- Locked away in a deadly prison...
- It looks majestic. But looks can be deceiving.
- You're dealing with gang members,
you're dealing with rapists,
you're dealing with child molesters,
you're dealing with murderers.
- A manipulative convict...
- Timothy Vail was a mean, nasty, dangerous person.
- People's impressions of Tim
was that he had like a friendly personality.
- Enlists his friend and fellow cellmate...
- Vail, he really needed somebody he could trust
and not squeal on his plan or divulge it in any way.
- To tunnel out of their cell...
[dramatic music]
- To get through that hole, that's the amazing part.
- There was no way, no way I'm getting through that.
- And break out of this hellhole.
[thud] [dramatic musical sting]
[epic music]
Some of the greatest stories ever told
start behind bars.
Locked up in the most notorious prisons
in the world,
spied on by guards and fellow prisoners,
it takes a devious mind to find a way out.
♪ ♪
It could lead you to freedom,
or it could cost you your life.
♪ ♪
But wouldn't you try...
when you have nothing left to lose?
♪ ♪
Imagine being crammed in this 8x10 cell
with another person.
There's barely any room to move...
let alone think.
Your cellmate can be your best friend,
your worst nightmare,
or, if you play your cards right,
your co-conspirator in escape.
And believe me,
Elmira Correctional Facility is a place you want to escape.
[light music]
- It looks majestic.
It looks like a castle from the outside.
But looks can be deceiving.
It's a pretty dangerous, hectic place
when you step inside and the gates close behind you.
- Elmira being a maximum-security facility,
it houses some of the worst individuals in the state.
Typically, at a max, you're dealing with gang members,
you're dealing with rapists,
you're dealing with child molesters,
you're dealing with murderers.
Those are the type of individuals
that would be held in a facility like that.
[dramatic music]
- It wouldn't be surprising to have three,
four fights a week.
- There was a lot of stabbings and cuttings.
♪ ♪
- The prison is built to be an inescapable fortress
for these violent criminals.
It has seven guard towers,
each manned by officers armed with automatic weapons,
fencing, and buzzers.
But the crown jewel of the prison security
is its four-story stone and steel housing unit.
From this cell block called F Block,
prisoners can see out into the free world,
away from all the madness inside these prison walls.
There was a prisoner here who has a cell with view.
And he isn't content to sit and daydream
about life on the outside.
He is determined to live it.
His name is Timothy Vail.
- He had like a friendly personality,
but he would only show that if he was interacting
with somebody that he was familiar with.
- Timothy Vail was a mean, nasty, dangerous person.
He was a rapist and a murderer.
He raped a pregnant woman and killed her.
- Vail is sentenced to 49 years to life
for his crimes.
By 2003, he has already spent 15 years behind bars.
He will be a very old man by the time
he's released-- If that day ever comes.
He is looking for another way out.
And one day, in the prison yard,
he thinks he's spotted it.
- From the gym yard, you can see up onto the roof,
and you can see that, above F Block,
there is the end of a venting system.
- From a distance, he could see
the big louvers of a giant fan
that might be 5 feet wide and 5 feet tall
and thought to himself,
"If I could get in the attic, I could disengage that fan
and might be able to get out on the roof."
- From the roof, Vail could figure a way down
and make his way to freedom.
But his first obstacle is getting to that roof.
He's in F Block,
but he's living on the bottom floor.
There are three stories of cells and an attic
between him and the roof.
He has to find a way to be moved to the top floor,
so he can get into the attic.
Vail realizes he knows the perfect person
who lives on the top floor
and just so happens to be in a double bunk cell.
His name is Timothy Morgan.
Timothy Morgan is serving 25 years to life
for murdering a cab driver during a robbery.
Like Vail...
he'd had enough of life in this hellhole.
- Morgan and Vail met when they were in E Block,
which is a substance abuse treatment program.
They double-bunked there for a little while,
got to know each other.
- I believe that Vail picked Morgan
because he was a follower and would follow his direction
and agreed with the plan.
