Sometimes a prison sentence isn’t the end of the criminal justice process. According to CBS News, as of 2023, there were over 1,100 documented escapes from law enforcement in 26 states over a five-year period, which amounts to roughly 220 escape attempts per year. Most of these are short-lived; prison escape expert Bryce Peterson told Scripps News that “well above 90%, pretty close to 100%” of incarcerated people who escape are recaptured. But that doesn’t stop people from trying.
Prison escapes have been the stuff of legend for centuries. The history of escapes goes as far back as 1244, when Welsh prince Gruffudd ap Llywelyn fell to his death trying to get out of the Tower of London. Some of the most famous films of all time center around fictional prison escapes. But Hollywood stories pale in comparison to these creative—and sometimes confusing—real-life escapes.
The Alcatraz Escape
In 1962, brothers John and Clarence Anglin, along with Allen West and Frank Morris, became infamous when they mounted an escape attempt from the iconic Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. They labored for six months on a creative plan. It involved constructing models of their own heads to fool guards into thinking they were asleep and using random materials, such as more than 50 raincoats, to build an improvised raft and life preservers.
West was left behind when he realized he could no longer escape through the ventilation duct in his cell, but the other three made their bid for freedom on June 11. They were able to get to the northeast corner of the island and launch their raft, but their liberation appears to have been short-lived. Various pieces of evidence surfaced in the water during the subsequent investigation, including a paddle and a wallet with photos of the Anglins’ relatives. FBI agents surmised that the men had drowned in their makeshift raft, and the agency officially closed its case in 1979. The U.S. Marshals Service took over the case, telling NPR in 2009 that there was still an active arrest warrant and they were still receiving potential leads. But over 60 years and countless theories later, there are no definitive answers about this prison escape.
The “Korean Houdini”
Choi Gap-bok became known worldwide as the “Korean Houdini,” because his prison escape didn’t involve any detailed plans or surprise assists. The 50-year-old broke out in 2012 using nothing more than his years of yoga experience and some ointment. He was able to squeeze his entire body through the food-service slot in his cell. That space was only 1.97 inches high by 17.72 inches wide.
An investigator told The Korea Times that Choi accomplished this jaw-dropping feat in “less than a minute.” Maybe it shouldn’t have come as so much of a surprise, however. Choi was also known for slipping through iron bars on a bus while on his way to jail 22 years prior. There’s no public information about where he is today.
John Dillinger’s Wooden Gun
John Dillinger carved out his place in true crime history for his series of daring bank robberies using actual guns, which makes it both ironic and surprising that his best-known escape attempt revolved around a fake one. Dillinger had already been sprung from prison by a group of associates in late 1933, but less than a year later, he went for a different approach. After Lake County Sheriff Lillian Holley told reporters that “we do not expect to have any trouble,” Dillinger escaped with a wooden dummy gun in March 1934.
To be fair, the wooden firearm only came into play because Dillinger could not obtain dynamite or a real gun. Instead, he was provided a wooden substitute by his attorney’s investigator (though Dillinger would claim he whittled it himself). He took a prison trustee hostage and, with the help of fellow inmate Herbert Youngblood, was able to force the staff into cells. He and Youngblood were then able to get their hands on actual firearms and escaped in the sheriff’s own vehicle, along with corrupt deputy Ernest Blunk and mechanic Edwin Saager. Dillinger was killed while fleeing from police in July 1934, four months after the wooden gun escape.
Pascal Payet’s Helicopter Escapes
A helicopter landing at a prison sounds like an escape scene right out of a blockbuster movie. What makes Pascal Payet’s story memorable is not only did he pull that off, but he also managed it more than once. After being arrested for his role in an armored car attack in which a guard was killed, Payet and another incarcerated person escaped a French prison via hijacked helicopter in 2001.
But he didn’t stop there; just two years later, Payet returned to the same facility with another helicopter to help the other three people who had been arrested with him. In 2007—on Bastille Day, which commemorates the storming of France’s most famous prison—he made his third helicopter-assisted escape. According to ABC News, it took less than five minutes. Unfortunately for him, he was captured just over two months later in Spain.
Michel Vaujour’s Nectarines
An even stranger twist on the helicopter escape is the case of Michel Vaujour, who only needed one helicopter to break out of another French prison in 1986. Vaujour’s wife, Nadine, specifically took flying lessons for six months just to be able to pilot the escape helicopter. But that’s only the second most interesting thing about this prison escape.
To get to the helicopter, Vaujour convinced everyone he was in possession of grenades. In truth, what he was wielding were several nectarines, which he’d taken the time to paint so that they resembled grenades. Nadine landed the helicopter on a roof and was able to fly her husband to a soccer field, where they ditched the vehicle for a car. It was Vaujour’s fourth escape attempt; in 1979, he tried with a gun carved out of soap.
Both Nadine and Vaujour were re-arrested a few months later and eventually released. But at some point they parted company, because in 2018, Vaujour’s autobiography, Love Saved Me From Sinking, was published and mentions his marriage to another woman named Jamila.
