JOHN ANGLIN
also an armed robber, from time together in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta.
Morris was credited by prison officials as the brains behind the breakout, which had been meticulously planned.
The inmates even made electric drills to power through the walls using motors stolen from hair clippers and a vacuum system.
At 9.30pm on June 11, 1962, immediately after lights-out, Morris brought the papier-mache dummies out of their hiding place and told the brothers they were to leave that night.
Leaving a fourth man involved in the plot behind, they climbed 30ft up the plumbing pipes to the roof, crept 100ft across the top, and then carefully climbed down 50ft of pipe to the ground near the entrance to the shower area.
This would be the last anyone ever heard of Morris and the Anglin Brothers. A pile of bones on the coast was believed to be their final remains but the Widners have never believed that.
For three years the Anglins’ mother received a Christmas card to her home in Florida, signed by her sons. Handwriting experts believed it to be genuine. The only doubt was that the dates on the cards, which had stamps from Alcatraz, could never be verified.
Further proof of their escape came from inmate Whitey Bulger, who wrote to the Widners after he was jailed for life saying he had given tips to their uncles on how to escape.
“He taught them that when you disappear, you have to cut all ties,” said Ken Widner. “He told me in a letter, ‘ This is the mistake that I made.’ He told me, ‘ These brothers undoubtedly had done exactly what I told them to do.
Ken commissioned a forensic expert to analyse the picture, and he concluded it was “highly likely” the men in the photo are indeed John and Clarence Anglin.
After looking into the criminal background of Brizzi, the man who claims to have taken the photography, officials now suspectsthe Anglins’ childhood friend may have had a hand in their escape.
At first, US marshals doubted the new account. But the Widners added credibility to the incredible story by playing investigators a recording of Brizzi, who explained how the pair escaped. He recalled how during his visit to Brazil the Anglins went down to a lake near their farm, attached a rope to a boat rudder and then body-surfed behind it on the water. He asked whether that was how they had made their escape from Alcatraz and they said yes. The explanation does carry some weight, because the last passenger ferry left just after midnight on the night of the jailbreak.
Investigators later said 120ft of electrical wire had been reported missing afterwards and now it’s believed the three men tied it to the back of the boat. The new evidence was enough to spur Art Roderick to line up new interviews in the case and he is talking to the US Marshals Service about investigating in Brazil.
“I truly believe we’re going to close it,” he added.