September 10, 2024 • 28 mins
Joseph Bowers is considered the first prisoner to try escaping Alcatraz, but was killed during his attempt. The next to attempt it was a pair of conspiring inmates named Ted Cole and Ralph Roe. Both men had long rap sheets and were known escape risks -- including from high security facilities. As a last resort, each was sentenced to time at the most inescapable prison in the United States: Alcatraz. With hindsight, and it's easy for us to say with time on our side, maybe they should have been kept apart, because these prisoners-in-crime totally escaped Alcatraz Island, and were never seen again.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio. Hey, before the show starts today, we have
a little bit of fun news to share. We have
had a secret. We have been working very diligently for
the past many months on creating something that a lot
(00:22):
of you have been asking for, and that is a
book of cocktails and mocktails that are told right alongside
the stories that we talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Plus additional ones that we have not talked about.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's right. This book is about half stories you have heard,
although they've been abridged, alongside their cocktails and brand news
stories that we are telling, and brand new cocktails that
we have never had before.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We are on pre order now so you can order
up and wait for it to hit in October.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
That's right. It is going to be out on October fifteenth,
and you can order it now just about anywhere books
are sold. Check out your local bookstores and see if
they're going to have it. All right, let's jump into
the episode.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Debate continues to this day as to whether Joe Bowers
was trying to escape Alcatraz or if he was trying
to end his own life. He was known to be
a loner and a bit of a desperado by his
fellow inmates. Based on his behavior, other prisoners and some
guards considered him quote criminally insane. Bowers was serving a
(01:30):
twenty five year sentence for violating postal laws when on
the afternoon of April twenty seventh, nineteen thirty six, while
working at the trash incinerator, he began to scale one
of the fences along Alcatraz Island's edge. Correctional officers commanded
him to stop, but he carried on climbing until he
was shot by prison guards as he reached the top
(01:52):
of the fence, falling some fifty to one hundred feet
to his death, down the embankment and into the bay
on the south side of the island. He is considered
the first prisoner to attempt escaping Alcatraz, but the first
to successfully make it out alive probably was a pair
of conspiring inmates named Ted Cole and Ralph Rowe, who
(02:14):
broke out in December of nineteen thirty seven. Welcome to Criminalia.
I'm Maria Tremarky.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And I'm Holly Frye. When Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, nicknamed the
Rock opened as a maximum security prison on an island
in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Officials named it
quote America's most secure prison. The former Army Barracks, which
had also once been a Spanish prison, became a federal
(02:41):
penitentiary in August of nineteen thirty four after Attorney General
Homer S. Cummings decided that would be where the worst
of the worst prisoners would be locked up. It was
designed to house less than three hundred men at a
time and to serve as the ultimate punishment for those
criminals who met a few criteria. These prisoners were those
(03:04):
who refused to conform to the rules at other federal prisons,
They were those considered to be violent and dangerous, or
they were considered escape risks. Several well known criminals, such
as al Capone and George Machine Gun Kelly, did time there.
During its three decades in operation, the infamous lock up
(03:24):
housed in total roughly fifteen hundred inmates, and in that
thirty years, thirty six of those inmates tried to escape
in fourteen separate attempts. On December sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven,
Theodore ted Cole and Ralph Rowe made their attempt.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Ted and Ralph had made the trip together from the
federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, but
they weren't a criminal duo. They never did any crimes
together and weren't actually in the same place at the
same time until they were both incarcerated at a prison
known as as Big Mac, the penitentiary located in McAllister, Oklahoma.
(04:04):
They again crossed paths while locked up at Leavenworth, but
they didn't actually meet until they were sent to the rock.
This is a story of prisoners in crime who conspired
to escape to freedom.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Ted Cole was known to be a violent criminal. He
had begun carrying out armed robberies at age fourteen. By
his early twenties, the volume and violence of his crimes
led to a death sentence, but in an unlikely case,
after he had pleaded guilty to a four hundred dollars
bottling plant robbery. It was during that trial when Tulsa
(04:40):
County District Judge Saw Jaeger speculated that Ted would eventually
turned to murder. That speculation turned a robbery trial into
a highly publicized trial, and the press nicknamed him Teddy
the terror although this was a trial about a bottling
plant robbery. Judge Yeger sentenced Ted to die in the
(05:02):
Oklahoma Electric Chair and the general public, well, they did
not agree. After all, he hadn't actually committed murder. Judge Jeger,
holding firm to his decision, explained to the court that quote,
the boy is a potential killer and deserves such a sentence.
He will not stop these types of crimes. It's in
(05:23):
his blood. After nationwide protests, primarily led by civil rights organizations,
Ted won an appeal. Instead of execution, he would serve
a reduced sentence of fifteen years in a state penitentiary.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
But once incarcerated, Judge Jyeger's assessment of him turned out
to be correct. Ted brutally murdered his cellmate, claiming self defense.
After a lengthy trial, the jury was deadlocked. The charges
against him were eventually dropped, though, and the case was
never retried in.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Ted was the kind of guy who was always scheming.
He was always scheming his next crime, and it turns
out his next prison escape. While this is a story
of a criminal duo escaping from Alcatraz, Ted escaped from
other institutions before he even got to the Island. His
first attempt at a prison break was at McAllister Penitentiary,
(06:23):
where out in the yard he simply began to climb
one of the walls until a guard shot him down.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Another time Ted hid in a garbage can to escape
his imprisonment in Oklahoma. Jaylor e Heron, taking the trash out,
was surprised when the lid on one can rose and
Ted Cole emerged.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And yet another time Ted removed his cell bars, but
he was discovered just as he stepped free from his cell.
