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tell me uh your name and where we are okay I'm Marie Anglin wadner we're at Leesburg Georgia
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how long have you lived here 50 years we had this house built in 67. 50 years right here right here I've
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never had the One telephone number I still got it so you must know everyone in town oh
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yeah people could find me they know where I'm at for the past 50 years Marie England
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Weidner has been waiting for someone to find her she's 82 and lives on a small Road in a small town three hours south
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of Atlanta I kept trying to find the main street in town but somehow even if I was on it
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never figured out which one it was the first thing you see when you walk in the front door of Marie's house is
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pictures of her brothers it's sort of a shrine the pictures are old her brothers look like two handsome
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men in their Prime how often do you think of them all the time all the time every day
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every time I walk by my display she hasn't seen her brothers in almost 60 years she's not the only one looking for them
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growing up Marie says her family didn't have any money they lived most of the year in Florida
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her father would pick tomatoes and then in the Summers the whole family traveled
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North to pick cherries in Michigan and wherever they went her brothers John and Clarence were always getting into
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trouble little Mischief things to begin with like what like the neighbors Pete Sal had some little pigs okay so
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they were little and they wanted to play with the pigs like a toy to them so one
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of the Little Pigs got through the fence and they chased a little pig and they thought trying to catch you to play with
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it and the little pig got hot and it fell over dead [Music] that's the first trouble that you
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remember them getting into my dad had to pay for the pig I read that they were good swimmers
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growing up oh my goodness yeah they would swim across the lake and all the way back without a problem and I'm not
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sure how far it was across there but it was a long ways thank you so they would swim often oh the damn we
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go to Michigan to work big strawberries and cherries and stuff they break the ice and go swimming
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in really cold water yes yes as John and Clarence got older they got Wilder stealing tires and tractor batteries
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they'd break into cars hot wire them and go for a drive by the time Clarence was 14 he'd been
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sentenced to one year in a very rough youth facility called the state industrial school for boys
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when he got out he and John broke into a store Landing them both in the industrial school for another year
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they kept breaking into places and doing a terrible job they were caught over and
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over and sent to prisons in Alabama Florida and Georgia many times they escaped some Reports say
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they escaped from every single prison they were sent to Marie says sometimes they just walk home
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well some Mama's cooking want some two older sisters were good Cooks always when they would show up with your
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mother your sister say oh no not again not again God 1958 John and Clarence along with their
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older brother Alfred rented a cabin and came up with a plan to rob a bank John stayed in the getaway car while
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Clarence and Alfred went in with a toy pistol well I thought it was awful and I thought well it's a miracle that didn't
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get hurt because they did have a toy pistol but the people in the bank did not know
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it was a toy pistol I mean you know it looked real to them and they were afraid I'm sure they were
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afraid but one of the uh ladies in the bank she almost fainted and my oldest brother
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Alfred he gets he stops everything he gets water for her to drink they never have hurt anybody
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um do you remember were your parents alive when this happened do you remember what
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your parents reaction was oh yeah they were alive and they were devastated you know about the bank robbery in fact
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John always wanted Mama to have a electric washing machine okay so he went and bought Mama a
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washing machine and put it on the porch in the back and when my mama saw it she said and she had
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all then she had heard about the bank robbery she told John she says you take it away I don't want it it was bought
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with bad money and John had to move it she want to have it all three brothers were arrested for
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bank robbery and sent to prison in Atlanta but John and Clarence kept trying to escape and were eventually
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transferred to Leavenworth Kansas in 1960 Clarence tried to help John smuggle himself out of Leavenworth in a
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big bread box that was the last straw John was sent to Alcatraz Clarence joined him three months later
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after a letter smuggling incident Alcatraz became a federal prison in 1934 1934 it was a military base in prison on
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an island more than a mile off the coast of San Francisco the water in San Francisco Bay is very
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cold and the currents are strong it was said to be escape proof the government was sending a message not only to high
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profile inmates like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly but also to problem inmates people like John and Clarence
