# The Alcatraz Escape PT 1

An episode of [Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1455668750), 17 Jun 2026, 57 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/976825e3-37d8-4387-a0cd-b24b002d91e5/f688f1dd-9338-46a8-b7bf-b4650133669b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3df02c7c-f75a-4bea-abe8-b24b002d91ff

On today’s episode, Kate and Paul travel to 1962 San Francisco Bay and begin their look at the infamous escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. The pair trace the backgrounds of the men behind the plot and examine how one of the most audacious prison breaks in American history began to take shape. Join our Patreon! patreon.com/kateandpaul Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4buCoMc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
[0:05] Speaker 2: I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
[0:08] Speaker 2: writing about true crime.
[0:09] Speaker 3: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
[0:12] Speaker 3: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
[0:16] Speaker 2: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
[0:19] Speaker 2: compelling true crimes.
[0:21] Speaker 3: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
[0:24] Speaker 3: new insights to old mysteries.
[0:26] Speaker 2: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
[0:31] Speaker 2: cases through a twenty first century lens.
[0:34] Speaker 4: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
[0:38] Speaker 2: This is buried Bones.
[1:01] Speaker 4: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
[1:03] Speaker 1: I'm doing well.
[1:04] Speaker 2: We are getting into a really big, big, big case
[1:07] Speaker 2: that has about two thousand FBI files in it, which
[1:11] Speaker 2: is a big case, a lot of reviewing. And you
[1:14] Speaker 2: said you're pretty good at skimming through those sorts of files.
[1:17] Speaker 1: So is that just practice or do you have method?
[1:20] Speaker 2: Because I have thousands of things in research I have
[1:23] Speaker 2: to skim through, So give me some tips.
[1:25] Speaker 3: Well, you know this is understanding how case files are
[1:29] Speaker 3: typically constructed. You know, from the beginning of the case,
[1:32] Speaker 3: where you have the initial report coming in and that's
[1:34] Speaker 3: typically taken by patrol, and depending on how old the case,
[1:39] Speaker 3: often those were handwritten reports, and then investigations gets pulled
[1:45] Speaker 3: in that night, and now you have the investigator supplements,
[1:48] Speaker 3: you have crime scene, you have autopsy, you have you know,
[1:51] Speaker 3: and many agencies do a poor job at actually organizing
[1:55] Speaker 3: their documents. However, law enforcement, even though it's not stand
[2:00] Speaker 3: you know, fourteen thousand different agencies, you know, they use
[2:04] Speaker 3: different forms, but generally forms for property records, you know, property.
[2:09] Speaker 4: Lists, forms related to.
[2:14] Speaker 3: Electronic communications or back in the day teletype, you know,
[2:18] Speaker 3: those are very easy to see. And usually when I'm
[2:22] Speaker 3: trying to get a sense for the case, I don't
[2:25] Speaker 3: have to pay attention to those, you know, and so
[2:28] Speaker 3: I'm very good at being able to literally now digitally
[2:31] Speaker 3: scroll through the documents and pause, see what it is.
[2:37] Speaker 3: And if it's my first introduction to the case. What
[2:42] Speaker 3: I'm looking for is I'm looking for crime scenes. I'm
[2:45] Speaker 3: looking for crime scene photos, autopsy autopsy photos, and forensic
[2:48] Speaker 3: lab reports. So these handwritten reports from patrol investigative supplements,
[2:54] Speaker 3: which usually are going to take up the bulk of
[2:57] Speaker 3: the case file. I don't pay attention to those until
[3:00] Speaker 3: I get an understanding of what's going on in the case.
[3:03] Speaker 2: Well, and you know what's difficult being a journalist is
[3:06] Speaker 2: we have to read all of it. There's no skipping
[3:08] Speaker 2: over anything because you know, you have such a specific job,
[3:11] Speaker 2: but we need context for everything. And then it is
[3:14] Speaker 2: onto the property rights from thirty or forty years ago
[3:18] Speaker 2: of the property. I mean, you know, there's so much
[3:20] Speaker 2: stuff that you have to deal with because we're trying
[3:22] Speaker 2: to put together this overall picture.
[3:25] Speaker 3: Sure, and I would say, at least with the FBI,
[3:31] Speaker 3: I don't recall ever seeing an FBI report that was
[3:35] Speaker 3: handwritten so far as far as I can remember, it
[3:39] Speaker 3: was all either typed or you know, computer based, and
[3:43] Speaker 3: that makes it much more amenable to you know, get
[3:47] Speaker 3: it scanned if you have paper documents, but if it's
[3:49] Speaker 3: already digital using something like Adobe Acrobat and ocring, you know,
[3:54] Speaker 3: and now doing keyword searching. And so instead of going
[3:58] Speaker 3: from page one through page two thousand in an order,
[4:01] Speaker 3: you can say, Okay, I want to look for all
[4:03] Speaker 3: reports related to X and then focus in on that.
[4:07] Speaker 3: So that's my recommendation on how to approach it.
[4:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult, and I will say
[4:12] Speaker 2: I'm grateful that I'm not the one who had to
[4:14] Speaker 2: read all to that these pages, but our researcher, Alison did.
[4:18] Speaker 2: She also had some information from an author named Ken
[4:22] Speaker 2: Widener and Mike Lynch.
[4:24] Speaker 1: So these guys wrote a great book.
[4:26] Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell you the title because I
[4:27] Speaker 2: don't want to spoil it, but if anybody wants to
[4:29] Speaker 2: look it up, you can always look up the book.
[4:31] Speaker 2: You'll you'll get what it's about in a little bit. Okay,
[4:33] Speaker 2: So we are traveling back to the nineteen sixties and
[4:37] Speaker 2: era I am not familiar with. You were barely in
[4:41] Speaker 2: right in the sixties.
[4:42] Speaker 4: I was born in sixty eight.
[4:44] Speaker 1: Okay, there you go. So you're from the sixties.
[4:47] Speaker 4: That well kind of.
[4:50] Speaker 1: Okay, let's go ahead and set the scene.
[4:54] Speaker 2: All right, San Francisco Bay sounds great to me, Oh,
[5:00] Speaker 2: nineteen sixty San Francisco Bay. What does not seem nice
[5:04] Speaker 2: about San Francisco is our location, which is Alcatraz. Okay,
[5:10] Speaker 2: do you do you have an idea of what we're
[5:12] Speaker 2: going to be talking about today.
[5:13] Speaker 3: Well, the only thing that's, you know, popping into my
[5:15] Speaker 3: head right now is the famous escape from Alcatraz. But
[5:20] Speaker 3: there could be other cases on the island or in
[5:23] Speaker 3: the prison for sure, No, there's not.
[5:25] Speaker 2: This is the case I talk about. Yes, there probably are,
[5:29] Speaker 2: but for us, it's just this case. So it is
[5:33] Speaker 2: the great escape from Alcatraz. And I've never looked at
[5:36] Speaker 2: this case before. I have never cared about prison escapes,
[5:40] Speaker 2: but I have definitely had people ask about this case.
[5:42] Speaker 2: And then when I looked at it and read a
[5:44] Speaker 2: little bit about it, and I looked at a couple
[5:46] Speaker 2: of the FBI reports, then I thought.
[5:50] Speaker 1: Okay, this might be a good case for Paul.
[5:52] Speaker 2: And I came really close to doing something I've never
[5:55] Speaker 2: done before, which is send you a materials equipment list
[6:01] Speaker 2: of how this goes down. Like literally they're like, we
[6:04] Speaker 2: went to home depot and got all this stuff to
[6:06] Speaker 2: break out of Alcatraz. List because it is overwhelming. So
[6:11] Speaker 2: I don't quite know what we're going to solve with this.
[6:14] Speaker 2: And I never say that it is to me a
[6:17] Speaker 2: case about you know, diligence. It is a mystery, and
[6:22] Speaker 2: it certainly is just this sort of marveling at criminals,
[6:26] Speaker 2: which is I also never do. But what happens in
[6:29] Speaker 2: this case to me is really remarkable. So I'm looking
[6:32] Speaker 2: to you to kind of give me some context. I've
[6:35] Speaker 2: never worked, obviously in a penitatuary. You'd never worked in
[6:38] Speaker 2: a penitentiary either, right, No.
[6:40] Speaker 3: No, So you know, the Sheriff's office, of course ran
[6:43] Speaker 3: the county jail, and I would go in there on
[6:46] Speaker 3: a fairly regular basis, either because somebody needed to have
[6:50] Speaker 3: you know, samples collected from them while they're being booked,
[6:53] Speaker 3: or we would have deaths that occurred in the jail,
[6:56] Speaker 3: and then I would have to go document those deaths
[6:59] Speaker 3: and the set well or wherever they occurred, and then
[7:01] Speaker 3: go to the autopsy of whether it be suicide and
[7:04] Speaker 3: od or also involved incident inside the jail.
