🚨June 12, 1962 - Three Alcatraz convicts used spoons to dig and cut their way out of the island penitentiary in San Francisco Bay early today. Whether they escaped to the mainland, drowned, or found hiding places along the island’s waterline was not determined. Helicopters, patrol boats, and roadblocks were used in the search, which covered the Golden Gate, bay islands, and the hilly Marin County shoreline north of Alcatraz. The missing convicts were Frank L. Morris (pictured), 35 years old, and John Anglin, 32, and Clarence Anglin, 31, brothers. The break was believed to have been masterminded by Morris, who has an I.Q. of 133. Average I.Q. is considered to range between 90 and 110. Using spoons, they dug through the four-inch concrete wall of their cellblock over a period of many months. Within easy visual range of guards in the gun galleries around the prison, they loosened rivets in a five-foot section of ventilator to prepare for their flight. They postponed discovery of their escape by the use of dummy heads — complete with human hair apparently collected from the floor of the prison barber shop — in their beds. Officials said evidence indicated the fugitives used an improvised raft or driftwood to get away from the rocky island. The nearest shore is Marina Green on San Francisco’s northern edge, one-and-one-quarter miles to the south.
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