two and a half miles outside the golden gate it was identical to the best found in the cell house and finally eleven days after the escape the last piece of evidence was picked up in the bay a life vest found floating 100 yards off the eastern end of alcatraz the strings were still knotted at the back as though the person had been wearing it had slipped out by june 22nd the fbi had collected three life vests a partially finished pontoon two paddles and a packet of photos and addresses after that there was only silence from the bay and the missing prisoners there were no traces along the shoreline no indication that the men had ever reached their destination of course the clint eastwood movie found a flower on angel island that only grows on alcatraz this is a movie myth there was absolutely nothing found on land ever again in 1962 and today investigators asked the same question dead or alive where did these three men go since frank morris and john and clarence anglin disappeared mystery has surrounded their fate some are certain they drown first of all it's my belief that those three men dying some are certain they made it well they made it they made it back and that's all i heard for three four days as god is my witness i heard from different guys with me that wouldn't escape you know that was the common accepted term between all the cause they made it they made it they made it to solve the mystery there are questions to be answered were the tides working for or against the escaping prisoners could their homemade wrath hold up in the bay if their raft sank would they be able to swim to angel island where would they go if they couldn't reach angel island if they drowned what happened to their bodies oh so right now i get the coordinates today with new technology and an even greater understanding of the bay waters researchers scientists and those who navigate its currents are gathered to look for the answers to these questions i am just puzzled why these three bodies were never found and it'll be a sheet of glass and i'll go outside around past point bonita and it'll be 14-foot breaking seas you know you can't imagine how things can change so quickly coast guard petty officer steve malay navigates the bay on as many as 400 search and rescue missions a year and is all too familiar with its dangers the currents can scream through here if the abs right you know if you get at the right time the san francisco bay is one of the world's most complex estuaries fed by two rivers the bottom topography is a mosaic of depths from three foot shallows to a 300 foot channel under the golden gate bridge these uneven depths contribute to the extremely complex and often unpredictable currents that run throughout the bay the bay is wider to the east and then it gets narrow right here at the bridge and then it's wider again past it so it squeezes through and the currents speed up and sometimes it hits the opposing currents it gets really rough right under the bridge uneven currents can also create forces in the water known as eddies or vortexes if you see two velocity effect vectors one goes faster than the other the water tends to rotate like this twice each day the tide cycles in and out of the bay when water flows into the golden gate it's called flooding when it drains back out to the ocean the cycle is known as ebbing the still water periods in between are called slack tide it's during slack water that trained swimmers accustomed to the cold attempt their swims in the bay whenever they do their swims around alcatraz or across the bridge it's always a slack water they don't try to bull ebb you know they don't do that but it wasn't slack water when morris and the anglers pushed out into the san francisco bay the tide was ebbing moving out the golden gate towards the pacific ocean dr ralph chang is a senior hydrologist with the u.s geological survey and one of the foremost authorities on the hydraulic properties of the san francisco bay armed with the historical tide data dr cheng is able to recreate the tides from the night of the escape and run them on his numerical computer model he starts at 10 p.m at least one hour before the prisoners enter the water 10 o'clock water is pretty much like slag water over here you can see a hint of beginning of ebbing cycle hour by hour dr chang looks at the changing tide at 11 o'clock the outgoing tide begins to pick up speed by one o'clock in the morning the current reaches maximum velocity beneath the golden gate bridge a speed of 2.7 knots or 3.1 miles per hour my estimate a current near around the island is something like one and a half knots so there's a fairly strong current for that period of time that they enter the bay with choppy waters turbulent vortexes and an ebbtide running swiftly out to the pacific ocean at speeds up to 2.7 knots the conditions that the prisoners faced were daunting [Music] facing the treacherous waters they would need a stable vessel capable of navigating the deadly currents but all the prisoners had was a homemade raft crafted out of rubberized raincoats stitched together by hand and sealed with rubber adhesive could their vessel have survived the turbulent conditions of the bay the problem here is not the material so much the problem here is the ceiling how good and how minutely did they actually glue the edges because that's where you're going to get leaks i think the raft was inspired by an article in sports illustrated magazine the craft was reported to be 14 feet long and six feet wide but six by 14 feet would be a horrible size in that bay the wave action alone would would make it really unstable and if you're talking 14 feet of glued seams if they're not absolutely perfect then that raft's going down [Music] alcatraz historian jolene badiak and former fbi special agent don eberly are both convinced that the raft quickly floundered in the turbulent water i could visualize that homemade draft going out into the waves bouncing up and down and i could foresee it turning over and dumping occupants into the bay and i think that's probably what accounted for the recovery of the packet and a couple life reserves [Music] given