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who were determined to escape the idea was you could not Escape from Alcatraz my sister had wrote to John and
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asked John how was the ride out to Alcatraz he said well the ride was good but it was going the wrong way
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John was only at Alcatraz for 20 months Clarence was there for 17. and I was ironing and I had the radio on and they
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broke into the news channel you know there and told about the escape from Alcatraz and I said I know that was John
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and Clarence before they ever told it I said that's them they got out of there foreign
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I was teasing the Marshalls and I I said I know one that didn't like Alcatraz the beds were too hard
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I just I wonder when you heard that two people had escaped if you thought oh no they they must be dead because no
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one had you know because everyone who tried drowned did is that was that what your worry no not one bit I was not
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worried about I know there were good swimmers it's been 55 years and Marie believes
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her brothers made it to the shore and are still out there somewhere they would be 86 and 87 years old today
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two old men paling around outsmarting everyone especially the one U.S Marshal who's
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still on the case what did you think when you were told this was going to be your new assignment
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um I didn't want it they were thinking why me yeah exactly Mike Dyke is a supervisory Deputy with
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the U.S Marshals about 15 years ago he was handed thousands of files tissue thin pieces of paper fragments various
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law enforcement agencies have been collecting since 1962. he says the U.S Marshal Service will
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keep going after a fugitive no matter what until they turn 99 years old then the marshals back off if you've
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made it that far I guess you gotta pass and Mike Dyke says he still gets tips about the whereabouts of John and
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Clarence every year I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal thank you foreign [Music] and this big limousine I call it drove
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up and this man got out with a big book and he said are you Marie angling Weidner and I said I am and I said who
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are you and he said I'm the FBI and I said what do you want with me and this was after they got out
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he said well I wanted to know if if you know where your brothers are and I said well if I did I wouldn't tell you
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I would not tell you if I knew where they are and he said I said by the way how long will y'all be looking for my
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brothers and he said 100 years from now and I said well good luck so he closed his book got in the car and left
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were you waiting for your brothers to contact you oh yeah I'm still waiting sure I would love for him to contact me
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have they ever tried they were spotted at Mama's funeral dress like women and then when my dad died they were
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spotted at the funeral home two hours before the family was supposed to be there
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and they went down to view the body hats beard long coats didn't say a word didn't sign a book
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that stood there about 15 minutes this lady told us and then they left that's a wild story that they showed up
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in women's clothing for your mother's funeral I believe it the lady that told us she would not lie
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she spotted him she didn't tell anybody but she spotted him she told the family afterwards after the funeral
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you know they like to take chances but they like I do think nobody else would do
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I would assume for for a woman like you um of your age and your position in the community and
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everything else your faith that you take lying pretty seriously oh yeah oh yes I do absolutely
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and so you would have no reason to to believe that all these stories weren't true that you've been hearing oh they
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were true they were true they come from reliable source they have a photo that was given to them
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years ago which they say shows the two brothers in Brazil they're middle-aged and based on the open shirts and
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sunglasses looks to me like it was the 70s Mike Dyke says the photo isn't at all
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conclusive he had it analyzed and it didn't persuade him but if the brothers were smart enough to get out of the
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escape proof prison maybe they were smart enough to hide out all this time they were discovered missing early in
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the morning of June 12 1962. as The Story Goes prison guards tried to wake up John Anglin and he wouldn't wake
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up they poked him and his head rolled off the bed guards went into clarence's cell and
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again found a paper mache head on the pillow another one in the bed of a third man Frank Morris
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the guards sounded the alarm but the men were already off the island the Escape triggered the greatest
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Manhunt in San Francisco's history as agents of the FBI Coast Guardsmen Highway Patrol sheriff's deputies and
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local police join in the search whatever their fate the three convicts have apparently accomplished a feat that many
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have tried with no success I'm just gonna say it their escape was ingenious they've been planning it for months the
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three men along with a fourth named Alan West sharpened spoons and started chipping away at the backs of their
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cells they made a drill from the motor of a broken vacuum cleaner and loosened the grills over their cell air vents so
