Did Convicts Escape From `The Rock?' -- Ex-Prisoner's Story Reopens Alcatraz Case

RUSKIN, Fla. - Are you reading this, Clarence and John?

Thirty-one years ago, two Florida brothers wriggled out of Alcatraz and into legend. Despite tantalizing hints over the years that they might still be alive, they were officially presumed dead, their life insurance policies paid off and the search for them went dormant.

Now an ex-convict who says he was in on the plot has come forward with new details of the daring escape, facts that are changing some presumptions about Clarence and John Anglin.

The U.S. Marshals Service has reactivated its search. A $1 million reward has been offered by a company that ferries tourists to Alcatraz. Even federal Bureau of Prisons officials, who steadfastly maintained for years that the Anglins and an accomplice named Frank Morris drowned in frigid San Francisco Bay, are now admitting they're not so sure.

Clarence and John Anglin were two of 14 children born to George and Rachel Anglin, farm workers who lived in Ruskin.

As teens, the boys worked in canning plants around Tampa but wanted a faster life. They started with petty larceny and worked their way up. Clarence did his first reform school sentence at 14 and John followed about a year later.

During the prison stints to follow, the Anglins became escape artists. They busted out of at least six reform schools, prison camps or road gangs. Eventually, they wound up in maximum security for breaking and entering.

In 1958, the brothers went big time, robbing a little bank in Columbia, Ala., with toy pistols and gentlemanly manners. When a customer fainted, Clarence knelt and fanned her face until she recovered.

Eventually they were sent to Alcatraz. The warden let them live side-by-side, cells 150 and 152.

Alcatraz opened in 1934 with Al Capone among the first prisoners. The place was chilly, forlorn, often shrouded with fog. The rules said no candy, no newspapers, no parole.

One tier of cells had a commanding view of San Francisco shimmering across the bay. The view was depressing, a glistening jewel perpetually out of reach. Alcatraz, everyone said, was escape-proof.

At the 6 a.m. cell check on June 12, 1962, the Anglin brothers weren't stirring from their cots. Neither was Frank Morris down in cell 138.

The cell ventilation holes had been widened, then filled with putty to look natural. The convicts' trail led into a utility pipe tunnel and out a ventilation shaft atop the cellhouse.

From there, they shimmied down a drainpipe and went over two 12-foot fences. Steep cliffs blocked the view from the gun towers. The tide was running away from the island there from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m.

In Cell 140, next to Morris, was Allen West. A shakedown of the cellhouse quickly showed the 4-inch-thick concrete around his vent was carved out, too.

He told authorities he was supposed to go with the others but he couldn't fit through his vent. He finally got out hours later, only to get stuck on the roof because a guard wouldn't turn his gaze from the escape route. At the first sign of dawn, he crept back down to his cell and waited for the inevitable.

West, a prison painter, told authorities they had gnawed through the concrete with spoons. He said he sewed together a crude raft from prison raincoats.

Before departing for a long stretch in solitary, West said only the four of them were in on the plot. He said the plan was to go to the mainland, steal a car and take off wherever the road led.

West died in Florida State Prison at Raiford in 1978 after getting paroled, then getting into trouble in Florida. He never changed his story.

On June 17, 1962, a floating plastic bag full of names and addresses of people the inmates intended to contact was found bobbing near the Golden Gate Bridge by the Coast Guard. James Bennett, director of the federal Bureau of Prisons, said it was convincing proof that the men had drowned. The hunt wound down. The men were presumed dead.

And with that, the myth of the invincible Alcatraz was preserved.

Thomas Kent is an Alcatraz alumnus who was there during the escape. He says West lied, to throw the police off the trail and to protect fellow cons who played support roles.

He has come forward now, he says, to set the record straight. He told his story to a nationwide audience for the first time on a special recent broadcast of "America's Most Wanted." He's writing a book, as well.

Kent says he dropped out of the escape because he couldn't swim but was one of a handful of inmates who helped guide the conspirators.

"There were eight in the `inner circle,' and I am the last one left alive," Kent told the Miami Herald. In all, he said, 38 other inmates played roles in the breakout and 100 more knew something about it. They all respected West for taking the blame, sparing them.

Among the new facts Kent has contributed to the record:

-- The digging was done during the music hour, when inmates would practice. Fellow cons took up instruments to mask the noise and send messages - a certain song would signal trouble, alerting the plotters to get back to their cells.

-- Instead of using spoons to dig out the walls, the conspirators made a drill from a vacuum-cleaner motor.

-- The raincoat pontoon raft wasn't sewn crudely, as West led authorities to believe. It was professionally sewn in the shops and treated with waterproof glue.

-- Clarence Anglin had an old girlfriend lined up to meet them on shore near Tiburon and drive them to Mexico. From there, they were to head to South America. The inmates learned Spanish from a Berlitz self-taught book from the prison library.

"Kent's testimony has shed new light," said Dave Branham, spokesman for the U.S. Marshals office. "It gives strong credence to the probability that they did escape.

"The stuff about learning Spanish is new. And the story confirms some suspicions about the Anglin brothers maybe having a girlfriend who assisted."

Back in Ruskin, the Anglins' eldest brother doubts they will ever turn up.

"I want to believe that they made it," said George Robert Anglin Jr., 67.