Prisons are supposed to be the most difficult buildings to
escape from. Yet time and again, inmates break free -- sometimes with dramatic
helicopter stunts, sometimes by just slipping through the cracks -- literally.
Most recently, a
Mexican drug lord fled his cell via a tunnel, little more than a month after two convicted killers used power tools to break out of a prison in New York
state. The New York inmates cut open a steel wall and worked their way through
a labyrinth of pipes and shafts before escaping through a manhole.
The freedom of
the New York escapees did not last forever, though. Both were ultimately shot
by law enforcement officers. One, Richard Matt, died, and the other, David
Sweat, was wounded and captured.
Mexico's most notorious drug lord has made dramatic escapes from
prison not once, but twice.
In 2001, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from a high-security prison in
a laundry cart. It took authorities 13 years to catch him -- and they didn't
hold him for all that long.
On July 11, Guzman, whose nickname means "Shorty,"
stepped into a shower at a maximum-security prison, crawled through a hole and
vanished through a mile-long tunnel apparently built just for him.
The tunnel
through which the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel made his escape was not just
some hole in the ground. It was complete with lighting, ventilation and even a
modified motorcycle on tracks "that was likely used to remove dirt during
the excavation and transport the tools for the dig," Mexican National
Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said.
The tunnel began
with a 20 x 20-inch (50 x 50-centimeter) opening inside the shower of Guzman's
cell, Rubido said.
That opening
connected to a vertical passageway going more than 33 feet (10 meters)
underground. The passageway, outfitted with a ladder, led to a tunnel that was
about 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) tall and more than 28 inches (70 centimeters) wide.
The tunnel
stretched for more than a mile and ended inside a half-built house. Where
Guzman went from there is anyone's guess.
The
French lovebirds
Nadine Vaujour was so determined to get
her husband out of a Parisian prison that she took helicopter flight lessons
just for the escape.
Her husband,
Michel Vaujour, was serving a lengthy sentence for attempted murder and armed
robbery. In May 1986, the Chicago Tribune reported, Michel Vaujour "forced
his way onto the prison's roof by wielding nectarines that were painted to look
like grenades."
His wife then
picked him up in a helicopter and whisked him away to a football field, where
they landed and drove away.
But their luck
soon ran out.
Nadine Vaujour
was discovered and arrested in southwestern France, and Michel survived being
shot in the head during a failed bank robbery.
The
frequent flier
Apparently, helicopter escapes are
popular among French inmates. And Pascal Payet didn't flee into the sky just once
-- he did it three times, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association.
The Frenchman first used a helicopter to flee from a Luynes
prison in 2001.
Two years later,
while still a fugitive, he helped inmates from the same prison escape by chopper.
He was
eventually caught, but then he escaped for the third time from another prison
in 2007 using a helicopter hijacked by four men.
Payet and his
accomplices fled, and the pilot was not harmed. Eventually, Payet was
recaptured in Spain.
Resourcefulness
at Alcatraz
The whole point of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was to keep
dangerous inmates locked up on an island prison surrounded by frigid, rough
water, so they couldn't possibly escape.
But they could.
In 1962, Frank
Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin made intricate dummy heads --
complete with real human hair -- to use as decoys for guards making their
nighttime checks. They used homemade drills to enlarge vent holes and slipped
through.
"They then
climbed down a drainpipe on the northern end of the cellhouse and made their
way to the water," the Bureau of Prisons said. "They used
prison-issued raincoats to make crude life vests and a pontoon-type raft to
assist in their swim."
Decades later, it's
still unclear whether they made it across San Francisco Bay alive. No signs of
the men have emerged, but Morris and the Anglins are considered missing and
presumed drowned.
Wiggling
out of a food slot
Choi Gab-bok had a lot of time to kill
during his 23 years behind bars. So the convicted robber got really good at
yoga -- a skill that helped him slip away from a police station jail in Daegu,
South Korea.
One night in
2012, Choi waited for officers to fall asleep before squeezing out of his cell
door's rectangular food slot, the Korean Yonhap News Agency said.
To put things in
perspective, Choi was about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 115 pounds. The
food tray slot was about 18 inches wide and 6 inches tall.
Choi rubbed a
skin ointment on himself to help glide between the bars more easily. It worked,
and he wiggled his way to freedom.
But six days
later, Choi was caught -- and put in a cell with a much smaller food slot.
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