- With Morgan enlisted in trying to escape,
they now need to figure out
how they can room with one another.
- Morgan was already with another inmate
in the cell up on the top tier of F Block.
Vail approached him with his plan,
and in order to do that,
he had to get the other inmate in with him
to request to get out of the double bunk cell.
- Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
already did live in a double bunk
when they were in E Block,
and they never once had a problem.
And now they're asking to double bunk again.
I'm gonna sign off on that, every time.
- As soon as Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
become cellmates, they fly into action.
But they don't know how they're going to
access the prison's attic.
In their cell, there aren't any easy-to-exploit openings
such as an air vent.
Those are in the hallways.
The only thing they can think of
is making a hole in the concrete ceiling
of their cell.
But if they succeed in making a hole,
how are they going to conceal it?
- They complained to the staff in the cell block
and said, hey, you know,
you have these night lights outside of our cell,
'cause we're in a top tier,
and it's really bright in our cell,
and it's tough to sleep.
Do you mind if we paint the top of our cell black to,
you know, cut down on the light?
- Usually, if an inmate is willing to paint
or clean up his cell
or pretty up his cell in some way,
staff is gonna say, "Absolutely.
Make it look better. Yeah, go ahead, paint it."
- In all actuality, it just made it easier
for them to cover the hole.
So, if you were to look in the cell, it's black.
You know, if you looked at it, it wouldn't stick out.
- The stage is set.
Now, all they need
is something with which to make a hole,
something that won't get them in trouble
if the cell is searched.
Vail knows the perfect place to find a tool
they might be able to use.
- Vail worked in the vocational carpentry shop.
He started out being a student there.
- Vail is good with tools.
And he quickly shows his worth
to the civilian instructor, Gary Silvers.
- Mr. Silvers was a really nice guy.
Type of guys I'd love to have as a neighbor.
I could borrow something from him.
He'd always be dependable.
I could count on him. He was a nice guy.
But nice guys aren't always the ones
who make it far in the prison environment.
- Vail uses his charm
to gain favor with Gary Silvers,
and Vail works his way up
to the position of tool clerk
in the prison carpentry shop.
- Vail worked in the tool room, which...
it was letting the wolf [laughs] in the hen house.
That gave him the opportunity to get away
with some of the stuff he brought back to his cell.
- What can Timothy Vail take back to his cell
from the tool room that won't be noticed?
- Sheet rock screws definitely is not the type of object
that would be counted in inventory.
It wouldn't even be noticed that they were missing.
- At the time, there were so many of those screws,
we couldn't count them all
and record how many were left,
how many were missing.
Who's countin' screws? How much can a screw hurt you?
- The screws are exactly what Vail and Morgan need
to make the hole.
But standing in their way
to get the screws back to their cell
is a checkpoint known as Center Gate.
- Center Gate is a main location
where everybody-- The prisoners and the staff--
Have to pass through
in order to go from the cell blocks
out to the vocational areas.
And there's a ledge where you take things out of your pocket
and you put it on the ledge, and the guards look at it,
push it through, and you pick your property back up.
And so they'll pick somebody out
and they'll put them against the fence to do a pat frisk.
- At the Center Gate, where they frisk the inmates,
class lets out in the middle of the shift.
There may only be one officer there at that gate,
who can't safely frisk these 20 inmates,
because you always have to have
someone watching your back,
should there be a weapon or something.
So, the officer, a lot of times, wouldn't frisk them.
And Vail knew that.
- Timothy Vail needs to wait for the right moment
to get these screws out of the workshop.
And the opportunity presents itself
the day after Vail moves in with Timothy Morgan.
Gary Silvers informs Timothy
that he's taking the afternoon off.
This is the moment Vail has been waiting for.
With Silvers leaving, the shop will close early,
and Vail will be going through Center Gate
at a time he's less likely to be frisked.
Less likely doesn't mean he won't get stopped and frisked.
Anything can happen.
[intense music]
♪ ♪
Vail easily steals the screws,
but now comes the hard part--
Getting past Center Gate.
