Whether Frank Morris died in San Francisco Bay on June 12, 1962, or whether he lived somewhere else under a different name and died in 2008 as the unverified letter claims; whether John and Clarence Anglin drowned that night or lived in Brazil or Florida or somewhere else until 2011 and 2015 respectively, as their family has claimed; whether the letters and photographs are genuine documents of survival or elaborate fabrications — none of this is established.
The case is officially open. The warrants have not yet expired for all three men. The investigation has not been concluded. The answer, if there is one, has not yet been made public.
The dummy heads remain. The question remains.
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*Slug:* alcatraz-escape-1962-dummy-heads-frank-morris-anglin-brothers-unsolved
*Meta description:* On June 12, 1962, guards at Alcatraz found three inmates had vanished, leaving papier-mâché heads in their beds. Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers were never found.
*Category:* True Crime / Unsolved Escape
*Tracking ID:* BM-CANDIDATE-082
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## The Physics of Hypothermia: What the Bay Would Have Done
A forensic examination of the escape must include an honest accounting of what the physiological literature says about survival in the conditions the men faced.
San Francisco Bay’s water temperature in June 1962 would have been in the range of 50 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit — the specific temperature on June 11-12 is not recorded in sources available for this article, but historical averages for the period are well-established. At 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the American Heart Association’s immersion guidelines indicate that an unprotected person will begin to lose effective swimming ability within 30 to 60 minutes and will likely lose consciousness from hypothermia within 1 to 6 hours, depending on body composition, activity level, and individual variation.