Alcatraz is named for sea birds.īefore criminals became its denizens, the windswept island was home to large colonies of brown pelicans. Their possessions were found floating in San Francisco Bay, but no bodies were ever recovered, leading some to speculate that they may have engineered a successful escape. The other five went missing and were presumed drowned, including Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, whose 1962 attempted breakout inspired the 1979 film “Escape from Alcatraz.” The crafty trio chipped away at the rotting concrete cell walls with sharpened spoons and fashioned decoy heads complete with used locks of hair from the barbershop that they placed in their beds to fool the guards. Of those convicts, 23 were captured, six were shot to death and two drowned. There were no confirmed prisoner escapes from Alcatraz.Ī total of 36 inmates put the supposedly “escape-proof” Alcatraz to the test. 85 became so cooperative that he was permitted to play banjo in the Alcatraz prison band, the Rock Islanders, which gave regular Sunday concerts for other inmates. “It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked,” he reportedly told his warden. Capone had bribed guards to receive preferential treatment while serving his tax-evasion sentence in Atlanta, but that changed after his transfer to the island prison. The notorious gangster and mob boss was among the first prisoners to occupy the new Alcatraz federal prison in August 1934. Al Capone played banjo in the inmate band.
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