A separate report mentioned a phone call made to a San Francisco attorney the day after the escape by a caller claiming to be one of the Anglin brothers, asking the attorney to arrange a meeting with the U.S. Marshals. The attorney declined and the caller hung up. This account is included in some secondary sources but not corroborated in primary documents accessible for this article.
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## The Evidence Against Survival
The case that Morris and the Anglins drowned rests on physical evidence and logical inference, and it is substantial.
The water temperature alone is a serious obstacle. In early June, San Francisco Bay’s water is cold enough to begin impairing cognitive and physical function in an unprotected person within roughly thirty to sixty minutes of immersion. The men were wearing prison clothing, not insulating wetsuits. Even vigorous paddling would have provided only limited protection against heat loss.
The raft itself was untested before launch. It was made from prison raincoat rubber, hand-stitched with improvised tools. No load testing had been possible. The seams, made with liquid plastic rather than welded or vulcanized materials, were of uncertain strength under the conditions of active use in cold salt water. Even a small failure in a seam would begin to compromise the raft’s buoyancy.
The absence of post-escape evidence on the mainland is significant. The FBI’s argument that Morris and the Anglins would have needed to steal a car and clothing within hours of landing — and that no such thefts were reported — carries weight. Three men in prison uniforms, emerging from San Francisco Bay on a cold June night, would have been severely hypothermic and urgently in need of shelter, clothing, and transportation. The absence of any reported crimes fitting this description in the target area and time window is not conclusive, but it is a gap in the survival theory.