It turned out his reputation had preceded him, and his
cell was wired with a device which amplified his every move.
He didn't know that, but it allowed the guards to
know everything he was doing.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And then there was the one that landed him at Alcatraz.
In November of nineteen thirty four, Ted stowed away in
a laundry bag, which was loaded into a truck leaving
the prison grounds, and he made his way to freedom,
unloading himself in town. The very first thing he did
was well, it wasn't under the radar, that's for sure.
(07:27):
He turned up at Cushing, Oklahoma, having taken a hostage
a pipeline worker named James Rutherford and forced him to
drive to Illinois. He had Rutherford double back into Texas,
suspecting he was being followed, where he quickly began committing
a string of robberies, and on December fifth, he was
captured in a Dallas hotel by authorities. He was sentenced
(07:49):
to fifty years for kidnapping, and he was also ultimately
recommended for imprisonment at Alcatraz, the last resort.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Ralph Rowe was a well established criminal, with a rap
sheet dating back into his teens. He had a long
prison record. He'd become an associate of the infamous outlaw
Wilburt Underhill, known during the era as quote mad Dog
of the Underworld. Underhill terrorized the American Southwest for nearly
a decade, and he was one of the most wanted
(08:21):
gangsters in Oklahoma before he and Ralph were taken down
together in December of nineteen thirty three. Wanted fugitives, federal
agents tracked them to a small cottage in Shawnee, Oklahoma,
where they were hiding out. They weren't going to allow
themselves to be taken easily, and a gun battle ensued.
(08:41):
Ralph and his girlfriend Eva May Nichols were both struck down,
and though Underhill suffered numerous gunshot wounds, he managed to escape.
He was found critically injured hiding in a nearby furniture
store and was taken to the prison hospital, where he died.
Ralph's girlfriend also later died from her wounds. Ralph, however, survived,
(09:04):
and he was sent to prison to serve out a
life sentence.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Like Ted, Ralph also had a record for trying to
escape his incarceration. His first escape attempt, for instance, was
made in nineteen twenty nine before the shootout with Underhill,
when he was a prisoner at McAllister Penitentiary. It went
like this, He sneaked himself into a wooden box. Some
stories say he was nailed in and he was shipped
(09:29):
out of the prison, but he wasn't even three hundred
yards outside the prison walls. When the confinement and the
close air inside the box became too much for him.
His panic revealed his secret hiding place, and prison guards
opened the box and locked him back up. He wasn't
sentenced to Alcatraz, though, until he was convicted of robbing
(09:50):
the Farmer's National Bank at Sulfur, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsors. Ted and Ralph didn't know each other before
b incarcerated at Alcatraz. And when we're back, we'll talk
about that fateful meeting and the escape itself.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the plan Ted
and Ralph hatched when they met in the Alcatraz mat
shop and what happened the day that they put that
plan in place.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It was on October twenty sixth, nineteen thirty five, when
Ted Cole and Ralph Rowe stepped off the McDowell that
was the official ferry boat that was operated by the
Correctional Officers of Alcatraz Island. United States Marshals rode alongside
in a Coastguard chase boat with rifles at the ready
that day. This was not a typical ride to the Rock.
(10:52):
This level of security was because that day the ferry
was carrying some of America's most aggressive criminals and escape risks.
There were Ted and Ralph, there was Doc Barker and
Thomas Limerick, who would both later die in their own
attempts to escape the Rock. Rufus McCain was also on
(11:12):
the ferry that day. He was later murdered by Henry
Young when they were both imprisoned at Alcatraz.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
A side story about Rufus McCain among inmates. His murder
was thought to have stemmed from a failed escape with
Barker and Young all over a grudge, claiming that McCain
had waited to announce until they had gotten to the
shoreline of the island that he didn't know how to swim. Okay,
back to that list.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Notorious bank robber and also known for violent prison breaks.
Homer Binkley, who was the crime partner of the infamous
Burton Phillips, was also on that same ferry. And then, yes,
it is a long list of violent criminals. On one boat,
there was another notorious bank robber aboard, John F. Good.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
When Ted and Ralph and that long list of other
notorious and notoriously violent criminals arrived at Alcatraz, it was
during a time when the prison had enacted a strict
rule of silence. Prisoners were only allowed to talk quietly
and briefly during meal and recreation periods. Talking in the
(12:21):
cell house itself would land you in what was called
the dungeon, which was located in the basement under the
cell house. Imprisonment at Alcatraz was considered hard time, very
hard time compared to other lockups. Some prisoners kept to themselves,
but neither Ted nor Ralph fell into that category.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Ralph, by all accounts, was considered a quote menace, and
he spent a lot of his time in isolation for
inciting fights among the prison population. In March of nineteen
thirty six, after serving three months in solitary confinement, Ralph
was released back to the general prison population and he
was assigned to work in the mat shop, where automobile
(13:05):
tires were shredded and made it too matts for the
United States Navy. A month or two later, after time
working in the laundry and then in the blacksmith shop,
Ted was also assigned to the mat shop and the
two of them hit it off brilliantly. And it's here
where they went from fellow prisoners to criminal duo while
(13:25):
they quietly plotted what was the first successful break from
the island. Probably successful, We will get to that.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Here's how it happened. On December sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven,
Ralph was working in the mat shop alongside twenty five
other inmates. Ted was assigned to the blacksmith shop that day,
working alongside five other inmates, including Jack Lloyd, who'd been
one of Ralph's crime partners in several Oklahoma bank heists.