[7:08] Speaker 1: But no jail breaks that you know in your tenure.
[7:12] Speaker 3: We definitely had attempts. Now, we had multiple jails. We
[7:16] Speaker 3: had one that is downtown Martinez, California, which which is
[7:19] Speaker 3: East Bay, and that one is a very secure setting
[7:23] Speaker 3: and it's right there by the courts, you know, the
[7:26] Speaker 3: high if you want to call them high value inmates
[7:30] Speaker 3: are are kept there and they're definitely locked up very
[7:34] Speaker 3: good and if they when they go to court, they're
[7:37] Speaker 3: escorted in shackles et cetera. But then we have a
[7:41] Speaker 3: couple of other jails, one in the West End, one
[7:43] Speaker 3: out there by Mount Diablo, at least it used to
[7:46] Speaker 3: be there, and these were lower security jails. And I
[7:50] Speaker 3: do know at least the one out by Mount Diablo,
[7:53] Speaker 3: they have had escapes because basically the you know, the
[7:57] Speaker 3: inmates could just literally almost walk away, you know. So
[8:02] Speaker 3: and I think they enhanced the security of that over time,
[8:04] Speaker 3: but I really didn't spend much time at that facility
[8:06] Speaker 3: at all.
[8:07] Speaker 1: Well, I hope they've enhanced it over time. That would
[8:10] Speaker 1: be concerning if they didn't.
[8:12] Speaker 3: Well this, you know, these are your you know, kind
[8:15] Speaker 3: of your very low risk inmates, you know, where if
[8:20] Speaker 3: they were to walk away from the jail, they're looking
[8:23] Speaker 3: at a you know, greater penalties than what they're in
[8:27] Speaker 3: jail for to begin with. Versus if you're dealing with
[8:30] Speaker 3: somebody who's got a murder charge or got a sexual
[8:32] Speaker 3: assault charge, sometimes it's motivating to try to get out
[8:36] Speaker 3: of the jail or the prison, you know, because they
[8:41] Speaker 3: could be potentially looking at several decades to their entire
[8:44] Speaker 3: life in custody.
[8:46] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[8:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, to set the scene here, you know, I'm
[8:49] Speaker 2: going to show you some photos in a minute. You know,
[8:52] Speaker 2: Alcatraz was known as the inescapable prison, the most secure
[8:57] Speaker 2: prison in the country.
[8:59] Speaker 1: It's in the of San Francisco Bay.
[9:02] Speaker 2: And so the idea that this was the premiere place
[9:06] Speaker 2: to send dangerous prisoners and they would never escape in
[9:10] Speaker 2: a time where there were quite a few prison escapes,
[9:13] Speaker 2: then that makes the story even more significant. So Alcatraz
[9:17] Speaker 2: is located on a twelve acre island in the San
[9:20] Speaker 2: Francisco Bay, and of course it houses America's most notorious criminals.
[9:25] Speaker 2: And Alcatraz is more focused on punishment than on reform.
[9:30] Speaker 2: So the phrase I've heard it is called soft torture.
[9:33] Speaker 2: Where they would allow the inmates to look at the
[9:37] Speaker 2: bustling city of San Francisco from the dining room, so
[9:40] Speaker 2: they're eating and looking out and seeing San Francisco and
[9:45] Speaker 2: sort of teasing them and of course a reminder that
[9:47] Speaker 2: you're never going to survive this, so you're staying in prison.
[9:50] Speaker 2: If you try to escape, you're not going to survive.
[9:53] Speaker 2: So as a reminder, I want you to open up
[9:55] Speaker 2: your photo packet, and we've got one in two photos
[10:00] Speaker 2: one and two.
[10:01] Speaker 3: Okay, So the first photo is an aerial photograph of Alcatraz,
[10:06] Speaker 3: and this I believe is looking at Alcatraz from the
[10:12] Speaker 3: from the.
[10:12] Speaker 4: East to west.
[10:14] Speaker 3: It doesn't show the surrounding terrain, so it's hard for me.
[10:19] Speaker 3: I'm just kind of going off of generally my memory
[10:22] Speaker 3: of the island and the prison structure itself, and it's
[10:28] Speaker 3: it's a very I would say it's it's a long island,
[10:31] Speaker 3: but very narrow. And what stands out when you start
[10:35] Speaker 3: evaluating the escape aspect is that the at least on
[10:41] Speaker 3: this side of the island, it's basically cliffs. They're not
[10:45] Speaker 3: super tall cliffs, but these would not be easy ledges
[10:51] Speaker 3: to get down into the water.
[10:53] Speaker 1: Did you see photo number two? Is that what you're
[10:55] Speaker 1: referring to as photo number two?
[10:57] Speaker 4: Nope, that was photo number one. So photo number.
[10:59] Speaker 1: Two shows your cliffs.
[11:02] Speaker 3: Shows shows the cliffs shows you know, the chain link
[11:06] Speaker 3: fence with barbed wire, you know, slanted towards the prison itself,
[11:10] Speaker 3: making it very very hard to try to get up
[11:13] Speaker 3: over that where those cliffs are. But then closer to
[11:17] Speaker 3: the photographer in this you see basically what appears to
[11:21] Speaker 3: be just a low lying cement wall, which at the
[11:26] Speaker 3: time of this photo some of it is broken off,
[11:31] Speaker 3: and this is this would be a location where somebody
[11:33] Speaker 3: could easily get over that wall, But it also appears
[11:36] Speaker 3: that it's quite steep. You know, once you get over
[11:39] Speaker 3: that wall, you know whether or not somebody could literally
[11:42] Speaker 3: climb down.
[11:43] Speaker 4: I don't know. I can't see what the ledge looks
[11:45] Speaker 4: like right there.
[11:47] Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you about the day. So this
[11:49] Speaker 2: is an infamous day, June twelfth, nineteen sixty two. It's
[11:53] Speaker 2: early in the morning, and the marine layer still hangs
[11:58] Speaker 2: in the air and it makes it very chilly. And
[12:02] Speaker 2: the temperature of the water surrounding the island prison is
[12:07] Speaker 2: only about fifty degrees. So if you fall in, this
[12:11] Speaker 2: is the estimate. You tell me if this is right,
[12:12] Speaker 2: If you fell in in fifty degree water, hypothermia could
[12:16] Speaker 2: set in in about thirty minutes.
[12:17] Speaker 1: Does that sound right?
[12:19] Speaker 4: That sounds right to mean?
[12:21] Speaker 1: Tell me the stages of hypothermia.
[12:24] Speaker 2: If I were to fall into fifty degree water and
[12:27] Speaker 2: it just I'm not going to be able to get
[12:29] Speaker 2: out for some reason, what would I.
[12:31] Speaker 1: Feel amount with that time period passing?
[12:34] Speaker 4: Well, this is.
[12:35] Speaker 3: You know, sort of what I experience here in Colorado
[12:38] Speaker 3: with this raynod syndrome you know that I have for
[12:41] Speaker 3: my peripheral blood circular.
[12:43] Speaker 4: Yeah, so basically, you know the extremities.
[12:46] Speaker 3: You know your your body is going to prioritize preserving
[12:51] Speaker 3: your brain, your organs to sustain life, and so circulation
[12:56] Speaker 3: is sort of shunted off to the extremities in this
[12:58] Speaker 3: extreme cold as your body temperature starts to lower to
[13:03] Speaker 3: try to keep the blood and the temperature in your core.
[13:08] Speaker 3: And so as time goes on, your extremities get very cold,
[13:12] Speaker 3: you start losing the ability to use them effectively. Of course,
[13:19] Speaker 3: your body is going to try to warm itself. You're
[13:22] Speaker 3: you're initially going to start the shaking, but at a
[13:25] Speaker 3: certain point the hypothermia is going to affect your ability
[13:29] Speaker 3: to think properly. And at once, you know, you start
[13:35] Speaker 3: losing your extremities and you're trying to swim, especially if
[13:39] Speaker 3: you've got clothing on. Now that clothing is saturated, you
[13:43] Speaker 3: know you're weighing down. At some point you're probably going
[13:47] Speaker 3: to go under and drown.
[13:49] Speaker 2: And there is a point right where would they say
[13:51] Speaker 2: what your lizard brain kicks in and says take off
[13:54] Speaker 2: all your clothing because it'll make you feel warmer. The
[13:57] Speaker 2: clothing is what's making you cold.
