EXCLUSIVE Nephew of two missing robbers who broke out of Alcatraz prison says he can prove they're alive

Daily Mail​

12-05-2025

The Georgia nephew of two Alcatraz robbers hit out at President Donald Trump for claiming no one has ever escaped the notorious prison that he hopes to reopen.
David Widner, 58, of Leesburg is convinced his uncles John and Clarence Anglin involved in the prison's most notorious escape stories made it off the island alive in 1962, despite the president claiming the lock-up joint was inescapable.
David, co-author of the book Escaping Alcatraz, said: 'That would be a lie. There have been several escapes and more than one where they don't know what happened to them. So they can't say it was unescapable, because it was.'
David claimed the FBI spent years questioning his family while they investigated the theory that they'd fled to Mexico following their audacious jailbreak.
David said: 'If they really believed that my uncles didn't make it, they would have stopped looking for them.
'Still to this day, they have not stopped looking for them. So why would you be looking for someone you believe to be dead? It's still an open case, so why not close the case?'
Last week, Trump vowed to reopen the notorious prison, which was closed in 1963, as he continued to crack down on violent criminals and illegal migrants.
In a post shared on his Truth Social platform last week, Trump said: 'The reopening of Alcatraz will serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice.'
Trump's directed the Bureau of Prisons to work alongside the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security to 'reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt' Alcatraz.
He said the notorious facility, which once held famed gangster Al Capone, would 'house America's most ruthless and violent offenders'.
The order came as the president's repeatedly clashed with the courts as he tried to send accused gang members and illegal migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Maximum security Alcatraz would provide Trump with a workaround to those court orders barring him from carrying out the mass deportation scheme.
As the Republican geared up for the new venture, the question as to whether the Anglin brothers and fellow inmate Frank Morris successfully escaped from Alcatraz still remained one of the biggest mysteries of the prison.
It's said the convicted bank robbers spent six months using spoons and forks to dig holes in the walls surrounding air vents in their cells.
On the night of the escape, they used painted papier-mache heads topped with hair collected from the prison barber shop to fool guards into thinking they were asleep.
The men squeezed through the hole and made their way from the prison roof to the water's edge carrying a makeshift raft crafted from 50 stolen cotton raincoats.
The fugitives' bodies had never been found, but the FBI concluded in 1979 that all three must have drowned in the freezing, shark-infested waters around the prison.
David, however, says the FBI's announcement was part of an elaborate cover-up, designed to protect the Federal Penitentiary's fearsome reputation.
A total of 36 prisoners made 14 escape attempts from Alcatraz in its 30-year history - which further helped prove Trump's claims were false.
Out of those, 23 were caught alive, six were shot and killed, and two are known to have drowned attempting the 1.25-mile swim to shore through brutal currents.
Five, including the Anglins who were incarcerated there in 1957, and Morris, who had been an inmate there since 1960, were listed as 'missing and presumed drowned'.
The story of their escape was later turned into the 1979 film Escape From Alcatraz, which starred Clint Eastwood as Morris, who had an IQ of 133, putting him in the smartest two per cent in the population.
David says his uncles were strong swimmers who would regularly skip school as kids to swim in the ocean off Tampa, Florida.
He recalled his mother Marie being quizzed by the FBI when he was a boy.
When Trump announced his intention to reopen Alcatraz, he said: 'It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say, the ultimate, right?
'But it's right now a museum, believe it or not. A lot of people go there. It housed the most violent criminals in the world and nobody ever escaped.'
David believed Trump was not 'aware' of his 'uncles' story' and he'd appreciate talking to him about it.
David said: 'I would love to tell him that to reopen that prison would be a huge cost and you would lose all of the history because all of the cells, including my uncles', would no longer be available for people to see.
'In my opinion, it would be cheaper to build an underground prison if he wants to keep them out of the public eye.
'To me, preserving the history would make more sense than turning it back into a prison.'
As for what David would tell the 47th president about his uncles, he'd say they were stronger swimmers and 'water was the last deterrent'.
David, who did not believe his uncles were still alive, said: 'They were a lot smarter than people gave them credit for and there's no doubt in my mind that they made it. It was not an inescapable prison.
'If you got out of that building, you have escaped Alcatraz.'