The Anglin Brothers Clarence "Larry" Anglin & John William
Anglin
Clarence "Larry" Anglin
John William Anglin
Fox 13 News January 17, 2012:
From the San Francisco
Chronicle
15 June 1962:
The escaped convicts are
Frank L. Morris, 35, a Louisiana bank robber, whose cell adjoined
West’s, and the two bank robbing Angling brothers of Ruskin, Fla., John,
32, and Clarence, 31.
The men were missing at the
7:15 a.m. head count on Tuesday. Guards found life-like dummies in their
prison cots. Air vents in an eight-inch concrete wall had been enlarged
with table spoons to give passage to a utility corridor.
Guards found that the
escapers climbed utility pipes to the top of the three-tier cell block
and then reached the roof by bending a steel bar in the 14-inch shaft of
an air condition vent.
PATH
Fred T. Wilkinson, assistant
director of Federal Prisons, who flew here from Washington when the
break was discovered, said yesterday that the path of the escapers to
the water has now definitely been determined.
Broken bushes and other signs
show “almost the precise trail” the men took to the water’s edge on the
north side of the island after they shimmied down a kitchen vent pipe
form the roof of the main prison structure.
The search that followed the
discovery of the escape immediately disclosed that a hole had been cut
in the wall of West’s cell, as The Chronicle reported exclusively
yesterday.
Why West declined to go along
on the escape is a question that still is unanswered.
“I didn’t want to leave,” is
all that he has said.
WILKINSON
Wilkinson, formerly warden at
the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, knew all four convicts before they
were transferred to Alcatraz, and says he is satisfied the plotters had
no outside help.
“These men have neither
friends nor relatives with the resources to come to San Francisco and
spend the time and money necessary to help in an escape,” said
Wilkinson. “It would cost thousands of dollars to put a boat in the bay
every night, say for a month, waiting for the right night.”
Wilkinson said it was a
matter of long prison experience that in temporarily successful
escapers, the fugitives begin to leave a clearly marked trail with a few
days.
NEEDS
“They have to get clothing,
or food, or do something to get money,” he said. “There has been none of
that in this case.”
Wilkinson added, however,
that he was certain the three convicts had drowned in the Bay.
“It would take an athlete to
make such a swim,” he said. “The only swimming these fellows were
accustomed to was in the little old creeks in the swamps of Florida and
Louisiana.”
A search of Angel Island by
200 soldiers turned up nothing to indicate that Morris and the Anglins
ever reached its shores. There have been no clues from Marin county.
The FBI has poured more than
300 agents into the search since the alarm was flashed on Tuesday
morning.
Despite the mounting
indications that the three escapers drowned, the FBI is checking every
possible lead.
Every friend, relative—or
sweetheart—of the fugitives is being investigated in what is the biggest
Justice Department manhunt in the West, if not in FBI history.
CHECKLIST
Even the girl-friends and
relatives of the plotters’ known friends in Alcatraz are on the FBI
checklist.
All sorts of debris picked up
by the Coast Guard patrol boats that have maintained a continuous search
of the area is being studied.
Unexplained movements of
small vessels in the bay are being checked, on the possibility that
confederates may have assisted the escapers to the mainland.
FBI Report
On the morning of June 12,
1962, guards at Alcatraz Prison discovered that inmates Frank Lee
Morris, John William Anglin, and Clarence Anglin were missing from their
cells. The inmates had fashioned dummy faces in their bunks and escaped
the island prison using a makeshift raft constructed of rubber
raincoats. Although the FBI conducted an exhaustive investigation, no
evidence was located that the three escaped convicts ever reached the
shore. Morris, and both Anglins were presumed to be dead.