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they were able to enlarge the holes in the back herself and they made what they did they out of cardboard they made
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false grills that matched the existing vent in the back and it covered up the larger hole they made and since West was
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on the you know the crew to do maintenance he had access to paint so you know they put the cardboard Grill
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back in the hole put soap around it to fill in the crack and then they'd paint over it and you really couldn't tell
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unless you went up and looked right at it that that was a larger hole than the the vent that was originally there the
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holes and fake vent grills allowed them to leave their cells freely at night and
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they set up shop Behind the Walls in an unused utility space guards seemed unaware exist it and uh you know once
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they were out of the backs of their cells uh they were able to you know climb up and they collected raincoats uh
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from various prisoners who would give them up and there was no count of raincoat so a prisoner could go get a
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raincoat and then the next day he can go get another raincoat and another raincoat because nobody kept track of
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him because you know who's gonna who's gonna worry about raincoats on an island so the um uh they were able to collect
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uh 40 50 60 raincoats and mostly using the backs of the raincoats they were able to
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make pontoons for a raft and life vests they created mouthpieces to inflate the life
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jackets and to inflate the raft they used a concertina that type of accordion as a kind of bellows
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from what I from what I understand this was a kind of a whole prison effort there were a lot of people
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rooting for these guys and helping out uh yeah so basically most of the prisoners knew about it the the majority
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of them knew about it and they were just able to keep their mouths shut once the men had figured out how to get
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out of their cells they started focusing on how to get out of the building the ceiling was about 30 feet high FBI Files
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show they created a periscope so they could keep watch and they were using like a steam line to help vulcanize you
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know to provide heat to help help cure the the seals on the on the on the glue when they're when they're putting the
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life vest together and you know as far as what the quality of what they made you know one of the life vests there
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there's one life best left behind and uh when FBI took that as evidence they tested it and they filled it with air in
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a lab and they put a weight on it and that held air indefinitely it didn't even leak so it was actually fairly well
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made in order to make the guards think they were asleep in their cells the men put the paper mache heads on their
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pillows Marie says Clarence worked in the barber shop and collected hair to make them as lifelike as possible even
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giving them eyelashes she says the requested paint sets so they could make portraits of their
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girlfriends back home they use that paint to give their dummy heads facial features but they also really did paint
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their girlfriends Marie has the portraits in her house I saw them they're actually very very good
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originally all four men were gonna leave together but on the night of the Escape
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Alan West had trouble with the vent in his cell he couldn't go and when it came out that he was involved the FBI probed
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him and they learned a lot this is how we know what we do know about the Escape West did describe the raft as like 14
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feet each the two pontoons were 14 feet long and about 15 to 16 inches in diameter
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uh and then the other pontoon was uh about six feet long so we figured it was like a triangle like an isosceles type
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triangle uh shape raft and they supposedly put a piece of canvas across the bottom of it uh to help support
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their weight and it also made some paddles uh to help paddle away at 10 30 pm on June 11th the guards
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heard a loud noise Mike Dykes as it was described like a hand beating a 55-gallon drum and we assume that's the
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time when they were actually able to dislodge the cover on the vent on top of the building and there's no real way
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nothing else they could have done with it except push it up and push it over and it would have landed on the roof and
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made some noise so that's sensible that that's what time they actually got out of the building the group most likely
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went to the very North End of the building where there was a stove pipe that they could shimmy down and there's
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some dislodged barbed wire on a fence right outside of there that shows you know they
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they went up over the fence there and then up over another fence and then once they're after that fence there was
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really nothing left that they had to defeat except the water believed that they didn't inflate their
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raft until they were at the water's edge and that they set out not from Mainland
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San Francisco but for Angel Island West said their plan was to steal a real boat then steal a car then head east
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there's no way they could have known what the ties were going to do uh the Wrath they made
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who knows how watertight that was and there was a paddle found near Angel Island so about 24 hours after they
