Joseph Bowers Joseph Bowers Joseph "Dutch" Bowers (December 13, 1896 – April 27, 1936) was the first man to attempt an escape from Alcatraz prison. On 27 April 1936, convict Henry Larry claims to have watched Bowers, who was feeding seagulls, stack some empty barrels and climb up next to the fence so he could retrieve a bit of food which had fallen on the barbed wire. He stood there feeding the birds for several minutes until a tower guard turned, saw him atop the fence, and fired on the convict. Bowers fell seventy feet to his death on the rocks below.
HM Prison Leicester he had broken from a wall in the workshop toilets to help him scale the wall. He then chose to drop by his fingertips from a part of the wall which was located above the governor's garden, in the hope that the soft earth would help break his fall. However, Hattersley suffered a broken ankle, with his right tibia protruding the skin. After several hours on the run, he was re-captured the following day. In 2014, it was reported that prison officers had thwarted a similar plan for an escape over the wall by an inmate who was serving six