[13:58] Speaker 1: Is that true that you know?
[14:00] Speaker 3: I don't think i've heard that, you know, I know,
[14:05] Speaker 3: you know, I was a lifeguard, and I was just
[14:07] Speaker 3: you know, just an air force based pool, not an
[14:09] Speaker 3: ocean lifeguard.
[14:10] Speaker 4: But the use of clothing.
[14:12] Speaker 3: You can use your clothing as inflatables, like your pair
[14:15] Speaker 3: of pants. You know, you can possibly make those into
[14:18] Speaker 3: something that you can at least try to get air
[14:20] Speaker 3: in to help you stay afloat. But once the clothing
[14:23] Speaker 3: is saturated, you know, it's really as far as I'm concerned,
[14:25] Speaker 3: I don't see where it's going to be trapping any
[14:27] Speaker 3: warmth whatsoever. I'd rather personally, I would think I could
[14:33] Speaker 3: swim more effectively with not having this heavy saturated clothing on.
[14:39] Speaker 4: You know.
[14:39] Speaker 3: But I was a competitive swimmer, so that's my comfort,
[14:43] Speaker 3: you know, I would just go, Nope, I don't want
[14:45] Speaker 3: the shirt and these pants and these shoes getting in
[14:47] Speaker 3: my way of being able to swim as effectively as I.
[14:50] Speaker 4: Know I can.
[14:54] Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's move forward. Let's go inside the prison.
[14:58] Speaker 2: So it is seven fifteen and the prison guards are
[15:02] Speaker 2: patrolling cell Block B. There is a prisoner in Sell
[15:08] Speaker 2: one thirty eight and the guard looks and he says,
[15:12] Speaker 2: this guy looks stiff, like dead. The sheets are pulled
[15:17] Speaker 2: up high, and there's a little bit of hair exposed
[15:20] Speaker 2: on the prisoner.
[15:21] Speaker 1: The guard prods the body through the bars.
[15:24] Speaker 2: And the head falls to the floor and cracks, and
[15:27] Speaker 2: it is it is a problem.
[15:29] Speaker 1: It is in this case.
[15:31] Speaker 2: It turns out to be paper machet head and it
[15:35] Speaker 2: is painted to appear fleshy, and the hair on the
[15:39] Speaker 2: head is human hair that we know this is a
[15:42] Speaker 2: prison break. There is a prison barber shop, and so
[15:46] Speaker 2: the thought is that the hair was taken from here.
[15:48] Speaker 2: Now get ready, hold on to your socks.
[15:50] Speaker 1: Pull there's your prisoner. In one thirty eight, Yeah.
[15:53] Speaker 4: Three and four.
[15:53] Speaker 3: So photo three is looking, you know, through the bars
[15:57] Speaker 3: into the cell. The inmate is eyeing with his head
[16:00] Speaker 3: closest to the bars and is somewhat obscured by the pillow,
[16:04] Speaker 3: but I can see the hair and then completely covered
[16:08] Speaker 3: up with a blanket and sheets, shoes side by side
[16:13] Speaker 3: on the floor next to the bed. And then in
[16:16] Speaker 3: you know, page four, this is now a photo from
[16:20] Speaker 3: inside the cell looking at this body that's on the bed,
[16:24] Speaker 3: and I think it's probably been You said that the
[16:26] Speaker 3: head fell off. Well, the head has been placed back there,
[16:29] Speaker 3: probably to document how the the guard saw things. And
[16:36] Speaker 3: it's showing, you know, the right side of this paper
[16:41] Speaker 3: mache face. It has an eyebrow, it has a right
[16:45] Speaker 3: eye that I can see nose with the hair, you know,
[16:49] Speaker 3: in a black and white photo. Just at a glance,
[16:54] Speaker 3: you know it's reasonably real looking. Though you know, as
[16:58] Speaker 3: soon as you start really looking at you this doesn't
[17:00] Speaker 3: quite look right.
[17:01] Speaker 2: M but you could see if you're if you're a
[17:05] Speaker 2: guard in a hurry and you're flipping through, you see
[17:07] Speaker 2: what you would normally see. I think this is I've
[17:11] Speaker 2: certainly seen plenty of like the dummies in the movies,
[17:13] Speaker 2: dummies being stuck in beds, and they look awful.
[17:17] Speaker 1: But this seems well crafted, I guess I would say.
[17:20] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[17:20] Speaker 3: Well, and obviously the you know, the reason to do
[17:24] Speaker 3: this is with the hope that the guards just see
[17:28] Speaker 3: that the inmate is in bed and pass the cell
[17:31] Speaker 3: and give more time to the escapees.
[17:34] Speaker 1: Yep. Okay.
[17:35] Speaker 2: So now the guard goes inside and he pushes aside
[17:41] Speaker 2: a suitcase in the corner of the cell. After he
[17:43] Speaker 2: figures out this is not a real person, and he
[17:46] Speaker 2: finds a hole. It is eight inches high and sixteen
[17:50] Speaker 2: inches wide and it is carved around the ventilation. Great,
[17:56] Speaker 2: and he says, prison break. It sounds the alarm and
[17:59] Speaker 2: the guard immediately start to do bed checks and they
[18:02] Speaker 2: find two more missing prisoners, a total of three. Okay,
[18:07] Speaker 2: So the prison goes into lockdown and there is a
[18:10] Speaker 2: warden named Olin Blackwell. He alerts the FBI in San
[18:14] Speaker 2: Francisco that there's been a prison break.
[18:16] Speaker 1: Why FBI, this was a federal prison, right I believe?
[18:21] Speaker 1: So okay, there you go. That answers that question. Yes,
[18:24] Speaker 1: So would there be anybody else who would participate in this?
[18:27] Speaker 1: Or is the FBI enough? Would they pull in any
[18:31] Speaker 1: local law enforcement or anything like that for help?
[18:33] Speaker 4: No, for sure. You know.
[18:34] Speaker 3: So you know within the Bay, you think about where
[18:38] Speaker 3: Alcatraz is located at. It's just north of San Francisco,
[18:43] Speaker 3: the PD, but also San Francisco County, and so that
[18:46] Speaker 3: county has a coastline that of course there's they have
[18:50] Speaker 3: some jurisdiction and you know, have some marine patrol responsibilities.
[18:57] Speaker 3: North of there is Marin County. The same thing. You know,
[19:00] Speaker 3: the sheriff's office probably has some marine patrol and across
[19:04] Speaker 3: the bay. You know, Contra Costa County mild jurisdiction. We
[19:07] Speaker 3: actually have the longest coastline in the bay, and so
[19:11] Speaker 3: we have a fairly robust marine patrol. And then you
[19:14] Speaker 3: have Coast Guard. You know, when you start talking, you
[19:17] Speaker 3: know federal assets. You know, the FBI would probably be
[19:20] Speaker 3: relying on Coast Guard. They would be alerted. And there's
[19:25] Speaker 3: other military presence.
[19:26] Speaker 4: Such as Navy.
[19:27] Speaker 3: Especially at that time there was what was called the
[19:30] Speaker 3: Navy Net Center up there in Marin County. There may
[19:33] Speaker 3: be some assets there that you'd want to take advantage of.
[19:36] Speaker 2: Well, to begin with, the FBI starts to work with
[19:39] Speaker 2: the Coastguard, as you said, and the Bureau of Prison authorities,
[19:42] Speaker 2: and they start searching for these three people. And I'll
[19:45] Speaker 2: tell you more about these guys as we get, you know,
[19:47] Speaker 2: into it. So there are a dozen guards that search
[19:52] Speaker 2: the cave parked shore of the island. So that means
[19:58] Speaker 2: there are what little caves where people can hide in.
[20:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, I would imagine that those you know, this is
[20:04] Speaker 3: from wave and current action.
[20:06] Speaker 4: Over time.
[20:07] Speaker 3: You see this a lot up and down the California
[20:09] Speaker 3: coast line where you have different parts of the rock
[20:12] Speaker 3: that have been kind of shoveled away by the wave
[20:15] Speaker 3: action and so now there is some maybe some Heidi
[20:18] Speaker 3: holes that the escapees could have used at one point
[20:22] Speaker 3: depending on the tide, you know, and the tide can change,
[20:27] Speaker 3: the height of the tide can change quite dramatically in
[20:29] Speaker 3: the bay, you know, by you know, a.
[20:31] Speaker 4: Few feet at least.
