We all thought Michael Scofield’s many escapes in “Prison Break” were too good to be plausible. But here are nine convicts who pulled off equally unbelievable breakouts. Some were more creative than others.
Ted Bundy
The notorious serial killer escaped imprisonment twice. In 1977, he was at Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for a preliminary trial when he asked to visit the courthouse library during recess. Once there, he jumped out of a window and was on the run for a few days before being caught.
When his trial was moved to Colorado Springs, Bundy used a saw to create a hole in the cell’s ceiling and climbed out of it during Christmas break when most of the prison’s staff were gone.
Once out, he didn’t try to remain inconspicuous, but instead continued his murder spree. He was captured in Florida in 1978 and executed in 1989.
El Chapo
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, an infamous drug lord, also escaped from prison twice.
Guzman was imprisoned in Mexico but was indicted in San Diego. Authorities believe that to avoid extradition, he bribed a guard to dismantle cameras, open his cell and smuggle him out in a laundry cart on Jan. 19, 2001, the Daily News reported.
After being imprisoned again, El Chapo escaped again from a maximum-security Mexican prison. He left through a tunnel from his cell that led to a neighborhood almost a mile away. He was arrested again last year.
Alcatraz Escape
Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin and John Anglin may be the only three men to ever successfully escape from Alcatraz.
In 1962, the three inmates escaped after picking away at ventilation ducts for six months. They then climbed through and assembled a makeshift raft and left the prison.
They had made paper mâché dummy heads to look like them so they could avoid detection during rounds.
Assata Shakur
The first woman to be listed on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in 1979.
Authorities say the former Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army member escaped with the help of three BLA members who held prison guards hostage and took over a prison van that took Shakur to another location.
She fled to Cuba, where she is believed to have political asylum.
David Sweat and Richard Matt
David Sweat and Richard Matt are the only two prisoners to have ever escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in New York.
The duo cut through steel walls with hacksaw blades that were smuggled in through frozen hamburger meat.
After almost two weeks on the run, the two were shot by police. Matt died and Sweat lived.
John Dillinger
This Depression-era gangster, one of the FBI’s earliest Most Wanted, also escaped from prison twice.
He first escaped from jail in Ohio with the help of three former prisoners who escaped from the same jail.
Dillinger was caught again about a year later and sequestered to a county jail in Crown Point, Indiana which officials bragged was escape-proof. Dillinger then whittled a fake gun and used it to force the guards to open his cell and free him.
He was finally shot and killed by the special agents on July 22, 1934.
Brian Bo Larsen
This might be the real life Michael Scofield. Brian Bo Larsen has broken out of prison 22 times.
The Danish convict most recently broke out of his jail cell in 2014 and was found ten days later after he crashed a car while high on drugs, according to authorities.
James Robert Jones
James Robert Jones eluded capture and was on the run and eluded capture for almost 40 years.
He escaped in 1977 from a maximum-security military prison in Kansas.
Although details of Jones’ escape are unknown, the convict had created a new life for himself in Florida, getting married and working for an air-conditioning company. He was arrested again in 2014.
Frank Abagnale Jr.
The real con-man who inspired Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Catch Me If You Can” had a crafty way of breaking out of jail.
In one of several escapes, he escaped the Federal Detention Center in Georgia by posing as a prison inspector.
He was eventually recaptured, then released on the condition that he help the U.S. government solve crimes.