the outbound tide swift currents and the weakness of the raft it's likely the prisoners quickly found themselves in the bay off the northwest end of alcatraz with the water of breathtaking 50 degrees and air temperatures of 49 degrees the men faced a frightening reality they had almost a mile and three quarters between themselves and angel island could they really swim across the outbound tide to reach their destination i don't think you can you could anticipate just how cold this water is without having experienced it before so the current is now pulling toward alcatraz [Music] tom belcher is vice president of underwater resources a marine technology company specializing in commercial diving and rov operations after reviewing the historical tide data tom wants to know how difficult it would be to swim from the treacherous waters near alcatraz to angel island on an ebbtide similar to the night of the escape they had a real drive to get away but not knowing the bay that we would know with the wind the currents and all the problems the cold water to say the least to see just how challenging this feat would be tom will work with fred farojaro a rough water swimmer who's agreed to attempt to swim well normally the swims i do in the bay are at slack tide or with the current today i'm going to be going against a very strong very strong cross current and that's a losing battle that means i'm going to have to aim quite a bit to the east and and let it sweep me back towards the island as it will so that's you know that's a big challenge and it was as it was for them it will be for me on an overcast morning in june just days away from the anniversary of the escape the research vessel the white lightning drops anchor on the north side of alcatraz about 150 yards offshore of where the prisoners originally entered the water tom's crew includes a safety support team technicians and a diver to document the swim with a camera their decision to work in daylight is based solely on safety at five feet nine inches and 140 pounds a weight similar to those of the three inmates fred farojaro has very little body fat while he swims recreationally in the san francisco bay sometimes competing in races his biggest challenge is the cold water today it's 54 degrees four degrees warmer than the night of the escape with an air temperature of 55 degrees fred prepares mentally and physically for the swim ahead because approximately 50 percent of the body's heat is lost through the head fred puts on not one but four swim caps one is quarter inch thick neoprene with water temperatures this cold he wouldn't consider swimming the bay without them that that heat release is much quicker and that the onset of the cooling effect would be that much greater and quicker fred also has other concerns like sharks especially the great whites that live just outside the golden gate absolutely there's been there are documented shark attacks inside the gate and that thought is always way back in your mind as well tom checks the currents the speed of the ebbtide measures 1.7 knots the conditions are almost the same as the night of the escape off the northwest end of alcatraz in an area where the escaping prisoner's raft may have floundered fred ferrojaro begins his swim to angel island across a full outbound tide red swims as hard as he can across the currents a safety boat stays nearby to monitor his condition and help if he's in distress i seem to have about you know an hour to an hour and a half limit and then i start to lose the lose ground to hypothermia and eventually start swimming in circles hypothermia or the lowering of the body's core temperature can be deadly an average adult unaccustomed to the cold has only a 50-50 chance of surviving a 50-yard swim in 50 degree water swimming or even treading water can reduce survival time by as much as 50 percent within one to two hours they may become unconscious first thing i lose is the control of my my baby finger and it spreads to the to the index finger and you begin to get cold in the hands and feet so it's a distal thing and it creeps towards your your core your trunk the team on the safety craft also tracks fred's swim with a handheld gps so they can map his course under the eptide conditions gps stands for global positioning system and the government has put place satellites in the atmosphere that actually locate your position by triangulating on the earth [Music] after 35 minutes and three quarters of a mile fred decides he's had enough cold and exhausted fred climbs out of the san francisco bay it seemed like i could hold my line pretty well the uh the hard part was the chop because i breathe into the chop this way so i was eating away when had all the advantages a bay swimmer could want caps goggles cold water training and a safety boat and after about 10 or 15 minutes or so i started to feel this you know breakdown of my hands first and i imagine i started to slow down and i could feel my feet getting cold and you know slowly my trunk was beginning to chill as well so i thought it was time to get out [Music] a map of the gps coordinates shows the actual course of fred's swim a three-quarter mile journey heading to the west of angel island the current was running then like it did today i don't see how they could really make land at angel island if a seasoned professional like fred was unable to make his way to angel island clearly it was almost an impossible task for morris and the anglins faced with a strong eptide moving towards the golden gate a sinking raft and the impossible challenge of swimming to angel island it's likely the prisoners found themselves cold and exhausted and floating towards the golden gate bridge how long would it have taken them to reach the narrow channel beneath the bridge where they might have been able to swim across the bay swift as currents to reach land i think if there's any chance for them survive to survive the water here they would be smart to follow swimming following the streamline following the flow and leaving the island without fighting against the flow to answer this question ralph chang turns to his computer model