Timothy Vail is hoping he will not be stopped and frisked.
If they find the screws,
he will be condemned for the rest of his life
to this deadly prison.
♪ ♪
- Timothy Vail wants to escape from the depressing
and dangerous Elmira Correctional Facility.
He's stolen screws from the workshop where he works,
but now he has to get them through
the security checkpoint known as Center Gate.
Imagine being in line with contraband in your pocket,
waiting to see if the guards will let you past...
or frisk you.
I'd be sweating bullets.
And when the guards frisk the inmates ahead of them,
Timothy Vail must be.
[intense music]
Will the guards stop him?
It's a close call.
Now, he has these screws,
and he can begin gouging a hole in the ceiling of his cell--
His first step toward freedom.
[scraping sound]
- They would take turns digging.
Whoever wasn't laying on the top bunk digging
was sitting, looking down the gallery
to see if anyone was coming.
- Vail and Morgan soon realize
they need more cover to work on hole.
- Putting a sheet up definitely is not anything
that would raise any eyebrows,
because a lot of times
the prisoners would put the sheet up
if they were gonna use the bathroom.
Like, nobody wants to see that.
- Their sheets ward off prying eyes.
But sheets and the black ceiling are not enough.
They must figure out something else
to hide the progress they're making on the hole.
Timothy Vail gets an idea--
He can paint a piece of paper black.
But how will he attach it without glue or tape,
since both are contraband in prison?
- Inmates use toothpaste for glue in prison.
It works great for family photos or a calendar.
When the toothpaste dries,
it's pretty much there to stay.
- So, when somebody walked by,
they had a piece of black paper
that they would stick up against the hole
using toothpaste, and nobody would ever see it.
- The inmates work on the ceiling every day,
mostly during their free time,
from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.,
4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.,
and 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. during the week,
and all day on the weekends.
Timothy Vail is constantly stealing new sheetrock screws
as they wear out, but still, progress is slow.
Vail, the brains of the operation,
is starting to doubt that the screws alone will cut it.
- He's going through hard concrete
that's been there for [laughs] a long time,
and it was just slow going.
It's just gonna take him forever.
He knew that wasn't gonna work.
So he had to figure out something to pound it with.
♪ ♪
- Vail knows he has to take another big risk
and try to smuggle more tools out of the carpentry shop.
But what?
For Timothy Vail, an opportunity presents itself
when Gary Silvers asks Vail
to disassemble an old wood planer
that the carpentry shop is discarding.
As Vail takes the machine apart,
he notices a guide piece
that he thinks would work well as a hammer.
- It was part of the machine.
It looked like a cylinder with a metal rod sticking out
like you'd use a handle.
- But how would he get the handle out of the woodshop
and past Center Gate undetected?
The guide piece is much larger than a bunch of screws.
This time, his partner in crime, Timothy Morgan,
is willing to take the risk.
Morgan visits Vail in the carpentry shop
where he hides the guide piece in his pants
so he can try and get past the security at Center Gate.
Morgan isn't as confident as Vail is
about getting through Center Gate
with contraband in his pants.
He's never done something like this before.
But if he's going to be part of this escape,
he needs to hold up his end.
This isn't going to be easy for him.
- There's not an X-ray machine.
I can't see through your pants.
The best way for me to tell is to touch you.
- Unfortunately for Morgan, he's chosen for a frisk.
Any minute, the guard will check his pants.
If the guard finds the piece, what will Morgan say?
Will he give their escape plan away?
[escalating music]
Luckily for Morgan,
the guards don't thoroughly check his pants.
Now they have something to pound the screws with.
For 17 days, they hammer away, without being detected.
- They had a calendar in their cell,
and they recorded what days they worked on their hole.
And the days that they made good progress,
they would put a smiley face on the calendar.
- All is going well... until they hit a snag.
- They come across rebar, the metal steel bar
that runs through the concrete itself.
So now, they didn't plan for that.
They had no way of knowing.
- Once again, Vail's mind turns to the carpentry shop.
- The bandsaws that they used, as they get older,
they'd come apart.