(13:53):
So if it seems like a lot of these guys
knew each other, a lot of them did. During his
normal run, the corrections officer assigned to the model building,
where both the matt and Blacksmith shops were located, arrived
at one o'clock for the afternoon head count. All was
well and everyone was accounted for. Thirty minutes later, on
(14:14):
his next round, the officer quickly discovered two inmates were
missing from their workstations, and those men were Ted Cole
and Ralph Row.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
A search of the mat shop revealed that over time,
the pair had surreptitiously sawed through the iron bars of
a window with a hacksaw and then covered their tracks
with a mixture of axle grease and shoe polish. They
had then punched out panes of glass, and the steel
grill had been cut to a large enough opening for
(14:44):
a person to pass through, so that was the getaway window.
They had fled the shop with a pipe wrench to
break a lock on the wire fence that surrounded that
part of the building, and then once through, they dropped
roughly twenty feet into the waters of the bay.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
They may have been ready on the rock that morning,
but the San Francisco weather did them no favors. The
fog was dense, with visibility varying from a few hundred
feet down to zero. The water currents running through the
Golden Gate ranged from between seven and nine knots. That's
dangerous and powerful. These were considered death trap conditions for
(15:24):
anyone in that water. It's not likely that Ted and
Ralph knew about the fog and the dangerous currents, though
some do speculate they may have considered the fog to
be an asset for cover.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
The men presumably entered the water and floated to the mainland,
a journey of about a mile and a half. Authorities
later stated that in preparation for the escape, the two
inmates had constructed floats from lightweight metal, five gallon oil
drums and old tires, but they were never seen or
heard from again, dead or alive.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We are going to take a break for word from
our sponsors, and when we're back we'll talk about the
search and rescue efforts and why the FBI went all
the way to South America to look for them.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the odds of
Ted and Ralph making it to the mainland under those
terrible weather conditions.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Small groups of armed guards searched the rocky cliffs and
hideaways while searchlights lit up the slopes of the island.
All Bay District law enforcement agencies were notified by teletype
shortly after the men went missing. By six o'clock that evening,
a search of the grounds of the island was considered complete,
and Warden James Johnston stated he believed the men were
(16:53):
quote off the island. Coastguard vessels carrying out established emergency
plans for such event were instructed to stop and search
any small craft of suspicious character. Throughout the night. Fairry
Line pilots reported they hadn't observed any boats near the prison,
nor had they seen anyone swimming in the choppy water.
(17:14):
The warden also stated he did not believe either of
the men would have been able to arrange outside aid
in their escape, and that he believed it was highly
unlikely they had fled in a speedboat or any boat.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The FBI conducted extensive interviews with every correctional officer at
Alcatraz and created detailed written profiles on each of them
to rule out any inside assistance or weak points in security.
They also interviewed every prisoner. They assumed everyone and anyone
was a possible lead. An inmate named Theodore Audette, the
(17:52):
only convict to serve three separate terms on Alcatraz, later
claimed that he watched as the two inmates entered bay
and began their swim to freedom. He stated that he
saw that Ralph appeared to be struggling to stay afloat
in the currents, and he watched him disappear into the
dense fog. Ted, he said, swam into the fog and
(18:14):
then disappeared.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And yet, despite one of the most complex and exhaustive
manhunts that spanned the United States, the FBI came up
with nothing. This case has more than five hundred pages
of FBI investigative reports that are all dead ends.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Warden Johnston announced that quote serving terms tantamount to life imprisonment.
It is my belief they decided to take a desperate
chance and that they had no outside aid. I believe
they drowned and that their bodies were swept toward the
Golden Gate by the strong Ebb tide. The Assistant City
Engineer of San Francisco, Floyd Wally, who was a specialist
(18:57):
in local tides and eddies, was one of the few
to support the warden's theory, stating that the currents on
the day of the escape would have made it impossible
for the two men to reach the mainland. But no
one seemed to agree with the theory that Ted and
Ralph had surely died, not really, after all, no bodies,
no certainty.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Though an exhaustive search of the island was conducted, there
was no evidence the pair had made it to the mainland,
but there was also no evidence to suggest that they hadn't.
Though prison officials presumed the men had drowned, police departments
began getting reports of sightings of Ted and Ralph, suggesting
they had in fact made it out alive. In addition
(19:39):
to those sightings, a crime spree in the area in
and around Seminole, Oklahoma, in nineteen thirty eight was reportedly
linked to the escapees by a cab driver who was
shot and wounded while allegedly being hijacked by the duo.
More sightings around both Shawnee and Miama, Oklahoma were reported
to local police, Yet Ted and Ralph evaded any captors.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
For years, newspapers printed articles on the alleged whereabouts of
the missing inmates. The San Francisco Chronicle ran headlines that
included these San Francisco police worn against raid by escaped convicts.
