Description:

Alcatraz

Anglin Brother, John William Anglin ALS – Escapee From Alcatraz

Single page ALS on lined paper, 8" x 8.75". Undated. Twice signed by John Williams Anglin as "Love John", and "John William Anglin 25034" . Page has been neatly trimmed along the top edge. Tiny stain mid page, and expected folds. Near fine. Accompanied by incredible provenance from one of the Anglin siblings, Marie Widner, and was additionally authenticated via the known public exemplars. Fifty years after the prison break, the sisters of the jail birds are still unequivocal in their faith that their siblings survived the treacherous crossing to the shore from the iconic San Francisco penitentiary. 

 

A scarce surviving elusive letter by one of the three escapees from Alcatraz. The Escape from Alcatraz, (an escape so fascinating that it was portrayed in a movie of the same name, starring Clint Eastwood)  is the only successful escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in its history. The incredible event began with four inmates formulating an escape strategy, under the leadership of Morris, the most intelligent of the four, after they were assigned adjacent cells in December 1961. (The men may have known one another previously, at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta as well.)  Working at night over the subsequent six months, they gradually widened ventilation duct openings in their cells' walls, using saw blades they found discarded on the prison grounds, spoons stolen from the commissary, and a drill improvised from the motor of a broken vacuum cleaner. They concealed the holes with cardboard and paint, and their work noise with Morris’s accordion playing.

 

The widened holes opened into an unguarded utility corridor behind the cell tier. From the corridor they climbed to the roof of their cell block, inside the building, where they set up a small workshop. There, they assembled a variety of stolen and donated materials, including more than 50 raincoats that they turned into makeshift life preservers and a 6-by-14-foot (1.8 by 4.3 m) rubber raft, the seams carefully stitched together and sealed with heat from nearby steam pipes. They stole a small accordion-like concertina from another inmate to serve as a bellows to inflate the raft, and built makeshift paddles from scrap wood. Finally, they climbed a ventilation shaft leading to a large fan and grille on the roof and cut away the rivets holding both in place.

The men concealed their absences while working outside their cells—and after the escape itself—by sculpting dummy heads from a home-made papier-mache like mixture of soap and toilet paper, and giving them a realistic appearance with paint from the maintenance shop and hair from the barbershop floor. With towels and clothing piled under the blankets in their bunks and the dummy heads positioned on the pillows, they appeared to be sleeping peacefully. On the night of June 11, 1962, with all preparations completed, the men initiated their escape. West had used cement to shore up crumbling concrete around his vent opening, and it had hardened, narrowing the hole and fixing the grill in place. By the time he was able to remove the grill and re-widen the hole sufficiently, the others had left without him; he returned to his cell and went to sleep. West later cooperated fully with investigators, giving them a detailed description of the escape plan, and as a result was not punished for his role in it.

 

This letter from John William Anglin was penned to his mother. The letter, written while he was still in jail (based on the fact he signed once casually, and a second time in full name and inmate number from his time spent in the US Penitentiary in Pennsylvania),  is shown in part below. The frequent grammatical errors were not corrected, nor indicated with the use of [sic:

 

"Hello Mom,

How is everyone? I got Pat's letter, and I'm a little late answering it. Just want you to know that I'm Ok, and I hope all of you are to, I had a letter from Al and he seams to be doing Ok to. I'm gona write both of them this week

Well … looks like Summer is coming again, it rains quit a bit but we are having a few warm days out of each week now, sure has been a long Winter … give my best to all the kids, sure do miss everyone. If your wondering why I'm not writing verry often it's pretty simple, it makes me lonesome when I write, I get to thinking of everyone and that’s the way it goes … well take it easy and don’t worry guess I.ll close for now …"

 

This phenomenal story as an equally intriguing conclusion.

 

In a History Channel documentary, the Anglin family who has always insisted the brothers survived, gave filmmakers a photograph that they claim proves John and Clarence Anglin were living on a farm in Brazil in 1975 - and could still be alive today. It was the most dramatic piece of evidence presented in the film, which put forward the theory that the prisoners 'body-surfed' behind a ferry leaving Alcatraz after digging out of their cells with spoons and then were picked up by a criminal associate and taken to freedom. The picture depicts two men in sunglasses standing alongside a road - and a forensic expert strongly believes it is the escapees. Michael Streed analyzed the facial structures and compared them to two images of the convicts. He then passed on his findings to Art Roderick, a retired U.S. Marshall investigator who had been in charge of the probe into the men's disappearance for 20 years during its half-century history. Roderick told the Anglin family that it was 'very likely' the two men in the picture are John and Clarence Anglin. 

 

In addition, the family of the escapees provided Christmas cards John would supposedly send his family every year. All had his prison number and a stamp, however the family insist they were sent three more in the years after the escape which had no prison marking and which maintain the same hand writing as the others. But the most intriguing evidence was the incredible story told by Brizzi, who knew the brothers before their prison days, stated he met the two in Brazil and it was there that they told him they body surfed behind a boat. However the belief that is more credible is that Brizzi himself, with his criminal background in shipping narcotics, could have manned the boat and helped them get across the San Francisco Bay. His theory is backed up by a witness, Officer Robert Checchi, who was having a cigarette at a yacht club overlooking the Bay after his shift in Alcatraz. He looked out over the water after midnight and saw a white boat with no fishing rods or sails laying still for around 30 minutes. All of a sudden, it started moving towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The FBI discounted his account at the time.

 

This elusive mystery will never be uncovered as the jail birds are still on the most wanted list. The U.S. Marshals, who have been searching for the trio ever since, only close a case if the suspect is arrested, they have proof of death or they reach the age of 99. 

 

This incredible letter is the first we have ever seen available for sale.

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