Below are links to the 1,757
page Federal Bureau of Investigation report under the Freedom of
Information Privacy Act
Alcatraz was thought to be
impossible to escape from, but two brothers from Georgia helped to prove
that belief wrong. Clarence and J. W. Anglin were two Southwest Georgia
boys who were sent to the rock for bank robbery with a water gun after
escaping from every other jail they were put in. They were born in
Miller County (Colquitt) Georgia, spent some of their life in Seminole
County Georgia and then moved to Florida. They would go to Michigan
every May to pick cherries to help the family out financially and they
learned to swim here in the icy waters. They were caring boys who
usually robbed places that were closed to insure that no one got
injured, and the bank robbery was the only time they had actually used a
weapon, and made sure it was a toy gun.
Robert and Rachel Anglin had their hands full with 14 children, seven
boys and seven girls, two of which would end up being legends in the
unsolved mystery of the escape from Alcatraz. The Anglin family actually
lived in Donalsonville and moved to Ruskin, Florida to continue farming.
While here Clarence, J.W., and Alfred Anglin began getting in trouble,
but it was things like playing hooky from school and stealing
watermelons to start with. Just like any adventurous and daring youth of
the time. Soon, their mischievousness turned into petty crimes. Clarence
was first caught breaking into a service station when he was just 14
years old. According to the book Riddle of the Rock, they were always
into trouble, but “they never wanted confrontation; they had an aversion
to violence and the possibility of hurting somebody. But once a local
business closed up for the night, it was fair game.” By the 1950s the
brothers, along with brother Alfred Anglin, were being charged as adults
and spending time in penitentiaries. They escaped from every one they
were in, would commit another crime and be put back in jail, only to
escape again. After being on the run for 5 years, Alfred met up with
Clarence who had been in hiding for about a year. They reunited with J.W.
who had been back in Ruskin, FL, released from prison for 5 years and
leading a straightened out life, but was talked into doing one last run
when approached by Clarence and Alfred. So J.W. drove to the Bank of
Columbia (Columbia, AL) and Clarence and Alfred proceeded to hold up the
bank with a toy pistol. They thought a sentence would be lessened if
they used a toy pistol, but this proved not to be the case. Riddle of
the Rock states that “their loot consisted of $18,911 in cash and $4,570
in travelers’ checks which was split three ways.” Little did they know
that the bank was federally insured and the FBI would find them in Ohio
where they were hiding out. The three brothers were charged with armed
robbery even thought they had used a toy pistol. A former girlfriend of
J.W.’s said, “They weren’t bad guys, they were just dirt poor.”
They were originally sent to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Clarence
was sent to Leavenworth, Kansas as a preventative measure in his escape
reputation. J.W. was soon transferred here as well because officials
thought Alfred was a bad influence on him. J.W. tried to escape from
Leavenworth in a breadbox, but was discovered and as a result sent to
Alcatraz. Clarence was sent a few months later after being caught
attempting to smuggle a letter to another inmate who was in segregation.
The brothers were put in cells next to each other.
After a few years of planning the escape took place on June 12,1962.
Frank Morris, Allen West, Clarence and J.W. Anglin were the four inmates
who escaped. Allen West was caught when he ran into problems trying to
get out of his cell, the others have never been caught.
So did they escape, are they out living free lives? The family says they
made it, the authorities’ say they didn’t. There has never been any
evidence found to that they perished in the waters, although many
sightings and phone calls have been documented that they made it.
Authorities say there is no way they were able to swim in those icy
waters that surround Alcatraz to freedom. Although a postcard that
arrived at Alcatraz on June 16, 1962 which was addressed to Warden
Blackwell simply read, “Ha. Ha. We made it. Frank, John, Clarence.” The
family has unsuccessfully tried to get their charges dropped so the
brothers could live free lives.
So who would have thought that two brothers from Georgia would become
lawbreakers to legends and be a part of one of the country’s most
extraordinary unsolved mysteries?
A stage production of Gospel of the Rock in Cotton Hall Theater,
Colquitt, GA is based on the lives of Clarence and J. W. Anglin and
their escape from Alcatraz. It includes stories of their lives as told
by their remaining family members. Many hours of their stories have been
taped and adapted to the stage by Jules Corriere.
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