Alcatraz: The Escape-Proof Prison That Lost Three Men

On the morning of 12 June 1962, a guard on the count at Alcatraz reached through the bars of a cell and pushed a sleeping man's shoulder. The head rolled off the pillow and broke its nose on the floor. It was made of soap, toothpaste, concrete dust and toilet paper, finished with real human hair from the prison barbershop. Two more like it were in the cells next door. Three men were gone from the prison the United States had built precisely so that nobody could leave it. This is the full history of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, told from the records. The Spanish naming of 1775 and the first lighthouse on the West Coast. The Army fort, the Civil War prisoners and the sixty-five years as a military prison. The 1933 handover to the Justice Department and the rebuild that gave the island tool-proof steel, gun galleries, metal detectors and tear gas in the ceiling of the dining hall. Warden James Johnston and the rule of silence. The four rights, the thirteen counts a day, the nine-by-five cell and the six-by-nine-inch vent nobody worried about. D block and the cell with a hole in the floor for a toilet. Al Capone as prisoner 85, and Robert Stroud — the "Birdman of Alcatraz" who was never allowed to keep a bird on Alcatraz. Then the escape record the slogan never mentioned: fourteen attempts, thirty-six men, five of them still listed as missing and presumed drowned. Cole and Roe walking into the fog in 1937. John Paul Scott, who reached Fort Point under the Golden Gate in December 1962 — the only man known for certain to have swum it. The Battle of Alcatraz in May 1946, the bar spreader, key 107 and the Marines on the roof. And the night of 11 June 1962 — the sharpened spoons, the vacuum-motor drill, the painted cardboard grilles, the dummy heads, the raft built from fifty stolen raincoats, and the fourth man whose cement set too hard. The FBI closed its investigation on 31 December 1979, concluding the three men most likely drowned. The United States Marshals Service disagreed. Their file is still open today. Every event in this documentary is drawn from official records and archives — including the Federal Bureau of Prisons history of Alcatraz, the FBI case file, National Park Service records, and contemporary press reporting on the closure of 1963. Archival photographs from the Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress), the National Archives, the National Park Service and the FBI; all public domain, credits shown on screen. Chapters: — The Morning Count: three heads made of soap — The Rock: how an island became a prison for prisons — Four Rights: life inside the most counted prison in America — The Hole in the Wall: fourteen escape attempts and one that worked — Never No Good: the closure, the occupation, and the file that stays open Selected sources: · Federal Bureau of Prisons — Alcatraz, 1934–1963 · FBI — Alcatraz Escape, famous cases file · National Park Service — Alcatraz Island, Golden Gate National Recreation Area · UPI archive, 21 March 1963 — "Last Alcatraz inmates depart" · PBS, Secrets of the Dead — The Alcatraz Escape · Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS CAL,38-ALCA,1 — Library of Congress · National Archives and Records Administration — Alcatraz records 0:00 The place 2:14 James A. Johnston 10:27 Robert Stroud 13:40 The Battle of Alcatraz 19:27 The federal file 21:55 Frank Weatherman Grim Corridors — documented history of prisons and institutions, built from archival records and primary sources. #History #Prison #Documentary