[20:32] Speaker 3: I literally just got done with an investigation to where
[20:36] Speaker 3: I was looking for a woman who has dumped off
[20:39] Speaker 3: one of the bridges, and so it was talking to
[20:42] Speaker 3: Coastguard and you know, National Oceanic Kino, Noah and other
[20:50] Speaker 3: types of assets to get a feeling for currents and
[20:53] Speaker 3: you know, tides to see if I could figure out
[20:55] Speaker 3: where this body would have washed up if it did,
[20:58] Speaker 3: you know. And that's that's part of the the I
[21:00] Speaker 3: think the intriguing aspect about San Francisco Bay is you have,
[21:05] Speaker 3: you know, the tide going out, going out towards the
[21:07] Speaker 3: Pacific Ocean, and then the tide coming in and the opposite.
[21:10] Speaker 3: You know, we're now at high tide. Everything has been
[21:13] Speaker 3: flowing you know, up into the bay, and so you
[21:17] Speaker 3: have this very dramatic you know, back and forth with
[21:20] Speaker 3: the tides, and you have different currents that are also
[21:23] Speaker 3: occurring in the bay, and so you know, wherever somebody
[21:27] Speaker 3: goes into the water, it's very very hard to predict
[21:31] Speaker 3: where they would end up. They could you know, wash
[21:33] Speaker 3: up on one side of the bay or the other
[21:35] Speaker 3: side of the bay. They could literally be taken out
[21:38] Speaker 3: into the Pacific Ocean never to be seen again.
[21:41] Speaker 2: And the tides are going to be important in this
[21:43] Speaker 2: story too. Okay, from the coast Guard, we have a
[21:46] Speaker 2: helicopter and four patrol boats. They're searching the Pacific from
[21:51] Speaker 2: San Francisco Bay to Marin County. And at seven twenty
[21:56] Speaker 2: eight PM, so this is twelve hours later, the warden
[21:59] Speaker 2: determined that the fugitives are no longer.
[22:02] Speaker 1: On Alcatraz Island. They are gone.
[22:06] Speaker 2: So they spend the next couple of days, of course,
[22:08] Speaker 2: trying to find you know, number one, how did this happen?
[22:11] Speaker 2: And number two, is there any way we can figure
[22:14] Speaker 2: out where if these these guys even survived, where would
[22:17] Speaker 2: they be now? If possible? Sure, So they go looking
[22:22] Speaker 2: through everybody's cells. So we've got cell one thirty eight,
[22:25] Speaker 2: which was.
[22:25] Speaker 1: The initial sounding of the alarm.
[22:27] Speaker 2: They find and this is what I mean by an
[22:29] Speaker 2: equipment list a five inch spoon handle that had been
[22:33] Speaker 2: shaved into a file. There were three hacksaw blades. There
[22:38] Speaker 2: are assorted nuts and bolts and fingernail clippers. And let
[22:42] Speaker 2: me just show you a series of pictures of these
[22:44] Speaker 2: different cells. So if you go to the next photo
[22:48] Speaker 2: in your list.
[22:50] Speaker 3: Okay, so the first the first photo is a picture
[22:53] Speaker 3: looking into the cell from just standing right outside the bars,
[22:56] Speaker 3: if you will.
[22:57] Speaker 4: But the door is open.
[23:00] Speaker 3: This inmate happens to play guitar, and his guitar is
[23:03] Speaker 3: right there on the left hand side. He's got his
[23:06] Speaker 3: you know, little sink desk set up with if you
[23:10] Speaker 3: want to call it, toiletries, his notepad with pencil. And
[23:13] Speaker 3: then in the back where the sink actually is, there's
[23:18] Speaker 3: towels what appears to possibly be a robe, possibly draping down.
[23:24] Speaker 3: And then right there at floor level appears to be
[23:29] Speaker 3: a metal or what I would say is part of
[23:32] Speaker 3: the wall that has been cut out from the wall itself.
[23:38] Speaker 3: And that makes sense to me. Is this from what
[23:42] Speaker 3: I can tell, this wall, this prison wall is maybe
[23:48] Speaker 3: at most an inch and a half thick, which is shocking,
[23:52] Speaker 3: and so probably using that that spoon handle, this inmate
[23:58] Speaker 3: when not being watched is sitting there and just scraping
[24:02] Speaker 3: and getting through this thin wall and scraping to make
[24:06] Speaker 3: a square hole in the wall that's large enough for
[24:14] Speaker 3: a person and I would say just an average sized
[24:17] Speaker 3: person or man to slip through. Somebody who's very, very
[24:20] Speaker 3: large probably would not be able to get through this.
[24:24] Speaker 1: And then you've got another cell after that, and you
[24:26] Speaker 1: see the head.
[24:28] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay, So they have the picture with the
[24:31] Speaker 3: head just placed on the bed and it appears probably
[24:34] Speaker 3: when this paper mache head fell on the floor, the
[24:37] Speaker 3: nose broke. You know, it's clever and it's literally you know, there,
[24:44] Speaker 3: they didn't waste time trying to construct a whole body.
[24:46] Speaker 3: They just used probably pillows and sheets to make it
[24:51] Speaker 3: look like there's a body there and just kind of
[24:53] Speaker 3: plug the head on top.
[24:55] Speaker 4: And then the last photo is.
[24:57] Speaker 3: Showing oh, a guy in uniform. I'm not recognizing what
[25:04] Speaker 3: agency he's with, but he's obviously in the what appears
[25:08] Speaker 3: to be the crawl space showing the piping inside the prison,
[25:13] Speaker 3: and it appears he's looking at where they would have
[25:17] Speaker 3: entered into this passageway and it's definitely wide enough, you know,
[25:22] Speaker 3: for plumbers and electricians to be able to do work
[25:25] Speaker 3: inside without having to go into the cells. But it's
[25:28] Speaker 3: also wide enough for these inmates to be able to
[25:30] Speaker 3: walk through this passageway to get to where they're able
[25:33] Speaker 3: to get outside the prison.
[25:35] Speaker 2: Now, look at that picture again, because you had guestimated
[25:38] Speaker 2: the thickness of.
[25:39] Speaker 1: The wall that they had to cut through.
[25:41] Speaker 2: Does that still seem accurate from what you were saying before.
[25:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not getting a real good picture from this
[25:48] Speaker 3: vantage point of the actual hole, even though it appears
[25:51] Speaker 3: that he's probably you know, knelt down right where that
[25:54] Speaker 3: hole is, but he's holding an L shaped section of
[25:57] Speaker 3: the wall. And that section of the wall, Yeah, again
[26:01] Speaker 3: I think, I mean it may be an inch thick.
[26:05] Speaker 3: You know, it's like, how do you I mean, here's
[26:07] Speaker 3: supposed to be the most secure prison, right and you
[26:11] Speaker 3: have a wall that probably somebody might be able to
[26:14] Speaker 3: even just kick through with enough force and enough impacts.
[26:19] Speaker 2: Well, we might get some clarity on a little bit
[26:21] Speaker 2: about how difficult this would have been using the tools
[26:25] Speaker 2: that they had. So let's move through how they did this.
[26:28] Speaker 2: So this is a bigger search going to sell one
[26:33] Speaker 2: point fifty. They recover a six inch hack saw, blade,
[26:37] Speaker 2: a roll of tape, an imitation ventilator grill they built
[26:40] Speaker 2: a grill to put in to the one that they
[26:43] Speaker 2: were removing, and an imitation section of a wall made
[26:47] Speaker 2: of cardboard and soap and painted green. There is a
[26:50] Speaker 2: pint of green paint. A small bottle of flesh colored
[26:54] Speaker 2: paint and a paint brush are hidden nearby. There's also
[26:59] Speaker 2: a notebook in a one inch black paper clip. Now,
[27:03] Speaker 2: let me tell you what's in one fifty two, and
[27:05] Speaker 2: then you can tell me. In the next cell they
[27:09] Speaker 2: find an imitation grill and wall covers in green paint,
[27:12] Speaker 2: and a bundle of blue cloth containing a quantity of
[27:16] Speaker 2: human hair, probably from the barber shop, and two white envelopes.
[27:20] Speaker 2: Among the three cells they have issues of Popular Mechanics
[27:26] Speaker 2: and one issue of Sports Illustrated. So in the magazines
[27:30] Speaker 2: they find articles about making inflatables and how to vulcanize
[27:34] Speaker 2: rubber geese, which I think we're around.
[27:36] Speaker 1: I guess you know. Vulcanization is the heating.
[27:38] Speaker 2: Process involved in using sulfur that hardens rubber, which I've
[27:42] Speaker 2: heard before, but not in any kind of contemporary case.
