Fifty Years Ago; The great escape from Alcatraz

ALCATRAZ ISLAND, Calif. — For 20th-century crime buffs, few capers match the intrigue and ingenuity of the "Escape from Alcatraz," the 1962 prison break that three inmates pulled off with stolen spoons, dummy heads and a raincoat raft. For Marie Widner and Mearl Taylor, the fabled flight from the Rock is all about family.

The two Florida women are the younger sisters of John and Clarence Anglin, who along with fellow prisoner Frank Morris, disappeared from the federal prison on Alcatraz Island 50 years ago. Whether the three men perished in chilly San Francisco Bay, as prison officials and federal agents insisted at the time, remains a subject of hot speculation because their bodies were never found.

Out of the 36 Alcatraz inmates who tried to flee before the prison was closed in March 1963, the three are the only ones who remain unaccounted for, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which maintains active arrest warrants on Morris and the Anglins.

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