Most famous prison escapes in the U.S.
The New York prison escape of Clinton Correctional Center inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt generated plenty of headlines in 2015. After a three-week manhunt, both prisoners were shot by officers. Matt, 49, was killed June 26, and Sweat, 35, was wounded and captured two days later. On Nov. 13, Sweat pleaded guilty to charges related to the breakout.
What are some of the most famous prison escapes in U.S. history? Here's a list.
— With reporting from The Associated Press
John Dillinger
Credit: AP
Gangster John Dillinger, center, with Lake County prosecutor Robert Estill, left, in the jail at Crown Point, Indiana, in 1934. Dillinger was awaiting trial for the murder of police officer William Patrick O'Malley when Dillinger robbed the First National Bank of East Chicago on Jan. 15, 1934.
Credit: AP
The Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana, is shown on Nov. 10, 1976. This is the jail from which outlaw John Dillinger escaped in broad daylight in 1934 using a fake gun. FBI agents fatally shot him four months later in Chicago. Once proclaimed as one of the most modern jails, it's now deserted because of a newer county jail and complex elsewhere.
Credit: AP
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay on June 12, 1962, the day three prisoners escaped. The men crawled through holes they'd cut in their cell walls, climbed to the roof and left on a raft fashioned from prison raincoats and rubber cement. They were never found; officials surmised they may have drowned before reaching shore.
Credit: AP
An exhibit about a 1962 prison escape made famous in the movie "Escape from Alcatraz" in the cell house museum store on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco in 2007. The three escapees, Clarence Anglin, John Anglin and Frank Morris, were believed to have escaped using an inflatable raft and were never heard from again. The FBI has never determined if they lived or died.
Credit: spielberg-ocr.com
One of the most famous con men in American history, Frank Abagnale, was known for elaborate forgeries and schemes, leading to his portrayal by Leonardo DiCaprio in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" in 2002. Abagnale's most famous escape came in April 1971, when, after a U.S. marshal forgot his detention papers, he convinced guards he was an undercover prison inspector.
Credit: AP
Left to right, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Garner, Steven Spielberg, Frank Abagnale and Leonardo DiCaprio at a special screening of the film "Catch Me If You Can" on Dec. 16, 2002, in the Westwood section of Los Angeles.
Credit: AP
T.J. Lane is handcuffed by a sheriff's deputy after sentencing on March 19, 2013, in Chardon, Ohio. Lane was given three lifetime prison sentences without the possibility of parole for opening fire in a high school cafeteria in a rampage that left three students dead and three others wounded.
Credit: AP
On Sept. 11, 2014, T.J. Lane, along with Clifford Opperud and Lindsey Bruce, escaped Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio. The three were all recaptured within a day, with Lane recaptured within five hours of his escape.
Credit: AP
John McCluskey, Daniel Renwick and Tracy Province escaped from an Arizona state prison on July 30, 2010. McCluskey, pictured above, was serving a prison sentence for attempted murder when he escaped.
Credit: AP
After escaping, the three were captured more than one month later and charged with the murder of an Oklahoma couple in New Mexico. This Aug. 13, 2010, photo shows a corral that ranch hands installed around what was left of a slain Oklahoma couple's burned-out travel trailer after the crime scene was cleaned up on a remote ranch near Santa Rosa, N.M.
Credit: Broward Sheriff's Office
Convicted murderer James Robert Jones eluded capture for 37 years after escaping prison in Kansas in 1977. He was arrested in March 2014 in Florida using the alias Bruce Walter Keith.
Credit: AP
The home of James Robert Jones in Deerfield Beach, Fla., on March 14, 2014. Jones, 69, was arrested March 13 in Deerfield Beach. He had escaped from a military prison at Fort Leavenworth in 1977 where he was serving a 23-year sentence for premeditated murder and aggravated assault.
Credit: AP
Two of the most recent prison escapees, David Sweat, left, and Richard Matt, right, in undated New York State Police photos. The convicted murderers made a brazen escape from the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora, where they were discovered to be missing on June 6, 2015. After nearly three weeks on the run, Matt, 49, was shot and killed by a border patrol officer June 26, with Sweat, 35, wounded by a state trooper and captured two days later.
Credit: Getty Images
A photo from the New York governor's office shows where two convicted murderers used power tools to cut through steel pipes at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. Prison worker Joyce Mitchell tearfully pleaded guilty on July 28, 2015, to charges of aiding the prisoners by smuggling hacksaw blades and other tools to them.
Newsday Live Author Series: Bobby Flay Newsday Live and Long Island LitFest present a conversation with Emmy-winning host, professional chef, restaurateur and author Bobby Flay. Newsday food reporter and critic Erica Marcus hosts a discussion about the chef's life, four-decade career and new cookbook, "Bobby Flay: Chapter One."