In order to get a new blade for the bandsaw,
he would take the old one, give it to Mr. Silver,
so he would get him a new one.
It was a one-for-one trade, thinking that
that way, no saw blades are getting anywhere.
But Mr. Silver didn't realize
Vail was cutting 4-inch or 6-inch lengths
off the saw blade and then giving him the rest.
- Blades are serious contraband,
compared to screws and a planer handle.
If they are found in possession of the inmates
at Center Gate,
they could be staring at time in solitary confinement--
The hole.
They have to devise a better way
of getting past Center Gate
than just a hope and a prayer that they won't get frisked.
Vail has an idea.
- So, he takes the blades--
In order to get them back to his cell,
he takes a tobacco pouch, put the saw blades in there,
sealed it back up so it looks brand-new.
- With the blades hidden in his tobacco pouch,
Timothy Vail makes his way through Center Gate...
hoping that the pouch will go unnoticed.
- That would be an item--
You would actually take that out of your pocket,
put that on the small ledge, the guard would look at it.
- The guard inspects the tobacco.
Will he think it's just a new package,
or will he search it and send Vail to the hole,
where he will rot for many, many years?
♪ ♪
- Inmates Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
are attempting to break through
the ceiling of their cell
to teach the roof of the dangerous and dank
Elmira Correctional Facility.
♪ ♪
They reached a snag and hit rebar.
Needing a tool to cut through it,
Timothy Vail has taken pieces of an old bandsaw from his job
at the prison's woodworking shop
and sealed it into a tobacco pouch.
Now, he just has to make it past Center Gate
and back to his cell.
- He used a tobacco pouch, sealed it back up
so it looked like it was brand-new
so the officer wouldn't look through it.
He'd have no reason to open it up.
[intense musical build-up]
♪ ♪
- Timothy Vail makes it back to his cell
with the sawblades unscathed.
Now that they have the blades,
they've come up with a way to fashion them into a tool
to cut through the rebar.
- He took parts of a toothbrush--
Plastic toothbrush,
melted it on the ends of the blade
so he could hold it,
so he could use it as like a handle to saw,
'cause obviously he didn't want to hold on to the blades.
- The blades now look like a tool.
And if found during a cell search,
the guards would most certainly
find the hole in the ceiling.
- Cell searches are often random.
Guards come in your cell, and they look around.
I mean, it might be that they totally wreck the whole cell,
or it might be that the cell is barely searched at all.
- Almost a month into their escape plan,
their cell hasn't been searched yet.
But their luck has run out.
They see two officers heading their way,
and it can only mean one thing--
A random cell search.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
This is what inmates Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
are most afraid of the guards finding.
It is an improvised saw,
made to cut through a piece of rebar
in the concrete ceiling of their cell.
Now, it could land them in the hole for years.
And their hopes of escape would be cut to shreds.
The guards rifle through the cell
looking for any signs of contraband.
[intense music]
♪ ♪
They breathe a sigh of relief
as the officer doesn't notice the hole in their ceiling
or find the saws in their cell.
- They obviously concealed it pretty well.
- They are almost two months into digging,
and the screws they have are worn out.
Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
are going to need a lot more screws,
more than just the handfuls
they've been able to steal from the shop.
Timothy Vail, always thinking,
has a plan to get over 100 screws back to his cell.
- He said his chair in his cell was rickety
and he wanted to tighten it up, fix it.
So he brought it over to the shop.
But what he actually did was took the sheetrock screws,
wrapped them with tape,
and slid them inside the hollow legs,
put the legs back on the chair.
- The first problem is the same one they've always had--
How to get past security
between the workshop and the cell.
But the real test here is psychological--
Figuring out how to convince Mr. Silvers
to make a call on his behalf.
- Timothy Vail was very smart,
and he gained the trust of Mr. Silvers.
Mr. Silvers wants his shop to look good.
And by all means, he doesn't want a drill
to come up missing.
So, if I can count on Timothy Vail
to do that, he's a great inmate.