Bank managers told to have all guards alerts. Alcatraz inmates
pleased with successive break g men flocked to SF to
(20:28):
titan net in felon hunt Alcatraz felons alive at Liberty Prison,
pal says and convicts reported scene near Petaluma.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
To this day, no one has found any definitive trace
of the two men. Four years following the escape, in
nineteen forty one, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle
wrote a piece suggesting Ted Cole and Ralph Row had
both survived and had made it to South America. The
piece stated that they were both living as free men
and had resigned in Peru and Chile, and boldly claimed
(21:03):
that they were the only prisoners ever to stage a
successful escape from Alcatraz. The FBI picked up on the
possible lead and conducted a manhunt across South America, which
proved fruitless. Both the Warden and the San Francisco Bureau
of the FBI firmly disputed the claims published in the chronicle,
stating they were quote unfounded, unconfirmed, and foolish stories contrived
(21:28):
by reporters.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So did they or didn't they make it? In the
history of the rock Alcatraz, historians considered these prisoners in
crime to be the first successful escape from the island,
but maybe not to the mainland. The escape attempt continues
to remain unsolved, and there continues to be a lot
of speculation around it. Nearly one hundred years later. Convicts,
(21:54):
prison officials, and guards, as well as the public all
had and still have opinions. There's one thing for sure here, though,
alive or not. There escape shattered what had been a
rock solid reputation that no one could escape from Alcatraz.
(22:16):
Are you ready to make it a double, Maria?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I am absolutely a prisoners in crime double.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yes, this is one that I immediately had lots of
interesting ideas about because I kept thinking, as I think
many people probably do about their swim and we didn't
reiterate it as we were talking about all the weather conditions.
But this also was in December, so it was cold
(22:47):
in addition to being very foggy and with very heavy currents,
and that made me want to do a warm drink
because I don't like the idea of swimming in cold water.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Or I made me feel cold.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I yes. I can't travel back in time to
give anyone a blanket, not that I would want to
aid in a bet their escape, but just swimming in
cold water sounds miserable. There are also a couple of
things in play here right when it comes to warm drinks.
One of the things that immediately comes up is, of
course an Irish coffee, because I don't know if you
(23:22):
know this, but San Francisco has a very close relationship
with the Irish coffee, even though it was invented in Ireland.
There is an establishment in San Francisco called the Buena
Vista which is famous for their Irish coffee, and it
is absolutely spectacular if you ever go. I also kept
thinking about all the fog, which made me think of
another drink, the London Fog, which is like a latte,
(23:45):
but it's made with Earl Gray tea. It's so good,
and I got to thinking about these two and thought,
what if the London fog and the Irish coffee had
a baby. What if they met at Alcatraz and they
escaped the cold of a December day in the water
while Carl the fog rolls in, although he had not
(24:06):
been named that yet, for anyone that doesn't know, the
fog in San Francisco is named Carl. It's a thing.
Uh So, this is one that you're gonna go ahead
and brew yourself six ounces of black tea. You can
obviously go with Earl Gray if you want to stay
in the London fog zone. There's another black tea that
(24:26):
you love. Also great. I made one with an Irish
breakfast tea that was very yummy.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I was just thinking one of the breakfast teas might
be good too.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah. And then you're gonna take about a half a
cup of steamed milk. If you don't have you know,
a frother or a steamer or anything fancy, that is
no problem. You don't have to worry about it. You
can pop it in the microwave if you want for
a minute, and then give it a good whisk with
a whip. If you have one of those little hand
frothers for coffee. That's great. You can put that in
(24:55):
the warm milk and do it. You can also do
it on the stove and kind of whip it as
you go. But we're going with the milk instead of
the heavy cream of an Irish coffee because I just
you don't want to be weighed down when you're swimming
through the water.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
See the bottle.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And this is a case where the milk of your
choice is fine here. So whether you are a dairy
drinker or you prefer a nut milk or an oat
milk or a rice milk, whatever milk you would normally
like in your warm drinks, you're good. And then you're
gonna do a half ounce to three quarters of an
ounce of vanilla syrup to taste, depending on whether you
like your bevies little sweeter or not, and then just
(25:34):
to give it a little extra round flavor, a half
ounce of amaretto. The spirit that we're going with here
is an ounce and a half of the whiskey of
your choice. So that's more from the Irish coffee side, obviously,
whereas a lot of the other ingredients are more from
the London fog side. If you actually get a London fog.
It also normally has a lavender note, so you could
always if you want to stick in that zone, use
(25:57):
like a crem de violette or some other floral liqueur
in lieu of the amaretto. But the amaretto makes it
a very warm to the palette drink, so you literally
are just gonna pour these into your warm tea. Just
give it a good stir, the steamed milk goes on
top and you're golden, and then you drink it and
you feel warm and like you would be okay, and
(26:18):
you don't need to swim anywhere cold.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
You can bet Theodore watching people swim in the cold
while you are in.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Being cold sounds is a state of misery for me.
So I don't want it.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And cold and wet too.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
In this I live in a warm place for a
reason I like to be cold. So to make a
mocktail version of this is very easy. Just bump up
your black tea a little bit to more of a
seven and a half ounce. You're gonna ditch that whiskey.