a simulation based on recorded field studies and containing 160 000 points of data that refer to variables like water depth velocity and tide cycles [Music] dr chang programs drifting particles that represent the prisoners into his numerical model as he runs the computer animation the colored particles show where the tide would have taken the men and their belongings then i reproduce the tides and currents for that period of time and watch where these partic these particles or objects have gone to dr chang runs the simulated tide cycle with the particles entering the water off of alcatraz at 10 pm 11 pm and finally midnight but in terms of the fate of these objects the most important thing for us to see the first few hours in each simulation the particles representing the prisoners reach the golden gate bridge in roughly two hours two hours in freezing cold water as you can see in about two hours or so they would have been drifted into a region very near the golden gate bridge i think in so far the escaping is concerned the process is done either they were drawn or they had escaped but in two hours it's likely that hypothermia and exhaustion would have set in making it physically impossible for the men to fight the swift currents beneath the golden gate bridge their final chance to reach land in 47 to 50 degree water the average person who is not enumered to the temperature will succumb within 30 minutes usually in 15 minutes you are almost helpless as far as movement of the limbs is concerned and once that happens you sink like a stone before the men would have been able to reach land they would have drowned and drowning is exactly what jolene babiak thinks happened to frank morris and john and clarence anglin for morris that may have been just offshore of alcatraz and i think that in the case of frank morris frankly he was the smallest he had the least body weight he probably had very little swimming experience given that he'd always been in prison and i think he probably succumbed fairly quickly and maybe it was panic the anglin brothers given more swimming experience might have hung on longer but ultimately everything was going out the gate and to the pacific [Music] ocean the three men gave everything to the escape most likely even their lives given the outbound tide and the men's limited survival time in 50 degree water it's likely that frank morris and the england brothers perished in the san francisco bay yet the massive base search found no traces of the men in the water or on the shore only the final question remains with the three men dead in the water what happened to their bodies [Music] so about that much dye how much dyed oil dan schaff the hydraulic engineer of the san francisco bay model set out to answer that question where did the bodies go i had no idea if they'd head straight for the golden gate if they would go past the golden gate housed in a three acre building in sausalito the scale model of the bay has been used for more than 40 years to study the san francisco bay's hydrodynamic properties today dan and his team of engineers have programmed the model's computer to run the historical tides for the days leading up to and following the escape the computer's job is uh quite simply to make sure that the valves follow the ideal curve that we've programmed in and then it attempts to make these yellow and green lines which are the actual water heights on the model uh attempts to make them follow the light blue curve and that would generate a pretty much very accurate tide well this time when you put it in just kind of feather it in let the let it die so just kind of needle itself real slow their plan is to track the path of the prisoners bodies with a process called particle disbursement the prisoners and their belongings are represented by paper particles and colored dye well what we're looking for now is the position of the confetti within the model so that we can give a better have a better understanding of okay what direction the ties were pulling the escapees or their or the debris that they were bringing along with them whether it be a life raft or an oar five four two two one mark one mark one as the tide moves into ebb cycle on the night of june 11th dan pours the paper particles into the water at the northwest end of alcatraz quickly the particles disperse next he tries the experiment with colored dye each time he repeats the test the movement of the particles and the color die is similar they dispersed longitudinally but i'd say the majority of them made their way past the golden gate and i'd say the tail end maybe 10 percent of them stayed between alcatraz and the golden gate a particular interest is the collection of particles that consistently circles around the end of alcatraz caught in an eddy it looks like they'd almost be pushed back on shore on this far side of the island so um that could have been a problem and it might have been turbulent where they were capsized it's hard to say but i could believe that theory um and i could also really believe the theory that they got swept underneath the golden gate because we keep seeing particles and die the majority of it will go right underneath the golden gate both the bay model study and ralph cheng's numerical model show the tide pulling the bodies out to the pacific ocean but the bay model reveals another scenario reinforcing jolene babiak's theory that morris the weakest swimmer drowned close to the island the bay model shows that morris could easily have been caught in the whirlpools that form at the western end of alcatraz trapping him and ending his plan to escape from alcatraz [Music] this is only going to get worse the more ab current we get [Music] using the results from the bay model showing the eddies around alcatraz and the strong westward movement of the current tom belcher and his team head back to alcatraz on the white lightning to further explore the possible paths of frank morris and john and clarence anglin's bodies he has two questions where would the bodies travel if they were floating on the surface and where would they travel if they sank to the bottom using regulation