A fourth conspirator, Allen West, failed in his escape attempt and remained on the island. Hundreds of leads were pursued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement officials in the ensuing years, but no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced favoring the success or failure of the attempt.

The fate of the fourth Alcatraz escapee, Allen West, remains officially unknown, but he did not successfully escape the island with the other three men on June 11, 1962.

Here’s a breakdown of what happened:

The Escape Plan

The escape involved four inmates: Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, along with Allen West. They spent months meticulously planning, using stolen tools to widen ventilation holes in their cell walls, creating papier-mâché dummy heads to fool guards during nighttime counts, and constructing a makeshift raft and life vests from raincoats.

Allen West’s Role and Mistake

Allen West was a key planner, but on the night of the escape, he fell behind. The others had enlarged their holes enough to crawl through, but West’s opening was still partially obstructed by a hardened rivet. While the other three escaped their cells and climbed up a utility corridor to the roof, West was still frantically working to widen his hole from inside his cell.

By the time he finally broke through (over an hour late), his accomplices were gone, having already placed the dummy heads in their beds and departed. West was left behind on the island.

After the Escape

• Allen West: He returned to his cell and was discovered the next morning during the alarm. He initially denied involvement but later confessed and provided many details of the plan to investigators. He served more time and was eventually paroled in 1965. He died in 1978 of peritonitis.
• Morris and the Anglin Brothers: They vanished into San Francisco Bay that night. An extensive investigation found some personal belongings