You can also, if you want to give it a
little bite like the whiskey in parts, add a little
bit of bitters, a couple of dashes of bitters. If
(26:52):
you are an absolute no fly on any alcohol and
you don't want to do bitters, you could put in
a little bit of sal a couple drops of saline,
or just a very light sprinkle of salt, and then
it is otherwise the same, except in lieu of vamaretto,
you are going to use an almond syrup, and that
is a very yummy drink. We love a warm cozy
(27:12):
tea for any hour of the day or night. Frankly,
we're calling this one the foggy Swim because that's all
I can think about, is swimming in that foggy not
knowing what direction you're going misery, which I guess speaks
to their desperation and bravado and foolishness. They really want
(27:33):
it out. I really want to make sure we thank
our listeners for spending time with us today, and we
will be right back here again next week with another
crime duo and a drink to go with their story
right here on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
(27:58):
please visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio. Hey, before the show starts today, we have
a little bit of fun news to share. We have
had a secret. We have been working very diligently for
the past many months on creating something that a lot
(00:22):
of you have been asking for, and that is a
book of cocktails and mocktails that are told right alongside
the stories that we talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Plus additional ones that we have not talked about.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's right. This book is about half stories you have heard,
although they've been abridged, alongside their cocktails and brand news
stories that we are telling, and brand new cocktails that
we have never had before.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We are on pre order now so you can order
up and wait for it to hit in October.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
That's right. It is going to be out on October fifteenth,
and you can order it now just about anywhere books
are sold. Check out your local bookstores and see if
they're going to have it. All right, let's jump into
the episode.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Debate continues to this day as to whether Joe Bowers
was trying to escape Alcatraz or if he was trying
to end his own life. He was known to be
a loner and a bit of a desperado by his
fellow inmates. Based on his behavior, other prisoners and some
guards considered him quote criminally insane. Bowers was serving a
(01:30):
twenty five year sentence for violating postal laws when on
the afternoon of April twenty seventh, nineteen thirty six, while
working at the trash incinerator, he began to scale one
of the fences along Alcatraz Island's edge. Correctional officers commanded
him to stop, but he carried on climbing until he
was shot by prison guards as he reached the top
(01:52):
of the fence, falling some fifty to one hundred feet
to his death, down the embankment and into the bay
on the south side of the island. He is considered
the first prisoner to attempt escaping Alcatraz, but the first
to successfully make it out alive probably was a pair
of conspiring inmates named Ted Cole and Ralph Rowe, who
(02:14):
broke out in December of nineteen thirty seven. Welcome to Criminalia.
I'm Maria Tremarky.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And I'm Holly Frye. When Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, nicknamed the
Rock opened as a maximum security prison on an island
in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Officials named it
quote America's most secure prison. The former Army Barracks, which
had also once been a Spanish prison, became a federal
(02:41):
penitentiary in August of nineteen thirty four after Attorney General
Homer S. Cummings decided that would be where the worst
of the worst prisoners would be locked up. It was
designed to house less than three hundred men at a
time and to serve as the ultimate punishment for those
criminals who met a few criteria. These prisoners were those
(03:04):
who refused to conform to the rules at other federal prisons,
They were those considered to be violent and dangerous, or
they were considered escape risks. Several well known criminals, such
as al Capone and George Machine Gun Kelly, did time there.
During its three decades in operation, the infamous lock up
(03:24):
housed in total roughly fifteen hundred inmates, and in that
thirty years, thirty six of those inmates tried to escape
in fourteen separate attempts. On December sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven,
Theodore ted Cole and Ralph Rowe made their attempt.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Ted and Ralph had made the trip together from the
federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, but
they weren't a criminal duo. They never did any crimes
together and weren't actually in the same place at the
same time until they were both incarcerated at a prison
known as as Big Mac, the penitentiary located in McAllister, Oklahoma.
(04:04):
They again crossed paths while locked up at Leavenworth, but
they didn't actually meet until they were sent to the rock.
This is a story of prisoners in crime who conspired
to escape to freedom.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Ted Cole was known to be a violent criminal. He
had begun carrying out armed robberies at age fourteen. By
his early twenties, the volume and violence of his crimes
led to a death sentence, but in an unlikely case,
after he had pleaded guilty to a four hundred dollars
bottling plant robbery. It was during that trial when Tulsa
(04:40):
County District Judge Saw Jaeger speculated that Ted would eventually
turned to murder. That speculation turned a robbery trial into
a highly publicized trial, and the press nicknamed him Teddy
the terror although this was a trial about a bottling
plant robbery. Judge Yeger sentenced Ted to die in the
(05:02):
Oklahoma Electric Chair and the general public, well, they did
not agree. After all, he hadn't actually committed murder. Judge Jeger,
holding firm to his decision, explained to the court that quote,
the boy is a potential killer and deserves such a sentence.
He will not stop these types of crimes. It's in
(05:23):
his blood. After nationwide protests, primarily led by civil rights organizations,
Ted won an appeal. Instead of execution, he would serve
a reduced sentence of fifteen years in a state penitentiary.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
But once incarcerated, Judge Jyeger's assessment of him turned out
to be correct. Ted brutally murdered his cellmate, claiming self defense.
After a lengthy trial, the jury was deadlocked. The charges
against him were eventually dropped, though, and the case was
never retried in.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Ted was the kind of guy who was always scheming.
He was always scheming his next crime, and it turns
out his next prison escape. While this is a story
of a criminal duo escaping from Alcatraz, Ted escaped from
other institutions before he even got to the Island. His
first attempt at a prison break was at McAllister Penitentiary,
(06:23):
where out in the yard he simply began to climb
one of the walls until a guard shot him down.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Another time Ted hid in a garbage can to escape
his imprisonment in Oklahoma. Jaylor e Heron, taking the trash out,
was surprised when the lid on one can rose and
Ted Cole emerged.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And yet another time Ted removed his cell bars, but
he was discovered just as he stepped free from his cell.
It turned out his reputation had preceded him, and his
cell was wired with a device which amplified his every move.