[27:46] Speaker 1: So they are collecting all sorts of things.
[27:49] Speaker 3: Well, I think it's so it sounds like they manufactured
[27:53] Speaker 3: sort of this insert where they had cut through the
[27:58] Speaker 3: wall itself. So all they have to do is to
[28:00] Speaker 3: cover up this hole to make it look like nothing,
[28:02] Speaker 3: nothing has been disturbed at that location. Now with this
[28:05] Speaker 3: photo where I can very clearly see this square hole
[28:12] Speaker 3: that has been cut through the cell wall, that cell
[28:17] Speaker 3: wall from this photo is apparently it appears that it's
[28:22] Speaker 3: on the order of four to five inches thick, made
[28:25] Speaker 3: out of almost it looks like a type of cinder
[28:29] Speaker 3: block that's been painted. I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it's
[28:35] Speaker 3: a concrete wall.
[28:36] Speaker 1: It is eight inches thick concrete.
[28:41] Speaker 3: Okay, okay, So you know obviously that is you know,
[28:47] Speaker 3: a substantial thickness of concrete that you have to be
[28:50] Speaker 3: able to you know, scrape through. That would be a
[28:54] Speaker 3: very time consuming, lengthy process. And you know you mentioned
[28:59] Speaker 3: in sell one third there was this you know, five
[29:01] Speaker 3: inch spoon handle. I would not be surprised if they
[29:05] Speaker 3: went through multiple utensils, because that metal is going to
[29:09] Speaker 3: just get shaved down over time, you know. And so
[29:12] Speaker 3: they may have you know, exhausted one spoon and you know,
[29:17] Speaker 3: stole another spoon from the cafeteria and used that. The
[29:22] Speaker 3: concerning thing, just from a safety standpoint is this is
[29:25] Speaker 3: a shank. You know, this could be used to kill
[29:27] Speaker 3: somebody in prison, whether it be another inmate or a
[29:29] Speaker 3: prison guard. But obviously these this inmate you know, is
[29:34] Speaker 3: utilizing you know, this, this source of metal, a common utensil,
[29:39] Speaker 3: and it has all the time in the world to
[29:41] Speaker 3: just sit there and scrape and scrape and scrape and
[29:45] Speaker 3: have to hide that in between, you know, with guards
[29:48] Speaker 3: checking the cell and guards, you know, walking down the hallway.
[29:52] Speaker 3: So he might be scraping, and he knows that the
[29:54] Speaker 3: patterns of when the guards are going to come by,
[29:56] Speaker 3: and so he hides it and waits for the guard
[29:58] Speaker 3: to pass and then go go back and start scraping again.
[30:05] Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about they have their own workshop, Paul.
[30:11] Speaker 2: They figured out that behind the ventilators of all the
[30:14] Speaker 2: cells is a corridor. It's an unguarded utility corridor that
[30:18] Speaker 2: applies plumbing and heat and lighting to all the cells.
[30:22] Speaker 1: In the block.
[30:23] Speaker 2: And it's unguarded, right, So it appears that they use
[30:27] Speaker 2: this area as a makeshift workshop. So this is what
[30:29] Speaker 2: they find. They find rem welled liquid plastic. There's an
[30:35] Speaker 2: electric drill that they made from barber's clippers with a
[30:39] Speaker 2: ten foot extension cord, a five x six inch wooden mirror,
[30:43] Speaker 2: plumber's tape, a broken periscope, and a stapling machine. So
[30:49] Speaker 2: so much for the most secure prison in the country.
[30:52] Speaker 3: Well, you know, and it's dawning on me is probably
[30:54] Speaker 3: each cell had its own hole cut into it.
[30:58] Speaker 1: Mm hmm, three different holes.
[31:00] Speaker 3: These inmates, you know, they have a life, They had
[31:04] Speaker 3: a life outside of prison. Some of them could be plumbers, electricians,
[31:09] Speaker 3: construction workers, people that have knowledge and how this type
[31:12] Speaker 3: of facility would be built. And if you're sitting in
[31:15] Speaker 3: that cell and you see that sink, well you know
[31:17] Speaker 3: that sinc has water that is going to it. Well,
[31:19] Speaker 3: there's plumbing behind that sink. It looks through the ventilation.
[31:23] Speaker 3: You know, people that understand the construction probably go, oh,
[31:27] Speaker 3: hold on here, you know, here's a weak point. You know,
[31:30] Speaker 3: let's see what's you know, what's actually behind here. And
[31:33] Speaker 3: then one of them, you know, gets through I'm assuming
[31:36] Speaker 3: would be the ventilation and goes, oh, you know, here's
[31:41] Speaker 3: how to do this, how to get out of this cell?
[31:44] Speaker 3: And probably you know the first one to be able
[31:48] Speaker 3: to get into this back area where the workshop is
[31:51] Speaker 3: is now compiling these tools. The electric drill made out
[31:57] Speaker 3: of the barber shears clippers, that's probably what is being
[32:04] Speaker 3: used to cut holes in for the other inmates, So
[32:07] Speaker 3: that would probably go faster than somebody sitting there and
[32:10] Speaker 3: scraping with a spoon handle. So now once they get
[32:13] Speaker 3: into this workshop space, things speed up. It's still not
[32:17] Speaker 3: a fast process, you know, because they have to get
[32:19] Speaker 3: back there without being detected. Where's this inmate you know,
[32:24] Speaker 3: back there, start compiling supplies that they're going to need
[32:28] Speaker 3: for this very elaborate plan, and then go back to
[32:32] Speaker 3: their cell and make it look like nothing is disturbed
[32:34] Speaker 3: in the cell. So it seems like, yeah, the priority
[32:39] Speaker 3: if I'm thinking about the order of things. The one
[32:42] Speaker 3: inmate gets through the cell wall into this passageway where
[32:46] Speaker 3: this possible workshop knows enough on how to convert these
[32:52] Speaker 3: you know, barber clippers you know, into a drill, and
[32:55] Speaker 3: then now has a power tool to assist in cutting
[32:59] Speaker 3: into the walls of the other two inmates cells. And
[33:04] Speaker 3: then once all three can get back here, now they
[33:06] Speaker 3: can sit there and plot. And it sounds like they
[33:10] Speaker 3: not only use this workshop with the paint in order
[33:13] Speaker 3: to make the paper mache head or heads.
[33:18] Speaker 4: But also these these.
[33:20] Speaker 3: Rubber geese, I think is what you said, you know,
[33:24] Speaker 3: converting that rubber into something that they could mold into
[33:28] Speaker 3: some sort of craft, maybe an inflatable craft, you know,
[33:32] Speaker 3: to aid them and once they get to the water.
[33:35] Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's go back to the hardware store aka
[33:39] Speaker 2: the prisoner's workshop. Behind the ventilators. There are prison officers
[33:43] Speaker 2: who continue to search. They find in this corridor a
[33:47] Speaker 2: five gallon paint bucket. Because I think this is now
[33:51] Speaker 2: going to go a little faster for the prisoners. They
[33:53] Speaker 2: have an electric drill made from a vacuum cleaner motor.
[33:57] Speaker 2: They have a fabricated muffler, presumably used to mute the
[34:00] Speaker 2: noise of this drill. They have an electric cord, four
[34:05] Speaker 2: pieces of heavy wire, two seven inch long pieces of steel,
[34:10] Speaker 2: nine two to twelve inch long pieces of heavy metal,
[34:13] Speaker 2: likely stripped from the cells ventilator grills, seven sharpened spoon handles,
[34:18] Speaker 2: one four inch long three eight inch screw bolt, and
[34:22] Speaker 2: flashlights made from pin light batteries.
[34:25] Speaker 3: Yeah see these are these are no dummies.
[34:28] Speaker 1: No, they're not, None of them are.
[34:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and probably each one of them had,
[34:34] Speaker 3: you know, different areas of expertise. You know, obviously somebody
[34:37] Speaker 3: is very well versed with the electrical devices, you know,
[34:41] Speaker 3: the vacuum cleaner, the barber clippers, you know, and can
[34:46] Speaker 3: understand how to utilize the innerds, the motors of these
[34:51] Speaker 3: power tools, if you will, and modify them in order
[34:55] Speaker 3: to work for what they need to do in order
[34:58] Speaker 3: to escape.
[35:00] Speaker 2: So then I think the investigators say, where does this
[35:03] Speaker 2: corridor go?
[35:04] Speaker 1: Where do you think it could go? Paul, this corridor,
[35:08] Speaker 1: what are the possibilities?
