A Florida man spent almost five years with three men who are in the history books for an unusual accomplishment: they may have made it across the cold waters of San Francisco Bay to freedom from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on June 11, 1962.

LAKE WALES — Robert Schibline spent almost five years with three men who are in the history books for an unusual accomplishment: they may have made it across the cold waters of San Francisco Bay to freedom from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.

Schibline is a bit skeptical, however. He says the men most likely died during the attempt to cross open waters.

From June 1958 to March 21, 1963, when the prison was permanently closed, Schibline was friends with Frank Morris and brothers John Anglin and Clarence Anglin.

Now 87 and living in a small home in east Lake Wales near Lake Rosalie, Schibline says he's just a shell of the roughshod man who spent five years locked away in one of the world’s most notorious prisons.

Over 29 years, about 1,575 men were incarcerated in the 600-cell prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles off the coast of San Francisco. It was considered the world’s most secure incarceration facility.

If they did make it, John Anglin would be 88, Clarence a year younger at 87 and Morris would be 92.

“I even tried to talk them guys out of it. I didn’t believe in that raft they made. I said to them, ‘How do you know about them seams, how waterproof are they? Will the glue hold?’ " said Schibline, who was a U.S. Navy scuba diver. “They were not quiet about (the escape). They were very vocal about how to start and had taken extreme care in their procedures.”

From Leavenworth to The Rock

Schibline's nickname was “Banker Bob” on The Rock because of a string of bank robberies he committed during his time in the Navy. He and another sailor would rob small banks while on leave — taking up to $65,000 in one robbery in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1956.

Schibline, who was skilled in martial arts, was taken in a border patrol plane to Alcatraz from United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1958, where he had been sentenced to 15 years for bank robbery. He ended up there after Leavenworth inmate Gino Scusselle (known as ''Enforcer'') asked Schibline to teach him martial arts and a “stir up” occurred, causing them to be moved to the island.

“I was handcuffed to Gino all the way to The Rock. When we arrived in San Francisco, I stood on the dock, looking out into the bay at the island to be my home for an unknown amount of time and thinking, ‘Here I am, with the Enforcer and wondering if there are 250-plus men out there that maybe think that they are the Enforcer',” Schibline wrote in a mémoire. “But they were a real tight-knit group of cons and names, titles or money meant nothing to them.”

For most of his stay on The Rock, Schibline sat at the trio’s table each day for meals, directly across from the Anglins and Morris. He was also incarcerated among other notorious inmates such as mobsters Mickey Cohen and Alvin Karpis, who had his fingerprints surgically removed and replaced with toe prints. Schibline said he was privy to most of the three convicts’ escape plans.

“They were not quiet about it; they were very vocal about the progress of their escape," Schibline said. "Half of the prison was working for them and got them anything they needed that they didn’t know how to do."

Schibline has kept an assortment of mementos from his time at Alcatraz, including personal, handwritten notes and letters from the escapees, pictures from the dining area listing where each inmate sat, maps diagramming Alcatraz Island, cellhouse diagrams and mugshots of himself and other inmates.

During his time there, Schibline was called by his prison number: AZ-1355.

June 11, 1962 escape

Schibline recently recollected his journey to The Rock, mentioning his scuba diving and martial arts skills that allowed him to be welcomed into the inmate fold quickly, including Morris and the Anglins.

At mealtime, Schibline said, he was assigned to the trio of convicts’ 10-seat table, where he was the fourth man into the dining hall each day. Schibline — who was raised in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin, after he was adopted at 7 — said at first he ignored the roughshod Anglin brothers, dismissing them as new “fish” in Alcatraz and “hicks” from Georgia.

It was during mealtimes that Schibline first heard about the escape plan. Schibline said the men told him about their elaborate get-out-of-jail idea and shared details of their scheme of constructing a makeshift raft out of prison raincoats and use of a stolen electric drill powered by a vacuum cleaner motor and extension cord to drill through the cell wall.

“About half of the prison was working for them; they’d get them anything they needed or helped them with things they didn’t know how to do,” said Schibline, a native of Muscatine, Iowa, whose parents died when he was 6 years old. “To be honest, I thought they weren’t going to make it. I knew about the tides and currents. They didn’t and they only had about an hour to make it out.”

The night of Monday, June 11, 1962 — about six months after Schibline and the other inmates first heard about the escape scheme — Morris' and the Anglins' plan began to unfold. He said the men spent Saturday and Sunday saying “goodbye” to friends in the prison where half of the 211 prisoners knew about the escape plan.

“About 10:20 p.m., we heard a big ‘thunk.’ They went up in a vent and loosened the nuts to lower it and stepped out of there; it made a hell of a noise. I knew the job was in progress but I thought it was over. I thought they were busted,” Schibline said.

The prison guards soon after found the prison population count was off and discovered the decoy handmade mannequin heads the men had fashioned out of cement dust, toothpaste and human hair from the barbershop for their cell cots.

“The guard said, ‘The Anglin brothers won’t get out of bed! OK, boys, get up!’ He then put his hands through the bars, slapped the pillows and popped the heads into the air and it landed on the floor — he jumped 4 feet into the air,” Schibline recalled.

Schibline said he’s convinced the trio made it off the island but didn’t get far. He said he figured their raft came apart in rough waters and they drowned as they were pushed out into the Pacific Ocean.

True-life lore of infamy

From San Francisco’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Public Affairs Specialist Shalini Gopie said although Schibline is not mentioned specifically in the prison's information or on tours, many of the recreation area’s staff know him and his story.

By email, Gopie said Schibline has participated in the Alcatraz Alumni reunions and, at the 2018 event, he was featured in one of the best-attended public programs — "Call a Con” — in which he told his story to visitors by phone from his home in Lake Wales.

"Robert Schibline's willingness to share his unique story of incarceration on Alcatraz, and his knowledge of the 1962 escape, give staff and visitors to Alcatraz a rare firsthand glimpse into the history of this island,” she stated.

Schibline was released June 1965, married three times, had three daughters — Karen, Misty and Jamie — and a stepson and stepdaughter, Mark and Kelly Rabe. He went on to run a successful scuba diving business.

As for his legacy of crime and firsthand account of one of America’s most enduring true-life lore of infamy, Schibline said it gives him a good feeling being a part of American history — “the feeling of being a rock star without having to play the music.” He said the night Morris and the Anglins made it out of the highly secured prison was “the happiest day of my life on Alcatraz.”

“They made their escape off the island, but it would surprise me if they made it to land. To this day, I hope they had made it — but I know they didn’t,” he said.

This story originally published to theledger.com, and was shared to other Florida newspapers in the GateHouse Media network.