He didn't know that, but it allowed the guards to
know everything he was doing.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And then there was the one that landed him at Alcatraz.
In November of nineteen thirty four, Ted stowed away in
a laundry bag, which was loaded into a truck leaving
the prison grounds, and he made his way to freedom,
unloading himself in town. The very first thing he did
was well, it wasn't under the radar, that's for sure.
(07:27):
He turned up at Cushing, Oklahoma, having taken a hostage
a pipeline worker named James Rutherford and forced him to
drive to Illinois. He had Rutherford double back into Texas,
suspecting he was being followed, where he quickly began committing
a string of robberies, and on December fifth, he was
captured in a Dallas hotel by authorities. He was sentenced
(07:49):
to fifty years for kidnapping, and he was also ultimately
recommended for imprisonment at Alcatraz, the last resort.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Ralph Rowe was a well established criminal, with a rap
sheet dating back into his teens. He had a long
prison record. He'd become an associate of the infamous outlaw
Wilburt Underhill, known during the era as quote mad Dog
of the Underworld. Underhill terrorized the American Southwest for nearly
a decade, and he was one of the most wanted
(08:21):
gangsters in Oklahoma before he and Ralph were taken down
together in December of nineteen thirty three. Wanted fugitives, federal
agents tracked them to a small cottage in Shawnee, Oklahoma,
where they were hiding out. They weren't going to allow
themselves to be taken easily, and a gun battle ensued.
(08:41):
Ralph and his girlfriend Eva May Nichols were both struck down,
and though Underhill suffered numerous gunshot wounds, he managed to escape.
He was found critically injured hiding in a nearby furniture
store and was taken to the prison hospital, where he died.
Ralph's girlfriend also later died from her wounds. Ralph, however, survived,
(09:04):
and he was sent to prison to serve out a
life sentence.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Like Ted, Ralph also had a record for trying to
escape his incarceration. His first escape attempt, for instance, was
made in nineteen twenty nine before the shootout with Underhill,
when he was a prisoner at McAllister Penitentiary. It went
like this, He sneaked himself into a wooden box. Some
stories say he was nailed in and he was shipped
(09:29):
out of the prison, but he wasn't even three hundred
yards outside the prison walls. When the confinement and the
close air inside the box became too much for him.
His panic revealed his secret hiding place, and prison guards
opened the box and locked him back up. He wasn't
sentenced to Alcatraz, though, until he was convicted of robbing
(09:50):
the Farmer's National Bank at Sulfur, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsors. Ted and Ralph didn't know each other before
b incarcerated at Alcatraz. And when we're back, we'll talk
about that fateful meeting and the escape itself.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the plan Ted
and Ralph hatched when they met in the Alcatraz mat
shop and what happened the day that they put that
plan in place.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It was on October twenty sixth, nineteen thirty five, when
Ted Cole and Ralph Rowe stepped off the McDowell that
was the official ferry boat that was operated by the
Correctional Officers of Alcatraz Island. United States Marshals rode alongside
in a Coastguard chase boat with rifles at the ready
that day. This was not a typical ride to the Rock.
(10:52):
This level of security was because that day the ferry
was carrying some of America's most aggressive criminals and escape risks.
There were Ted and Ralph, there was Doc Barker and
Thomas Limerick, who would both later die in their own
attempts to escape the Rock. Rufus McCain was also on
(11:12):
the ferry that day. He was later murdered by Henry
Young when they were both imprisoned at Alcatraz.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
A side story about Rufus McCain among inmates. His murder
was thought to have stemmed from a failed escape with
Barker and Young all over a grudge, claiming that McCain
had waited to announce until they had gotten to the
shoreline of the island that he didn't know how to swim. Okay,
back to that list.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Notorious bank robber and also known for violent prison breaks.
Homer Binkley, who was the crime partner of the infamous
Burton Phillips, was also on that same ferry. And then, yes,
it is a long list of violent criminals. On one boat,
there was another notorious bank robber aboard, John F. Good.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
When Ted and Ralph and that long list of other
notorious and notoriously violent criminals arrived at Alcatraz, it was
during a time when the prison had enacted a strict
rule of silence. Prisoners were only allowed to talk quietly
and briefly during meal and recreation periods. Talking in the
(12:21):
cell house itself would land you in what was called
the dungeon, which was located in the basement under the
cell house. Imprisonment at Alcatraz was considered hard time, very
hard time compared to other lockups. Some prisoners kept to themselves,
but neither Ted nor Ralph fell into that category.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Ralph, by all accounts, was considered a quote menace, and
he spent a lot of his time in isolation for
inciting fights among the prison population. In March of nineteen
thirty six, after serving three months in solitary confinement, Ralph
was released back to the general prison population and he
was assigned to work in the mat shop, where automobile
(13:05):
tires were shredded and made it too matts for the
United States Navy. A month or two later, after time
working in the laundry and then in the blacksmith shop,
Ted was also assigned to the mat shop and the
two of them hit it off brilliantly. And it's here
where they went from fellow prisoners to criminal duo while
(13:25):
they quietly plotted what was the first successful break from
the island. Probably successful, We will get to that.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Here's how it happened. On December sixteenth, nineteen thirty seven,
Ralph was working in the mat shop alongside twenty five
other inmates. Ted was assigned to the blacksmith shop that day,
working alongside five other inmates, including Jack Lloyd, who'd been
one of Ralph's crime partners in several Oklahoma bank heists.