[35:10] Speaker 3: Well, this corridor, you know, you can see all the plumbing,
[35:15] Speaker 3: you know, whether it be water, electrical, gas, drainage. So
[35:23] Speaker 3: you need maintenance men to be able to access this
[35:26] Speaker 3: in order to do repairs or do modifications. So I
[35:31] Speaker 3: imagine that at least part of this corridor is going
[35:35] Speaker 3: to go to, you know, an access store that the
[35:38] Speaker 3: maintenance men had access to, and that's possibly outside the
[35:42] Speaker 3: secure area of the prison.
[35:44] Speaker 4: The roof. Well there you go.
[35:51] Speaker 2: I mean I want to preface this by saying, I
[35:53] Speaker 2: know I'm laughing a lot at this. There no murders happen,
[35:56] Speaker 2: you know, the people who escaped were not murderers, and
[35:59] Speaker 2: that does not mean that this is, you know, not
[36:03] Speaker 2: something serious. But this was really interesting slash impressive to
[36:08] Speaker 2: me what they ended up doing. I don't mean to
[36:11] Speaker 2: make light of a prison break, but my goodness, no, well.
[36:13] Speaker 4: What it is.
[36:14] Speaker 3: But obviously they they found, you know, a design flaw
[36:19] Speaker 3: in this facility. And you know, I don't know the
[36:24] Speaker 3: facility history of Alcatraz. This may have been constructed for
[36:29] Speaker 3: a completely different purpose and then converted into a prison,
[36:32] Speaker 3: you know, and that may be why you have such
[36:36] Speaker 3: a massive design flaw, and somebody just didn't go, oh,
[36:39] Speaker 3: hold on here, we have to secure this passageway with
[36:43] Speaker 3: all the plumbing in it.
[36:45] Speaker 1: So it was not initially meant to be a federal prison.
[36:49] Speaker 1: You're right.
[36:49] Speaker 2: It was initially fortified in the eighteen fifties as a
[36:53] Speaker 2: US Army military fortress to protect San Francisco Bay, and
[36:57] Speaker 2: it became a military prison later and then it was
[37:00] Speaker 2: later converted to a maximum security federal penitentiary in thirty four,
[37:05] Speaker 2: So you're right.
[37:07] Speaker 3: So you know, whatever, you know, architect, engineer, you know,
[37:10] Speaker 3: kind of drew up the plans, probably didn't take into
[37:13] Speaker 3: consideration how creative inmates can be when all they do
[37:18] Speaker 3: for twenty four hours a day is sit and think
[37:20] Speaker 3: on how can I get out of here?
[37:22] Speaker 2: You got it exactly. So this goes to the roof.
[37:26] Speaker 2: They go on the roof and investigators find a five
[37:30] Speaker 2: foot piece of rope tied to the ventilator grill. There's
[37:34] Speaker 2: a razor blade, braided insulation measuring one and one half
[37:39] Speaker 2: inch long. There's an electrical terminal box with two outlet sockets.
[37:45] Speaker 2: And what they say is probably the most important clue
[37:48] Speaker 2: is a crudely made plywood paddle that they left behind,
[37:53] Speaker 2: and it measures two feet long and one half inch wide,
[37:58] Speaker 2: and the blade is about eight by twelve inches.
[38:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, the five foot length of rope that's tied around
[38:06] Speaker 3: the ventilation shaft, obviously that's you know, too short for
[38:10] Speaker 3: them to use to repel down. But you said there's razors.
[38:13] Speaker 3: You know, I'm wondering if they had a much longer
[38:16] Speaker 3: length of rope that they used to get down from
[38:18] Speaker 3: the roof, and then they cut that rope, probably so
[38:23] Speaker 3: that during their escape, as they're trying to you know,
[38:25] Speaker 3: float away, they realized that maybe they needed some rope
[38:29] Speaker 3: at the other end for whatever reason. You know, that's
[38:33] Speaker 3: my guess. With that, you know, and then it just appears,
[38:39] Speaker 3: you know, they they felt that they needed electrical They
[38:43] Speaker 3: possibly had maybe a jerry rigged pump, you know, so
[38:50] Speaker 3: they're they're not blowing this seeing up, you know, inside
[38:53] Speaker 3: the passageway and then getting up onto the roof. They
[38:56] Speaker 3: probably needed they had, you know, either stolen some sort
[39:02] Speaker 3: of air pump or manufactured one. And then once they
[39:07] Speaker 3: were outside, they had that source of electricity through that
[39:12] Speaker 3: I'm going to call it a power strip, and they
[39:14] Speaker 3: blew up their inflatable with this pump.
[39:18] Speaker 4: That's that's my guess.
[39:20] Speaker 2: Okay, now we're gonna fast forward by one day. So
[39:24] Speaker 2: the Coastguard is on patrol and they find another wooden
[39:28] Speaker 2: paddle in the San Francisco Bay area between Alcatraz and
[39:32] Speaker 2: Angel Island, and it's about one mile east of the prison,
[39:38] Speaker 2: and it's only about four hundred and fifty feet from
[39:41] Speaker 2: Angel Island, where the water is about twelve feet deep.
[39:46] Speaker 2: So I did a little bit of mathing. I don't
[39:48] Speaker 2: know if this helps, but you know, the it's a
[39:51] Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty yards basically from the island, not
[39:54] Speaker 2: that that would matter too much, but you know, it's
[39:57] Speaker 2: a standard it's six links of a standard twenty five
[40:00] Speaker 2: yard pool. So you know, but I still think it's
[40:06] Speaker 2: does it matter at that point how close it is
[40:08] Speaker 2: to the island?
[40:08] Speaker 1: Does it show that that's their destination?
[40:11] Speaker 3: I you know, with you know, the work that I
[40:15] Speaker 3: did recently with you know, the tides and the currents
[40:18] Speaker 3: in the bay, I would suspect that you can't draw
[40:24] Speaker 3: any conclusions based on its location. I'm very I'm very familiar.
[40:28] Speaker 3: I've been on Alcatraz multiple times. I've been on Angel
[40:31] Speaker 3: Island multiple times. I generally, you know, you know, at
[40:35] Speaker 3: least as a somebody who was a resident that would
[40:39] Speaker 3: tour these areas, I generally have a good understanding of
[40:43] Speaker 3: the geographic configuration. And then of course the digging into
[40:47] Speaker 3: trying to find a body that was dumped into the
[40:49] Speaker 3: San Francisco Bay not far from here where we're talking about,
[40:54] Speaker 3: and you know the complexities. I think it's fascinating that
[40:59] Speaker 3: they actually found onto the paddle. And you know, the question,
[41:03] Speaker 3: of course, is is that was that paddle? I mean,
[41:06] Speaker 3: there's one that's left behind. Why was that left behind?
[41:10] Speaker 3: On Alcatraz? Then you have a paddle that obviously at
[41:12] Speaker 3: least made it out into the bay. Was that something
[41:16] Speaker 3: that they purposely they got to a shoreline and then
[41:20] Speaker 3: decided that they needed to, you know, throw the various
[41:25] Speaker 3: things they had with them into the bay to try
[41:27] Speaker 3: to hide where they were at.
[41:29] Speaker 4: That's a possibility. Did they go under, you know?
[41:33] Speaker 3: So I think there's all sorts of options, and I
[41:35] Speaker 3: don't think we can draw any conclusions about where they
[41:38] Speaker 3: may have come ashore based on the location of this paddle.
[41:42] Speaker 2: Okay, well, let me tell you about more evidence that's
[41:44] Speaker 2: recovered a couple of days later. There are two waterproof
[41:49] Speaker 2: bags that are measuring six by eight inches and eight
[41:53] Speaker 2: by twelve inches that are discovered in a whirlpool about
[41:57] Speaker 2: a half mile east of Alcatraz, and they are two
[42:01] Speaker 2: to three feet below the water's surface. The packets contain
[42:05] Speaker 2: letters and addresses in seventy nine photos that are.
[42:09] Speaker 1: From the prisoners.
[42:11] Speaker 2: Oh and so the coast Guard officials also recover old
[42:15] Speaker 2: inner tubes and a few more wooden paddles in this whirlpool.
[42:21] Speaker 2: First of all, I know we probably have whirlpools in Texas.
[42:24] Speaker 2: I had not heard that until going to California. So
[42:28] Speaker 2: maybe explain the concept of.
[42:29] Speaker 1: A whirlpool and how items could be found within one.
