Three men spent six months digging holes in their crumbling cell wall at Alcatraz, armed only with spoons and forks.
Robbers John Anglin, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris would escape the notorious jail in California.
Whether they made it safely to freedom or perished in the freezing, shark-infested waters of San Francisco Bay has puzzled investigators since the night of June 11, 1962.
The FBI closed the case in 1979.
But family claim to have had contact from the Anglins down the years.
Now artist’s impressions of how the men might look today – in their 90s if alive – have been released.
And marking the 60th anniversary of the incident, the mystery could finally be solved once and for all as DNA testing will reveal if the Anglins went on to father children in South America.
A TV documentary this week is set to reveal the truth about the trio, who snuck out of the jail in the dead of night.
They made their way from the prison roof to the water’s edge carrying a makeshift raft crafted from 50 pilfered cotton raincoats. Painted papier-mâché heads topped with hair collected from the prison barber shop floor fooled guards into believing they were asleep in bed.
David Widner, a nephew of the Anglins, today insists the brothers did make it to freedom and talks about the potential DNA breakthrough.
He says a Discovery Channel crew headed by his retired brother Ken, 60, and TV presenter Josh Gates discovered a hideout in Brazil.
And his family is awaiting DNA tests that could show his uncles settled down and had wives and children.
In an exclusive interview, David, 55, reveals: “My brother Ken just travelled to Brazil to see if he could locate family members there, including John and Clarence’s kids.
"They did some DNA tests and were able to locate the house where they were living.
"They’re still working on the DNA and I have to be careful what I say but a lot more is going to be revealed when the show airs on Wednesday.
"I don’t know if I will ever get to meet my uncles, but I do hope to meet their kids.”
David claims a cover-up was launched to protect the fearsome reputation of the jail, known as The Rock. It closed in 1963.
In Alcatraz’s 30-year history, there were 14 escape bids. Some 23 men were caught alive, six were shot and killed, and two drowned attempting the 1.25-mile swim to shore through brutal currents. Five, including the Anglins and Morris, are listed as “missing and presumed drowned”.
But David’s mother Marie, 87, believes her brothers did make it. Father-of-two David, a safety manager from Leesburg, Georgia, says: “I was eight when the FBI started coming to my house to ask my mum questions.
"They always asked, ‘Have you heard from your brothers?’ And she always told them, ‘No, I have not and if I did I wouldn’t tell you anything’.
“I can’t say my mum kept in touch with them, but I am certain other family members did.”
The Anglins had 12 siblings, born into grinding poverty in Ruskin, on the outskirts of Tampa Bay, Florida. Their father Robert was a farm worker, while mother Rachael was a housewife.
The brothers lived close to the ocean and would bunk off school to go swimming – a pastime that could serve them well on Alcatraz.
David adds: “Growing up, they wanted more out of life and they were incredibly talented boys. They were not book smart, but they were street smart, and they stole to be able to afford clothes.
“They started robbing little places here and there in the 1950s, but it was always after hours when they broke in. But they only robbed one bank and got caught. My mother said the family went to visit Clarence in a prison in Florida one Sunday.
"And they had only been back home an hour or so when they got a phone call – he had broken out and wanted to be picked up.
“My uncles ended up in Atlanta Penitentiary and were transferred to Alcatraz after making multiple unsuccessful escape attempts. Mum said she was doing the ironing one day when it came over the radio that there had been an escape from the Rock.
“This was 18 months after they had been sent there and she knew right away it was them because they were like Houdini. No matter where you put them, they managed to break out.”
The Anglins and Morris were reportedly aided by mobsters Mickey Cohen and “Whitey” Bulger, who arranged for a boat to collect them from the Bay.
Their story inspired the 1979 film Escape From Alcatraz.
Clint Eastwood played bank robber Morris, who had an IQ of 133, putting him in the smartest 2% in the population. It was years later that a drug smuggler called Fred Brizzi, now dead, claimed he had flown the fugitives to Mexico soon after their escape.
He also said he bumped into them in a bar in Rio de Janeiro in 1975. But it was 1992 before he handed a photo of the brothers to their family – saying they ran a farm and were in good health.
It is not clear what happened to Morris. Another twist came when it was leaked in 2018 that US authorities had been sitting on a letter reportedly written by John Anglin five years earlier.
The note, sent to police in San Francisco in 2013, said: “My name is John Anglin. I escape [sic] from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris. I’m 83 years old and in bad shape. I have cancer. Yes we all made it that night but barely! Frank passed away in October 2005.
“His grave is in Alexandria under another name. My brother died in 2011.
“If you announce on TV that I will be promised to first go to jail for no more than a year and get medical attention, I will write back to let you know exactly where I am. This is no joke, this is for real and honest truth.”
David says family received Christmas cards and cassette tape messages from the brothers for years. Alcatraz is now a museum and two of the Anglins’ sisters – Mearl and David’s mother Marie – visited it in 2012 on the 50th anniversary of the jailbreak.
David is speaking out after the US Marshals Service, which took over the case from the FBI, released the new photofits. He adds: “I don’t know why they released these photofits now – my family tell me they don’t look anything like them. My uncle Robert revealed on his deathbed that he stayed in touch with them for 25 years, until 1987.
“Also, my gran told me they knocked on her window shortly after the escape to let her know they were OK – but couldn’t stay because the FBI was watching the house.
“My uncles knew you never look back or you end up caught. What happened has been a mystery for years, but once we find their kids it’s going to be case closed.”