search and rescue dummies that have the same weight and movement as an unconscious person in the water their plan is to use gps to track their course the tide and current conditions are again similar to the night of june 11 1962. [Music] as the boat approaches the northwest shore of alcatraz the team preps the dummy for the first test first with a life vest assuming that the convicts may have initially worn the best they made [Music] working on the theory that the raft floundered early in the journey and that morris drowned close to shore the crew lowers the dummy into the boston whaler and heads to a target location 300 yards off the northwest end of the island yeah i kind of head toward the northwest corner there where that tall tower [Music] on tom's signal they release the dummy even with a westerly wind blowing into the bay the dummy is immediately pulled out by the current and head straight towards the golden gate if the men unconscious from hypothermia slipped out of their life vests their bodies would have been completely at the bay's mercy taking in water and eventually sinking to the bottom tom's next test is to see the effect of the bottom currents on the dummy without the light vest the team removes the vest and heads out again in the boston whaler testing the theory that morse's body may have gone down almost immediately they again released the dummy into the water off the northwest shore of the island okay anytime this time they let it sink to the bottom to a depth of 100 feet the greater the depth the more the water pressure compresses the body cavity the chances of the body rising to the surface diminish the team on the whaler has 400 feet of line attached to the dummy so they can stay with it but not lose it in the 100 feet of water there is plenty of slack line so the dummy can rest freely on the bottom without being dragged by the boat every three minutes they record as gps coordinates uh go ahead and give me another reading if you can from where you are now three seven four nine point nine one degrees north seems to be moving on the bottom one two two two five point five five degrees west you're able to uh uh a good angle on that so that you're not holding back the dummy it's going with the current man it's taking line pretty easy not to not to be dragging the dummy then roger what we have is the uh the line going down to the dummy is kept mostly slack but it's giving us the direction that the dummy is being pulled and they're powering the boat to follow that to keep slack in that line but the there's a pretty good force on the dummy that's actually moving on the bottom along the bottom right now back into the direction toward alcatraz how deep 95 98. what's your coordinates now 3749.91 degrees north for an hour they track the dummy at first it seems that it's trapped by the currents near the island well there's a deep channel that goes to this side the north uh west of alcatraz and it appears to ride up a little bit and hit an eddy causing a circular counter clockwise rotational direction but then the body begins moving west the gps coordinates indicate that the tide is slowly dragging the dummy towards the golden gate bridge the second 60 feet so it's cooking long pretty good so we appear to be moving and i'd say we're moving up toward the west i'll buy that the results of tom belcher's test are clear whether floating on the surface or dragged along the bottom of the bay the tide was taking the bodies on a westward journey just as it probably took the bodies of frank morris and john and clarence anglin in june of 1962 after they escaped from alcatraz [Music] on june 11 1962 frank morris and john and clarence anglin did the impossible they escaped from alcatraz but their journey into the bay was hopeless they entered swift currents heading straight out to the pacific ocean evidence suggests their homemade raft quickly floundered dumping the men and their gear into the bay morris the weakest swimmer was probably swept west towards the eddies that form at the tip of alcatraz where he quickly drowned the anglin brothers may have been able to swim further into the bay but any efforts to reach angel island would have quickly sapped their strength within two hours they would have been overcome by the cold turbulent water if you gulp in water you're in the first stages of drowning and then the cold seeps in if you've got a heavy coat on if you've got your shoes on you begin to lose traction and you begin to go under the men's bodies whether floating on the surface in their vests or tumbling along the bottom of the bay were headed out the golden gate ultimately eaten by marine life forever lost to the pacific ocean the manhunt for frank morris and john and clarence anglin went on for years even today because no bodies were ever found the case is still open with the u.s marshal's office you don't close a case when you don't have a body now after four decades thanks to high-tech tools and a close-up look at the bay itself the mystery may be solved on june 11 1962 frank morris and john and clarence anglin challenged the san francisco bay and lost still despite the evidence and the scientific research the power of the myth is legendary people still want to believe it's possible to beat the rock and beat the bay well it's kind of like rooting for the underdog and here you have the supreme underdog convict on an island who doesn't have any chance of escaping and you want him to win against odds that are completely against him these guys had a lot of reason you know to want to make it certainly more than i do you know i got up in a warm bed this morning with my family around me these guys were you know living in a cell so i'm sure they're very passionate about making it they disappeared off the face of the earth which was the best proof to us that they had gone away it was a brilliant plan executed by bold and determined men looking for a route to freedom in the end we'll never know the real drama the men faced the truth lies beneath alcatraz [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 50min 1sec (3001 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020