[42:33] Speaker 3: You know, I I am just for me. This is
[42:37] Speaker 3: just an absolute guess, is that you'll see, you know,
[42:41] Speaker 3: on the coasts or in the bay these eddy areas,
[42:44] Speaker 3: you know, where the water just kind of you know,
[42:48] Speaker 3: kind of instead of just flows through the area, kind
[42:50] Speaker 3: of gets into this circular motion just because you have
[42:54] Speaker 3: a geographic feature that's nearby. And so it sounds like
[42:59] Speaker 3: these items kind of were kind of floating along and
[43:03] Speaker 3: then ended up in this what I'm going to call
[43:05] Speaker 3: an eddy and you know, once in there, it probably
[43:09] Speaker 3: would take a pretty significant change in the tides, uh,
[43:13] Speaker 3: you know, to to kind of free them up and
[43:16] Speaker 3: get back into the kind of the the main current
[43:20] Speaker 3: or the main flow of that particular location. Some of
[43:23] Speaker 3: these items could just be stuff that was abandoned once
[43:27] Speaker 3: the once these escapees got on shore. But what is
[43:32] Speaker 3: keying my interest is they took the time to have
[43:35] Speaker 3: these waterproof pouches that contained personal items, letters, photos. Why
[43:42] Speaker 3: why abandon that If you took the time ahead of
[43:45] Speaker 3: time to try to preserve that and take those with you,
[43:49] Speaker 3: So that that gives me pause about did they survive?
[43:55] Speaker 3: I think that that that increases the likelihood that they
[43:59] Speaker 3: may not have served at least that one person that
[44:02] Speaker 3: those personal items were important too. You know, it's possible,
[44:07] Speaker 3: you know, you have you know, there's no honor among thieves.
[44:11] Speaker 3: You know, these guys could have plotted together to escape,
[44:14] Speaker 3: and once they got to shore, one guy kills two
[44:17] Speaker 3: of them and you know, takes off, you know. So
[44:21] Speaker 3: I also think is it possible that they did go
[44:24] Speaker 3: under and that these particular items that are caught in
[44:27] Speaker 3: this eddy or are the items that are have a
[44:31] Speaker 3: greater floatation than maybe you know, the bodies, maybe the craft,
[44:37] Speaker 3: you know, who knows.
[44:38] Speaker 4: I'm just again just kind of guessing.
[44:41] Speaker 2: Mm well, let me throw a curveball at that theory,
[44:44] Speaker 2: which I think is probably a very valid theory.
[44:47] Speaker 1: So the author of the book I told you about,
[44:49] Speaker 1: his name is Ken Witner. So Ken is the nephew
[44:52] Speaker 1: of one of these escapees.
[44:55] Speaker 2: And he says that this bag of photos, which the
[44:58] Speaker 2: family has never seen or has you know, been given back,
[45:01] Speaker 2: he thinks that they were planted or even made up,
[45:04] Speaker 2: because he says, if you look at the photos from
[45:07] Speaker 2: one of his uncle's cells, So there's two brothers who
[45:10] Speaker 2: escape along with a third person, if you look at
[45:13] Speaker 2: his uncle's cells, there's a stack of bound letters that
[45:17] Speaker 2: were found after the escape. So he said, I mean,
[45:20] Speaker 2: I just don't believe that this sack exists, and especially
[45:24] Speaker 2: because they've never received, you know, all of these personal
[45:27] Speaker 2: photos or letters or anything like that. He thinks that
[45:31] Speaker 2: this was planted by the FBI because they had to
[45:33] Speaker 2: push the narrative that everything's okay, these guys around, no
[45:37] Speaker 2: big deal, you know, And so that is his theory,
[45:41] Speaker 2: and actually both sound pretty valid to me. I wouldn't
[45:44] Speaker 2: be surprised if they drowned or if you know that,
[45:47] Speaker 2: if this is what the FBI would have done at
[45:49] Speaker 2: that point, yeah.
[45:51] Speaker 3: You know, it's you know, so depending on if this
[45:55] Speaker 3: exists or not, I think if those photos were actually
[45:58] Speaker 3: bona fide as well as let's say, the personal letters
[46:01] Speaker 3: that were in this water proof pouch, and I think,
[46:04] Speaker 3: you know, I still kind of hold to my opinion
[46:08] Speaker 3: that that causes me concerned about did that person that
[46:12] Speaker 3: escapee survive? But if this these were just made up
[46:16] Speaker 3: in order to be able to publicly announce a narrative
[46:20] Speaker 3: that everything is good.
[46:21] Speaker 4: We do not have Alcatraz.
[46:23] Speaker 3: Escapees writing around the city of San Francisco, then of course,
[46:26] Speaker 3: you know, then it's like, yeah, you know, it increases
[46:30] Speaker 3: the likelihood that maybe all three, you know, survived and
[46:34] Speaker 3: got away well.
[46:35] Speaker 2: And then I was thinking waterproof else and put quotes
[46:37] Speaker 2: around waterproof bags, which I don't think people have seen.
[46:42] Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking, would letters survive that? What
[46:45] Speaker 2: kind of because these would have been bags that they
[46:48] Speaker 2: had constructed themselves.
[46:49] Speaker 1: Would that really have worked? I don't know.
[46:52] Speaker 3: My experience as a drug analyst gives me some insight
[46:58] Speaker 3: to the creativity, how you know, like let's say the
[47:03] Speaker 3: cartels in Mexico would would attach uh, let's say, uh
[47:09] Speaker 3: kilos of cocaine inside waterproof bendos that were underneath the
[47:14] Speaker 3: water on ships. And so now I am seeing some
[47:18] Speaker 3: very creative, many many layers from saran wrap, rubberized types
[47:24] Speaker 3: of things. And you know, here you've got in this workshop.
[47:27] Speaker 3: You know, you've got them possibly constructing an inflatable craft
[47:34] Speaker 3: that's airproof, right at least enough to where they're they're
[47:39] Speaker 3: they're confident that they can get, you know, float on
[47:41] Speaker 3: the water. Waterproof would be a lot easier than airproof,
[47:45] Speaker 3: So I'm not surprised that they could have done something,
[47:51] Speaker 3: especially with the level of expertise that they're showing in
[47:55] Speaker 3: terms of what what they're doing to escape.
[48:00] Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to back up your theory by telling
[48:01] Speaker 2: you that there's another discovery a few days after that,
[48:06] Speaker 2: a makeshift life jacket washes up.
[48:10] Speaker 1: On Cronkite Beach in Marin County.
[48:14] Speaker 2: So it's west is what they say. So it is
[48:16] Speaker 2: about four miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge.
[48:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a very interesting location. So what was found
[48:22] Speaker 3: on Cronkite Beach?
[48:23] Speaker 4: Again?
[48:24] Speaker 2: On June fifteenth, they find a makeshift life jacket that
[48:28] Speaker 2: washes up on Cronkite Beach in Marin County. And aside
[48:33] Speaker 2: from a small tear in one seam, the life jacket
[48:36] Speaker 2: is totally intact. It had been constructed from rain jackets
[48:39] Speaker 2: sewn together and inside there is a hollow plastic tube
[48:44] Speaker 2: like what you would find in like a spray bottle,
[48:47] Speaker 2: and it's full of air which gives it a course buoyancy.
[48:50] Speaker 2: There is a heavy paper clip attached to the tube,
[48:53] Speaker 2: so once the jacket is inflated, the valve can be
[48:56] Speaker 2: closed off. And I have a photo of said life
[48:59] Speaker 2: preserver jacket if you want to take a look at it.
[49:01] Speaker 4: Yeah, let me take a look at it.
[49:02] Speaker 1: I mean, these guys, oh.
[49:04] Speaker 4: There it goes.
[49:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a photo of an investigator who's you know,
[49:08] Speaker 3: dotting this makeshift life jacket. And you know, to my eyes,
[49:13] Speaker 3: I'm looking at that and I'm going, that looks.
[49:17] Speaker 4: Very well done.
[49:18] Speaker 3: It's you know, this is this is showing that you know,
[49:22] Speaker 3: at least one of these inmates had some pretty serious skills.
[49:26] Speaker 3: You know, the person that's making this life jacket is
[49:28] Speaker 3: probably also the one that's making the inflatable craft, you know,
[49:32] Speaker 3: so you know, each inmate probably contributed their particular expertise
[49:36] Speaker 3: and skills combined to be able to pull off this
[49:40] Speaker 3: this escape. The location where this life jacket is at,
[49:43] Speaker 3: it's washing up on Cronkite Beach, it's washing up from
[49:47] Speaker 3: the Pacific Ocean. So this life jacket at least, you know,
[49:52] Speaker 3: was taken out through the Golden Gate underneath the Golden
[49:56] Speaker 3: Gate bridge out into the Pacific and then washes up
[49:59] Speaker 3: on Sure, you know, they could ended up have ended
[50:04] Speaker 3: up being washed out to the Pacific and gone done,
[50:08] Speaker 3: you know, never to be found. So that's it's hard,
[50:13] Speaker 3: it's you know, it's hard to draw that conclusion because again,
[50:16] Speaker 3: it's also possible that they once they got ashore, they're
[50:19] Speaker 3: now just throwing everything out into the bay or if
[50:24] Speaker 3: they want, if they got through the Golden gate. Uh,
[50:28] Speaker 3: you know, they're just going out to the ocean with
[50:31] Speaker 3: the hope of you know, that just disappearing.
