Background
Alcatraz:
Located on a island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz (“The Rock”) held captives since the Civil War. It was was re-fortified in 1934, the highpoint of a major war on crime, into the world’s most secure prison.
Surrounded by the cold, rough waters of the Pacific, Alcatraz was already a forbidding place before its renovations. But the redesign made it more so, implementing tougher iron bars, a series of strategically positioned guard towers, and strict rules, including a dozen checks a day of the prisoners. Escape was nearly impossible.
From 1934 until the prison was closed in 1963, 36 men tried 14 separate escapes. Nearly all were caught or didn’t survive the attempt. However, the fate of three particular inmates remains a mystery to this day.
Located on a island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz (“The Rock”) held captives since the Civil War. It was was re-fortified in 1934, the highpoint of a major war on crime, into the world’s most secure prison.
Surrounded by the cold, rough waters of the Pacific, Alcatraz was already a forbidding place before its renovations. But the redesign made it more so, implementing tougher iron bars, a series of strategically positioned guard towers, and strict rules, including a dozen checks a day of the prisoners. Escape was nearly impossible.
From 1934 until the prison was closed in 1963, 36 men tried 14 separate escapes. Nearly all were caught or didn’t survive the attempt. However, the fate of three particular inmates remains a mystery to this day.
Inmates:
Frank Morris (Left):
Frank Morris (Left):
- Was abandoned by his mother and father during his childhood, and orphaned at age 11,
- Spent most of his adolescent, formative years in foster homes.
- Was convicted of his first crime at age 13, and by his late teens had been arrested for crimes ranging from narcotics possession to armed robbery. He spent most of his early years in jail serving lunch to prisoners. As he got older he got arrested for grand larceny in Miami Beach, for stealing cars and armed robbery.
- He had various crimes of: Runaways, Breaking and Entering, Burglary, Narcotics, Armed Robbery, and Bank Robbery.
- Morris reportedly ranked in the top 2% of the general population in intelligence, as measured by IQ testing, displaying an IQ of 133.
- He served time in Florida and Georgia, then escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary while serving 10 years for bank robbery. He was recaptured a year later while committing a burglary, and sent to Alcatraz in 1960.
- Clarence was first caught breaking into a service station when he was just 14 years old.
- They began robbing banks and other establishments as a team in the early 1950s, usually targets that were closed, to ensure that no one got injured. They claimed that they used a weapon only once, during a bank heist – a toy gun.
- They were arrested in 1958 after robbing the Bank of Columbia branch in Columbia, Alabama with a toy gun together. Both received 15-to-20-year sentences, which they served at Florida State Prison, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and then Atlanta Penitentiary.
- After repeated failed attempts to escape from the Atlanta facility, the brothers were transferred to Alcatraz. John arrived on October 24, 1960, and Clarence on January 10, 1961.