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would have escaped out of their cells and out of the building a a paddle was found and it was matching a paddle that
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was left on top of the cell block for West uh so we know it's one of the panels for
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them but it was found near Angel Island Days Later a packet of letters sealed in
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rubber and thought to have belonged to the men was found and a homemade life jacket washed up not far from Golden
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Gate Bridge you could drop 20 things floating things in the bay and all of them would end up in different locations
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that's the whole you know that's the whole problem with trying to judge where things are going to end up
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well I think they made it well good for you what do you think what makes everything
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you think that well you've just told me about a wonderful plan that they were able to execute there I mean
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I I don't know I mean why wouldn't they have made it it sounds fantastic the whole thing uh you know once they went
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in the water obviously nobody knows what happened um no bodies were ever recovered
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but also on the same note uh there's been no positive proof that any of them lived so
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Marie says they do have proof a piece of leather with a horse on it it was delivered to Alfred Clarence and
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John's oldest brother in prison after the brothers escaped from Alcatraz she showed it to me it's small the size
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of a picture frame Marie says the stitching on the edges of the leather is unmistakably clearance is stitching and
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perfectly matches the stitching on a leather wallet he made it Alcatraz but more importantly she pointed out a
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small slit in the side of the leather where she says Clarence and John left a secret note for Alfred
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when the three brothers were little they figured out how to use milk to write on
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blank paper to pass messages back and forth without their father seeing he said when he took the note out
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there was nothing on it struck a match to it held it over the commode and then you could read it as it burned
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and it told him told him where the boys were Alfred died shortly after he received
00:21:01
that horse he was electrocuted trying to escape from a prison in Alabama officials said it was an accident his
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body made contact with an electrified fence in an attempt to climb over it as for Frank Morris the third man who
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escaped with John and Clarence we don't know anything in 2010 Mike Dyke started looking at
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bones that had washed up in 1963 nine months after the escape a pelvis with two femurs attached
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it was a male Mike Dyke contacted the Anglin family and got DNA it wasn't a match
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Frank Morris has no living blood relatives that Mike Dyke could locate so he was stuck he describes it as a broken
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chain what would happen if you caught the brothers today uh well just like any any
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criminal any guy Fusion we catch they're going to go to court you know we'll we'll arrest them and then the U.S
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attorneys would decide whether you know it's worth the trouble to prosecute them you know
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because they are they would be very old men now if they're still alive and uh is
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it worth the trouble to prosecute them because they obviously stayed out of trouble for the last 55 years as far as
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we can tell uh and you'll you know as far as that's concerned as well I mean if if any of
00:22:24
them were still alive all three of those guys would have reoffended in some way shape
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or form because they're all career criminals there's nothing there's no indication whatsoever that they would
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have turned over a new Leaf right after that escape and because they've all escaped before and every time they've
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reoffended ferment uh their sister Marie Marie uh yeah Marie with Marie Whitner yeah I met her
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really believes that her brothers made it and I can I can understand her position on that because it's your
00:22:57
brother if my brother you know if my brother disappeared and um I didn't know whether he lived or died I'd still try
00:23:05
and I was I would feel the same way I would think my brothers might be still alive somewhere or try to anyway unless
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there was some proof otherwise and she's in the England family is in the same boat I am they have no evidence either
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way whether they made it or whether they died so and maybe if I can prove something one way or other you know it
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might give closure to everybody what would you do if you saw them again oh my goodness
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I probably couldn't get through hugging them okay I don't know how much I love them
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how do you imagine their lives after the Escape where do you see them and what do
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you think their life was like well I used to dream about them a lot and they were every time they were in a
00:23:54
big white house in the side of a mountain and a lot of clay around I they were happy
00:24:05
when I tell you I'm in my dream [Music] so I would always hope that that's probably what happened
00:24:15
[Music] criminal is produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Corey
00:24:45
schreeppel and Rob Byers our intern is matild erfilino Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode
00:24:53
of Criminal you can see them at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show Criminal is
00:25:00
recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a
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collection of the best podcasts around radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight foundation and thanks to adserc
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for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
00:25:26
foreign [Music] [Music]