(13:53):
So if it seems like a lot of these guys
knew each other, a lot of them did. During his
normal run, the corrections officer assigned to the model building,
where both the matt and Blacksmith shops were located, arrived
at one o'clock for the afternoon head count. All was
well and everyone was accounted for. Thirty minutes later, on
(14:14):
his next round, the officer quickly discovered two inmates were
missing from their workstations, and those men were Ted Cole
and Ralph Row.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
A search of the mat shop revealed that over time,
the pair had surreptitiously sawed through the iron bars of
a window with a hacksaw and then covered their tracks
with a mixture of axle grease and shoe polish. They
had then punched out panes of glass, and the steel
grill had been cut to a large enough opening for
(14:44):
a person to pass through, so that was the getaway window.
They had fled the shop with a pipe wrench to
break a lock on the wire fence that surrounded that
part of the building, and then once through, they dropped
roughly twenty feet into the waters of the bay.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
They may have been ready on the rock that morning,
but the San Francisco weather did them no favors. The
fog was dense, with visibility varying from a few hundred
feet down to zero. The water currents running through the
Golden Gate ranged from between seven and nine knots. That's
dangerous and powerful. These were considered death trap conditions for
(15:24):
anyone in that water. It's not likely that Ted and
Ralph knew about the fog and the dangerous currents, though
some do speculate they may have considered the fog to
be an asset for cover.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
The men presumably entered the water and floated to the mainland,
a journey of about a mile and a half. Authorities
later stated that in preparation for the escape, the two
inmates had constructed floats from lightweight metal, five gallon oil
drums and old tires, but they were never seen or
heard from again, dead or alive.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We are going to take a break for word from
our sponsors, and when we're back we'll talk about the
search and rescue efforts and why the FBI went all
the way to South America to look for them.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the odds of
Ted and Ralph making it to the mainland under those
terrible weather conditions.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Small groups of armed guards searched the rocky cliffs and
hideaways while searchlights lit up the slopes of the island.
All Bay District law enforcement agencies were notified by teletype
shortly after the men went missing. By six o'clock that evening,
a search of the grounds of the island was considered complete,
and Warden James Johnston stated he believed the men were
(16:53):
quote off the island. Coastguard vessels carrying out established emergency
plans for such event were instructed to stop and search
any small craft of suspicious character. Throughout the night. Fairry
Line pilots reported they hadn't observed any boats near the prison,
nor had they seen anyone swimming in the choppy water.
(17:14):
The warden also stated he did not believe either of
the men would have been able to arrange outside aid
in their escape, and that he believed it was highly
unlikely they had fled in a speedboat or any boat.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The FBI conducted extensive interviews with every correctional officer at
Alcatraz and created detailed written profiles on each of them
to rule out any inside assistance or weak points in security.
They also interviewed every prisoner. They assumed everyone and anyone
was a possible lead. An inmate named Theodore Audette, the
(17:52):
only convict to serve three separate terms on Alcatraz, later
claimed that he watched as the two inmates entered bay
and began their swim to freedom. He stated that he
saw that Ralph appeared to be struggling to stay afloat
in the currents, and he watched him disappear into the
dense fog. Ted, he said, swam into the fog and
(18:14):
then disappeared.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And yet, despite one of the most complex and exhaustive
manhunts that spanned the United States, the FBI came up
with nothing. This case has more than five hundred pages
of FBI investigative reports that are all dead ends.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Warden Johnston announced that quote serving terms tantamount to life imprisonment.
It is my belief they decided to take a desperate
chance and that they had no outside aid. I believe
they drowned and that their bodies were swept toward the
Golden Gate by the strong Ebb tide. The Assistant City
Engineer of San Francisco, Floyd Wally, who was a specialist
(18:57):
in local tides and eddies, was one of the few
to support the warden's theory, stating that the currents on
the day of the escape would have made it impossible
for the two men to reach the mainland. But no
one seemed to agree with the theory that Ted and
Ralph had surely died, not really, after all, no bodies,
no certainty.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Though an exhaustive search of the island was conducted, there
was no evidence the pair had made it to the mainland,
but there was also no evidence to suggest that they hadn't.
Though prison officials presumed the men had drowned, police departments
began getting reports of sightings of Ted and Ralph, suggesting
they had in fact made it out alive. In addition
(19:39):
to those sightings, a crime spree in the area in
and around Seminole, Oklahoma, in nineteen thirty eight was reportedly
linked to the escapees by a cab driver who was
shot and wounded while allegedly being hijacked by the duo.
More sightings around both Shawnee and Miama, Oklahoma were reported
to local police, Yet Ted and Ralph evaded any captors.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
For years, newspapers printed articles on the alleged whereabouts of
the missing inmates. The San Francisco Chronicle ran headlines that
included these San Francisco police worn against raid by escaped convicts.
