Alcatraz Escape

On the morning of June 12, 1962, guards at Alcatraz—a federal penitentiary opened in 1933 on a desolate island in San Francisco Bay—discovered that prisoners John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris had escaped. The FBI's thorough investigation, which lasted for nearly two decades, was unable to determine whether the three men successfully escaped or died in the attempt. The files begin with the breakout in 1962 and continue through December 1979 when the FBI closed the case.