While John and Clarence Anglin, 2 of the 3 men who ever escaped from Alcatraz, were officially reported to have drowned in the bay, their mother received flowers anonymously every Mother’s Day until she died, and two very tall unknown women were reported to have attended her funeral.

According to Unsolved Mysteries, a day after the escape a man claiming to be John Anglin had called a lawyer in San Francisco and wanted the lawyer to arrange a meeting with the US Marshals’ Office. When the lawyer refused to do this, the person hung up. The sister of the brothers, Marie Anglin Widner, has told the media she believes that the brothers attented their mother’s funeral in 1973, disguised as women. On October 12, 2015, the History Channel premiered a documentary about the 1962 Alcatraz escape, focusing on John and Clarence Anglin and the possibility that their escape was successful. The program, Alcatraz: Search for the Truth provided viewers with evidence kept by the brothers’ family that included: Christmas cards signed by “John” and “Clarence”; an audio tape of a childhood family friend, Fred Brizzi, telling the family in the early 1990s about a chance encounter in 1975 with the brothers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; a photograph taken by the same family friend in 1975 of two men resembling John and Clarence Anglin.