Unusual Prison Escapes

Prison, as we know them, they're not exactly pleasant hotel stays. In fact, some of them are pretty harsh, and not very sanitary, and the guards can be quite harsh too. Of course, as long as there were prisons, there has been inmates that made an attempt to escape.

Now, you might have heard of 3 prison escapees named Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, John and Clarence who are known to attempt to escape America's most infamous prison; Alcatraz Island, though it \*is\* possible to escape from that prison but little in the way of evidence that these inmates actually succeeded. But there have been more bizarre escape attempts, and this is what this wiki page will try to cover.

## The Cannibal Escape

The British occupiers of both Australia and New Zealand have also taken the small island of Tasmania and established a prison colony on a lake which would be called Sarah Island and would open in the year 1822. This prison was supposed to house the "worst of the worst" as it had more guards than the other prisons in Australia and New Zealand and with untamed wilderness and surrounded by an ocean full of Sharks and Box Jellyfish, it seemed that this prison facility was "inescapable".

Just a few months from its opening, several inmates already escaped from the facility and into the untamed jungle. These 8 inmates were Alexander Dalton, Thomas Bodenham, William Kennerly, Matthew Travers, Edward Brown, Robert Greenhill, John Mather, and Alexander Pearce. Bringing a small hatchet, they have escaped and into the jungle.

After around 2 weeks after escaping, the men were lost, and hungry, and because they brought no food with them they had no choice but to resort to cannibalism, the first choice was Dalton as on Sarah Island he volunteered to be a flogger (meaning whip the other inmates), one of the fellow escapees used the hatchet and cut his head off, cooked him and ate on his flesh and muscles. For the next month as the men tried to reach civilization, they resorted to cannibalism in order to survive, eventually only Alexander Pearce survived and eventually reached civilization and joined a band of sheeple rustlers.

After 4 months of escaping, Pearce was then founded by the local guards and was arrested. He was then brought back to Sarah Island where he confessed to murdering his fellow escapees and the acts of cannibalism. But because (for the time) Pearce didn't have the body of your ordinary cannibal, the Magistrate didn't believe him and his testimony was disregarded and his previous sentence was then extended.

Around 2 years later, Pearce would escape again, this time with only 1 fellow inmate; Thomas Cox. But when a patrol ship came was combing the beach, they discovered a beach fire, there they saw Pearce what it appeared to be cannibalizing Thomas. When he was brought back, Pearce again confessed to killing and cannibalizing Thomas as well as his 7 other fellow escapees 2 years ago, he was given the death penalty, Pearce was then hanged on July 19, 1824.

## The Japanese Escape Artist

This is a one man escape artist, his name is "Yoshie Shiratori". After several jobs such as working at a Tofu Shop and a fisherman catching Crabs for the Russians, he turned to petty crime, he was then put in Prison. His first prison stay was in his home town of Aomori in 1936 where he would pick the lock on his prison cell and then escaped, he would then be caught and sent to a Prison in a town called Akita in 1942, where we would take advantage of the rusted grating in his cell's skylight to escape.

Yoshie was not a fan of Japan's prison system, and often criticized it for its methods of just punishing inmates for their crimes rather than rehabilitating them.

Yoshie would be again in caught in 1944 and this time went to Asabari Prison which is in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido where the prison was surrounded by untamed wilderness and the environment around the prison would get extremely cold in the winter time. During his stay in this prison, he would be given a meal consisting of rice and "Miso Soup".

You might be familiar with Miso Soup if you were to go to a Japanese Restaurant, if you tried the soup before than you would know that it tastes very salty, and the soup has a very high content of sodium in it. This also means that it can also weaken and rust metal, and that is what Yoshie will do next to escape.

Yoshie would be given Miso Soup everyday, apart from eating his meal, he would also take some of it in his mouth ans spit it out and onto the food slot on his side of his cell door and pour some of it on his handcuffs too. Soon, the metal on the food slot and his handcuffs would weaken enough for him to escape. On a night during a mandatory blackout (since Japan was at war with the United States), Yoshie would seize the opportunity, he broke free of his cuffs and then slid under the food slot, though he would dislocate both of his shoulders doing so.

He would remain on the run for 2 years until he got into a scuffle with another farmer over tomatoes, which ended in Yoshie stabbing the farmer to death. He was arrested in 1947, and this time he was given the death sentence for his alleged "murder", eventhough he said that him killing the farmer was an accident, and was sent to a prison in Sapporo where we would wait the death penalty. The guards there wanted to make sure that Yoshie wouldn't escape again as they prepared for him a cell which was supposed to be escape proof and have 6 guards keep a hawk's eye on him. Yoshie would escape.........................again. This time using a Miso Soup Bowl to dig a tunnel. He would be on the run for a year until a police officer saw him in a park and Yoshie would confessed that he had escaped from prison, when he was tried in a court in Sapporo, they overturned his previous charge of murder, but would again be sent to prison, this time for his escape attempts, Yoshie did make a request that he'd be sent to a prison in Tokyo. Yoshie would serve nearly 20 years, and was released for good behavior. He went back to Aomori to be with his daughter, and to find a job in the construction business, he never pursued a life of crime again, he died in 1979.

That'll do it for this wiki page. Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis too. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.