Bank managers told to have all guards alerts. Alcatraz inmates
pleased with successive break g men flocked to SF to
(20:28):
titan net in felon hunt Alcatraz felons alive at Liberty Prison,
pal says and convicts reported scene near Petaluma.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
To this day, no one has found any definitive trace
of the two men. Four years following the escape, in
nineteen forty one, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle
wrote a piece suggesting Ted Cole and Ralph Row had
both survived and had made it to South America. The
piece stated that they were both living as free men
and had resigned in Peru and Chile, and boldly claimed
(21:03):
that they were the only prisoners ever to stage a
successful escape from Alcatraz. The FBI picked up on the
possible lead and conducted a manhunt across South America, which
proved fruitless. Both the Warden and the San Francisco Bureau
of the FBI firmly disputed the claims published in the chronicle,
stating they were quote unfounded, unconfirmed, and foolish stories contrived
(21:28):
by reporters.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So did they or didn't they make it? In the
history of the rock Alcatraz, historians considered these prisoners in
crime to be the first successful escape from the island,
but maybe not to the mainland. The escape attempt continues
to remain unsolved, and there continues to be a lot
of speculation around it. Nearly one hundred years later. Convicts,
(21:54):
prison officials, and guards, as well as the public all
had and still have opinions. There's one thing for sure here, though,
alive or not. There escape shattered what had been a
rock solid reputation that no one could escape from Alcatraz.
(22:16):
Are you ready to make it a double, Maria?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I am absolutely a prisoners in crime double.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yes, this is one that I immediately had lots of
interesting ideas about because I kept thinking, as I think
many people probably do about their swim and we didn't
reiterate it as we were talking about all the weather conditions.
But this also was in December, so it was cold
(22:47):
in addition to being very foggy and with very heavy currents,
and that made me want to do a warm drink
because I don't like the idea of swimming in cold water.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Or I made me feel cold.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I yes. I can't travel back in time to
give anyone a blanket, not that I would want to
aid in a bet their escape, but just swimming in
cold water sounds miserable. There are also a couple of
things in play here right when it comes to warm drinks.
One of the things that immediately comes up is, of
course an Irish coffee, because I don't know if you
(23:22):
know this, but San Francisco has a very close relationship
with the Irish coffee, even though it was invented in Ireland.
There is an establishment in San Francisco called the Buena
Vista which is famous for their Irish coffee, and it
is absolutely spectacular if you ever go. I also kept
thinking about all the fog, which made me think of
another drink, the London Fog, which is like a latte,
(23:45):
but it's made with Earl Gray tea. It's so good,
and I got to thinking about these two and thought,
what if the London fog and the Irish coffee had
a baby. What if they met at Alcatraz and they
escaped the cold of a December day in the water
while Carl the fog rolls in, although he had not
(24:06):
been named that yet, for anyone that doesn't know, the
fog in San Francisco is named Carl. It's a thing.
Uh So, this is one that you're gonna go ahead
and brew yourself six ounces of black tea. You can
obviously go with Earl Gray if you want to stay
in the London fog zone. There's another black tea that
(24:26):
you love. Also great. I made one with an Irish
breakfast tea that was very yummy.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I was just thinking one of the breakfast teas might
be good too.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah. And then you're gonna take about a half a
cup of steamed milk. If you don't have you know,
a frother or a steamer or anything fancy, that is
no problem. You don't have to worry about it. You
can pop it in the microwave if you want for
a minute, and then give it a good whisk with
a whip. If you have one of those little hand
frothers for coffee. That's great. You can put that in
(24:55):
the warm milk and do it. You can also do
it on the stove and kind of whip it as
you go. But we're going with the milk instead of
the heavy cream of an Irish coffee because I just
you don't want to be weighed down when you're swimming
through the water.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
See the bottle.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And this is a case where the milk of your
choice is fine here. So whether you are a dairy
drinker or you prefer a nut milk or an oat
milk or a rice milk, whatever milk you would normally
like in your warm drinks, you're good. And then you're
gonna do a half ounce to three quarters of an
ounce of vanilla syrup to taste, depending on whether you
like your bevies little sweeter or not, and then just
(25:34):
to give it a little extra round flavor, a half
ounce of amaretto. The spirit that we're going with here
is an ounce and a half of the whiskey of
your choice. So that's more from the Irish coffee side, obviously,
whereas a lot of the other ingredients are more from
the London fog side. If you actually get a London fog.
It also normally has a lavender note, so you could
always if you want to stick in that zone, use
(25:57):
like a crem de violette or some other floral liqueur
in lieu of the amaretto. But the amaretto makes it
a very warm to the palette drink, so you literally
are just gonna pour these into your warm tea. Just
give it a good stir, the steamed milk goes on
top and you're golden, and then you drink it and
you feel warm and like you would be okay, and
(26:18):
you don't need to swim anywhere cold.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
You can bet Theodore watching people swim in the cold
while you are in.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Being cold sounds is a state of misery for me.
So I don't want it.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And cold and wet too.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
In this I live in a warm place for a
reason I like to be cold. So to make a
mocktail version of this is very easy. Just bump up
your black tea a little bit to more of a
seven and a half ounce. You're gonna ditch that whiskey.
You can also, if you want to give it a
little bite like the whiskey in parts, add a little
bit of bitters, a couple of dashes of bitters. If
(26:52):
you are an absolute no fly on any alcohol and
you don't want to do bitters, you could put in
a little bit of sal a couple drops of saline,
or just a very light sprinkle of salt, and then
it is otherwise the same, except in lieu of vamaretto,
you are going to use an almond syrup, and that
is a very yummy drink. We love a warm cozy
(27:12):
tea for any hour of the day or night. Frankly,
we're calling this one the foggy Swim because that's all
I can think about, is swimming in that foggy not
knowing what direction you're going misery, which I guess speaks
to their desperation and bravado and foolishness. They really want
(27:33):
it out. I really want to make sure we thank
our listeners for spending time with us today, and we
will be right back here again next week with another
crime duo and a drink to go with their story
right here on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
(27:58):
please visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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