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been able to swim on any direct route toward land. She further stated: “They were probably unable to swim back to Alcatraz once they realized that they were in grave danger. Even with my experience and conditioning, I would never have put one toe in that turbulent water.” Roe also had a debilitating factor that could have contributed to his supposed demise. It is documented in a Leavenworth report that he had a slight deformity of his right tibia, due to a serious fracture that he had sustained from a gunshot wound during his last escape attempt. It was noted that the cold weather sometimes caused “aching pains” in his leg, but this was not further substantiated, and no medical records show any complaints of leg pain while at Alcatraz.

For nearly twelve weeks following the escape, Johnston continued a policy that every corpse found floating in the bay would be investigated by the Alcatraz launch McDowell, to help identify the body in case it proved to be one of the escapees. It was later officially concluded that the two inmates had drowned in the bay. Johnston wrote in his 1949 memoir:

I believe when that when they jumped into the bay they jumped to their death. There wasn’t any boat there to meet them and the impenetrable curtain of fog that hampered the visibility of the guards, also made it impossible for them to see anything and they just floundered until they were no longer able to keep up and then sank to the bottom of a bay that seldom gives up its victims.

The press continued to cover the escape with great interest. Johnston worked to defend the integrity of the island’s security, and was harshly critical in his response to any comments that might lead the public to believe that the prisoners had successfully escaped. On February 18, 1938, the Associated Press ran an article claiming that the Bureau of Prisons was “chagrined and embarrassed” over the escape attempt by Roe and Cole. The article suggested further that the security at Alcatraz was not up to “required standards” and Bureau Director Bennett subsequently asked the House Appropriations Subcommittee to increase the institution’s budget from $305,600 to $309,535 for the 1939 fiscal year. The additional funding was approved and it allowed for an additional captain and two junior officers to man additional fixed sentry posts.

The San Francisco Chronicle would later run several reports of various sightings of the escapees, and all leads were rigorously investigated, with no fruitful results. Nonetheless, the articles kept alive the idea that such a discovery was possible, since both inmates remained listed as unaccounted for. In an article published following the date of the escape, the closing statement read simply:

With long years of prison ahead of them, Ralph Roe, Muskogee, Okla., robber and Theodore Cole, Cushing, Okla., kidnapper, defied science, the natural hazards and the guns of guards, escaped and shattered a national byword, the legend of "escape proof" Alcatraz.

ESCAPE ATTEMPT #3

Date:

May 23, 1938

Inmates:

Thomas Robert Limerick

James Lucas

Rufus Franklin

Location:

Model Industries Building

The third escape attempt at Alcatraz would forever stand as one of the most vicious and violent ever seen on The Rock. It would result in the tragic murder of a well-liked senior correctional officer, and the death of an Alcatraz inmate. The plan was uncomplicated and essentially required no more than a few simple tools. These circumstances, combined with the desperation of the convicts, created a deadly formula for tragedy.

Thomas Robert Limerick

Thomas Limerick

Thomas Robert Limerick was born in Council Bluff, Iowa on January 7, 1902. It was recorded that he lived in a harmonious family environment until his father’s death, when Robert was only fifteen years old. His father worked as a farm equipment mechanic, and the family enjoyed a comfortable middle-class lifestyle until his untimely death. Thomas was the oldest of one brother and three sisters, and the family quickly fell into extreme poverty living in a “tar-paper