![]() That’s also when Widner became determined to dig into the case further. In 2012, the case received renewed attention as media outlets marked the 50th anniversary of the Anglins’ and Morris’s escape. “It was always something that was talked about in family reunions.” ![]() “It’s been a part of my life ever since I can remember,” he tells The Independent. He and his brother David have done a number of media interviews over the years, sharing what they believe to be proof that their relatives made it out of California safely.Īs a child, Widner, whose mother Marie Anglin Widner was John and Clarence’s sister, was used to hearing the tale of his uncle’s escape from Alcatraz. Ken Widner, a nephew of John and Clarence Anglin, is convinced his uncles survived the escape and made it off the island. The US Marshals took over the probe and have kept it open since. ![]() In 1979, the FBI closed its clase, admitting that its investigation, “which lasted for nearly two decades, was unable to determine whether the three men successfully escaped or died in the attempt”. Over the years, alleged evidence of the men’s survival has surfaced, prompting debates among investigators, experts, and the Anglins’ relatives. Whether the men survived is a mystery the FBI has not been able to solve.īodies were never found. “Then, they shimmied down the bakery smoke stack at the rear of the cell house, climbed over the fence, and snuck to the northeast shore of the island and launched their raft,” per the FBI’s account. On the night of their escape, the men are believed to have left their cells, collected their supplies, and climbed their way up to the roof. They made a fake bolt using soap to conceal their preparations. ![]() “Using a network of pipes,” the men “climbed up and eventually pried open the ventilator” at the top of the building. (The men are believed to have found instructions on how to assemble the makeshift life preservers and life raft in magazines.) They also manufactured a periscope-like tool to keep watch on the guards while they worked, wooden paddles, and a tool to inflate the raft. These included, according to the bureau, homemade life preservers and a life raft made from 50 raincoats. Then, they used an unguarded utility corridor as a “secret workshop” where they assembled the necessary tools for their escape. So, how did the Anglin brothers and Morris make it out? According to the FBI, they loosened air vents in their cells, creating enough space to allow them to get out. In the BOP’s own words, it was “designed to be a prison system’s prison”, where prisoners learned how to earn “privileges” (such as “working, corresponding with and having visits from family members, access to the prison library, and recreational activities”) before they could be sent to serve the rest of their sentences elsewhere. ![]() The prison, located on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, was intended as a tough-on-crime show of force - per the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), “to show the law-abiding public that the federal government was serious about stopping the rampant crime of the 1920s and 1930s”.Īlcatraz was meant for “prisoners who refused to conform to the rules and regulations at other Federal institutions, who were considered violent and dangerous, or who were considered escape risks”. When Alcatraz opened in 1934, it was conceived of as a “a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary”. ![]()
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