The Disappearance of Ted Cole and Ralph Roe From Alcatraz: Dead or Alive?

Criminalia

Shondaland Audio and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joseph Bowers is considered the first prisoner to try escaping Alcatraz, but was killed during his attempt. The next to attempt it was a pair of conspiring inmates named Ted Cole and Ralph Roe. Both men had long rap sheets and were known escape risks -- including from high security facilities. As a last resort, each was sentenced to time at the most inescapable prison in the United States: Alcatraz. With hindsight, and it's easy for us to say with time on our side, maybe they should have been kept apart, because these prisoners-in-crime totally escaped Alcatraz Island, and were never seen again.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Criminalea, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
0:08.0	Hey, before the show starts today, we have a little bit of fun news to share.
0:14.0	We have had a secret.
0:15.6	We have been working very diligently for the past many months on creating something that a lot of you have been asking for and that is a book of
0:25.3	cocktails and mocktails that are told right alongside the stories that we talk about.
0:29.5	Plus additional ones that we have not talked about. That's right, this book is about half stories you have heard,
0:35.0	although they've been abridged alongside their cocktails
0:38.0	and brand new stories that we are telling
0:42.0	and brand new cocktails that we have never had before. new in October. That's right. It is going to be out on October 15th and you can order it now
0:55.2	just about anywhere books are sold. Check out your local bookstores and see if they're
0:59.8	going to have it. All right, let's jump into the episode.
1:02.8	Debate continues to this day, as to whether Joe Bowers was trying to escape Alcatraz or if he was trying to end his own life.
1:18.0	He was known to be a loner and a bit of a desperado by his fellow inmates.
1:23.4	Based on his behavior, other prisoners and some guards considered him, quote,
1:27.4	criminally insane.
1:29.7	Bowers was serving a 25-year sentence for violating postal laws when on the afternoon of April 27th
1:36.3	1936 while working at the trash incinerator, he began to scale one of the fences along
1:42.3	Alcatraz Islands edge.
1:45.2	Correctional officers commanded him to stop, but he carried on climbing until he was shot
1:50.6	by prison guards as he reached the top of the fence, falling some 50 to 100 feet to his
1:55.9	death down the embankment and into the bay on the south side of the island.
2:00.8	He is considered the first prisoner to attempt escaping Alcatraz, but the first to successfully
	...

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