The 1979 Clint Eastwood film Escape from Alcatraz was a true story, to a point. In 1962, three inmates, Frank Lee Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin, escaped after spending more than a year cutting through the concrete of their cells with homemade power tools, setting up a workshop in an empty space above them, building an inflatable raft, and using homemade dummies to cover their absence. A fourth prisoner, Allen West, was part of the plan but did not make it out of his cell in time to join the escape.
It was an audacious plan, and could have failed in many places. But Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was mainly considered inescapable because of its location in San Francisco Bay, with its unceasing winds, strong currents, cold temperature, and rocky shores. A manhunt was launched as soon as the escape was discovered. Some of the escapees' equipment and possessions were found, yet no bodies were ever recovered. The prison was shut down a year later, and the FBI kept the case open until 1979, when the three men were finally declared dead. But were they? A 2018 letter supposedly from John Anglin gives a few scant details, and the US Marshals Service has the case still open. Read the real story of the 1962 escape from Acatraz at BBC Culture. -via Damn Interesting
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