[50:33] Speaker 2: Well, there's another life preserver found. So this is floating
[50:38] Speaker 2: in the water just one hundred yards east of Alcatraz.
[50:42] Speaker 2: So they say the valve on this one is open,
[50:44] Speaker 2: and they said there are indentations on the plastic like
[50:48] Speaker 2: somebody had bitten the end of the tube to prevent
[50:51] Speaker 2: air from escaping.
[50:53] Speaker 1: I guess. So they find it close, you know, closer
[50:55] Speaker 1: to Alcatraz.
[50:57] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it sounds like the one that the life
[50:59] Speaker 3: preserver that was found near Alcatraz possibly did not work
[51:04] Speaker 3: very well, and so the person is having to use
[51:06] Speaker 3: their mouth to keep that the air trapped inside. So
[51:09] Speaker 3: there's some floatation that is not sounding good for the
[51:13] Speaker 3: person who had that life jacket because imagine you're struggling
[51:16] Speaker 3: in this cold water and you're like having to try
[51:20] Speaker 3: to you know, you've got your breathing hard, but now
[51:23] Speaker 3: you're having to clamp down on this valve so that
[51:25] Speaker 3: the life jacket is working. I mean that makes I
[51:29] Speaker 3: think that makes it exponentially harder for that particular person.
[51:33] Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you this last little bit here
[51:35] Speaker 2: that is really interesting. So according to the FBI reports,
[51:41] Speaker 2: the escape craft that they're fairly sure they built has
[51:46] Speaker 2: never been found. But there is a correctional officer who
[51:51] Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety nine said that's not true. So in
[51:55] Speaker 2: a nineteen ninety nine interview, this correctional office or said
[52:00] Speaker 2: they did find a raft. It was made from raincoats
[52:04] Speaker 2: and it had.
[52:05] Speaker 1: Blood in it.
[52:07] Speaker 2: What he thought was maybe it was it was enough blood,
[52:11] Speaker 2: maybe that it was like a leg injury.
[52:13] Speaker 1: But this was not some shark who.
[52:16] Speaker 2: Had eaten one of the men and spin them back
[52:18] Speaker 2: out in that kind of blood.
[52:19] Speaker 1: But there was blood in the raft.
[52:21] Speaker 2: It was towed back to Alcatraz, it was handed over
[52:24] Speaker 2: to the FBI, and then there's no evidence of it.
[52:27] Speaker 2: But there is evidence in the files of the Marine
[52:31] Speaker 2: County Sheriff's office of this raft. So again, is this
[52:35] Speaker 2: an FBI cover up?
[52:37] Speaker 3: You know, as as you mentioned before, you know, there
[52:42] Speaker 3: the idea of FBI covering things up, you know, so
[52:45] Speaker 3: it keeps you know, the population that lives in the
[52:49] Speaker 3: Bay Area at ease that there aren't three escapees from Alcatraz.
[52:54] Speaker 3: You know, I would suggest that there's another re in
[53:00] Speaker 3: where there could have been. What appears or what would
[53:03] Speaker 3: be considered to cover up is imagine if it became
[53:07] Speaker 3: known within the inmates housed at Alcatraz that people had escaped,
[53:13] Speaker 3: that would.
[53:14] Speaker 4: Embolden those inmates.
[53:16] Speaker 3: Now the prison authorities have a bigger problem on their hand,
[53:19] Speaker 3: and now these other inmates are all going to be
[53:22] Speaker 3: you know, scheming and plotting and possibly even being uncooperative,
[53:27] Speaker 3: you know, thinking well, we can get out of here,
[53:30] Speaker 3: and so they I think there there probably was an
[53:35] Speaker 3: effort to maintain the mystique of Alcatraz as the unescapable
[53:41] Speaker 3: prison in the middle of the bay, to keep the
[53:45] Speaker 3: you know, the other inmates you know, kind of docile
[53:48] Speaker 3: and not trying to constantly escape.
[53:51] Speaker 2: This is such a big case, you know, we need
[53:53] Speaker 2: to make this a two parter, okay, But I will
[53:56] Speaker 2: tell you how serious this is because now I think
[53:58] Speaker 2: you should know this part, because we are going to
[54:01] Speaker 2: have to assess whether or not this is an FBI
[54:03] Speaker 2: cover up or you know, Bureau of Prisons or whatever.
[54:07] Speaker 1: This is the thing that ends up closing Alcatraz. Down permanently.
[54:10] Speaker 1: This escape changes a lot of things.
[54:12] Speaker 2: And I think that everyone knew that if they could
[54:16] Speaker 2: not say, if you guys do this, this is what's
[54:18] Speaker 2: going to happen to you. You're going to drown that
[54:21] Speaker 2: that's what would happen, and ended up happening anyway.
[54:23] Speaker 3: Well, sure, And I would also think that the significant
[54:29] Speaker 3: design flaw of the facility, they probably evaluated how much
[54:34] Speaker 3: it would cost in order to secure that and decided
[54:38] Speaker 3: that just is not palatable, that is not within the budget,
[54:42] Speaker 3: and we might as well just you know, shotgun these
[54:45] Speaker 3: these prisoners to other penitentiaries across the nation, which I'm
[54:49] Speaker 3: pretty sure that's what happened once Alcatraz was shuttered.
[54:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I was also thinking, from an emotional standpoint,
[54:56] Speaker 2: is anyone, no matter what you do, going to trust
[54:59] Speaker 2: Alcatraz Again?
[55:00] Speaker 1: Probably not.
[55:01] Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I mean the normal people walking
[55:03] Speaker 2: around San Francisco, no matter what they say, you're still
[55:05] Speaker 2: going to think, yeah, look what happened, Look what these.
[55:07] Speaker 1: Guys were able to do. You don't think they're smart
[55:09] Speaker 1: people like this?
[55:10] Speaker 3: Well? Sure, and then you also have let's say, like
[55:13] Speaker 3: an al Capone. I know he was an Alcatraz at
[55:15] Speaker 3: one point think about his neo mafia underlings finding out, Oh,
[55:19] Speaker 3: Alcatraz isn't this, you know, super max facility that we've
[55:23] Speaker 3: all been led to believe. Now you could have people
[55:25] Speaker 3: from the outside trying to get somebody like an al
[55:28] Speaker 3: Capone to be to escape, you know, so it I
[55:32] Speaker 3: can see where this just would have been a house
[55:35] Speaker 3: of whoors, if you will, for the prison authorities after
[55:38] Speaker 3: this escape occurred.
[55:40] Speaker 2: So when we come back in one week, we're going
[55:42] Speaker 2: to meet the fugitives, We're going to hear from their families,
[55:46] Speaker 2: We're going to see where this investigation went. And there
[55:50] Speaker 2: are theories, as you can imagine. So we did literally
[55:54] Speaker 2: the nuts and bolts in this episode, and the next
[55:56] Speaker 2: episode is who are the kinds of people who would
[55:59] Speaker 2: pull this off?
[56:01] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[56:01] Speaker 3: No, I'm curious because they obviously had pad skills. I
[56:04] Speaker 3: want to know what their backgrounds are.
[56:05] Speaker 1: All right, you will in a week. I'll see you later, Osmin.
[56:08] Speaker 4: Thanks Kate.
[56:13] Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production for.
[56:16] Speaker 3: Our sources and show notes go to exactlyrightemedia dot com,
[56:19] Speaker 3: slash Buried Bones sources.
[56:21] Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
[56:24] Speaker 3: Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
[56:27] Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
[56:30] Speaker 4: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
[56:32] Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
[56:35] Speaker 3: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
[56:39] Speaker 2: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
[56:42] Speaker 2: Buried Bones Pod.
[56:44] Speaker 3: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
[56:47] Speaker 3: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
[56:49] Speaker 3: criminal mind, is available now.
[56:51] Speaker 2: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
[56:55] Speaker 2: Cold Cases is also available now.
[56:57] Speaker 3: Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[57:01] Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts
[57:09] Speaker 2: M

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