Maybe I'm gonna give him a little bit of extra privilege
or cut him a little bit more slack
because he does such a good job for me.
- Vail uses his charm and relationship with Silvers
to get Silvers to make the call.
- Mr. Silvers called the Center Gate
and asked the officers to please let Timothy Vail
take a chair back to the cell with him.
Little did the staff know...
all four legs were full of those little screws.
- The inmates continue to track their progress
on the calendar--
Xs on the days they worked,
smiley faces on the days they made real progress.
And on June 14,
99 days since they began making
the hole in the ceiling, a new entry--
"Breakthrough."
Vail and Morgan have made a tiny hole
all the way through the ceiling into the attic.
Now that they've broken through,
they are going to need to work faster,
before someone detects the hole in the attic above them.
[punchy music]
- They needed something that had a little bit
more power and strength behind it.
- Timothy Vail knows exactly what he could use:
a 12-pound sledgehammer head.
One is currently being used as a doorstop
in the workshop where Vail works.
- I walked by that sledgehammer probably 50 times,
and as a lieutenant, I should have said
whoa, that's dangerous,
'cause somebody could pick it up and hit somebody with it.
But you just become complacent
and used to seeing things all the time.
I didn't think anything of it. I was like,
"Oh, that's the doorstop. That's what they use."
- Now, Timothy Vail just needs to find the right opportunity
to smuggle it out of the shop.
[dramatic chords]
- Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
have been attempting to dig their way out of their cell,
but it's slow going.
Vail notices a sledgehammer
that is used as a doorstop in the shop where he works.
He's just waiting for the right moment to steal it.
His opportunity comes when Mr. Silvers
leaves the carpentry shop early.
[suspenseful music]
- You get caught with a actual sledgehammer head,
I don't think there's any way that it would have not been
automatically known that that was part of an escape.
So, if they had gotten caught with that,
that's the whole kit and kaboodle right there.
- He has snuck nails and other tiny pieces of metal
through security before.
But the sledgehammer is heavy.
And he can't hide it very well.
This time, he's going to have to count on pure luck
to not get caught.
Timothy Vail places this sledgehammer head
in a net bag he usually carries.
- He probably had a story ready,
should he have been frisked.
- Vail only has one thing on his mind
as he makes his way through Center Gate:
will they stop him and find the sledgehammer?
[intense music]
Vail once again makes it back to his cell unscathed
with the tools he needs.
Timothy Vail tapes the edges of the sledgehammer
so it won't make a metallic sound
when they tap the screws to make the hole bigger.
[intense, punchy music]
The sledgehammer does its job,
and soon the hole will be big enough
for them to climb through.
As it is looking increasingly hopeful
that they will breach their cell,
Vail is thinking ahead--
How will they be able to disguise their absence
as they explore their exit route?
- Their plan of avoiding detection
was they made the dummies.
They made the dummies as lifelike as they can.
- Timothy Vail fills a bag with clothes
for the body of the dummy.
Using water, flour, and paper,
he makes a detailed papier-mâché face.
But now, he must find paint to cover the face.
Once again, Vail turns to the woodworking shop
to steal the materials he needs.
He finds paint there,
and this time he doesn't have to worry about
getting it through Center Gate.
- They used flesh-colored paint,
which is really not contraband in prison.
Somebody could be doing an arts and craft project
and have a little bit of flesh paint.
- The next step is finding hair for the dummy.
But where will they get lifelike hair?
- Morgan cut his hair at one point,
and they used that on the dummies.
- Now, somebody who went in and took a close look
at the dummies would have realized,
"Hey, they're dummies. They're not the inmates."
But a guard walking by,
an officer just kind of glancing into the cell,
to them it might have looked like
they're in bed like they're supposed to be.
- With the dummies complete,
there's only one thing left to do.
Look at this hole. It's tiny.
But everything now hangs on Timothy Vail
being able to get through it.
They've lined it with plastic.
Vail has stripped naked and covered himself in oil.
♪ ♪
Wish him luck. I know I couldn't make it.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Harry Houdini would be impressed.
Timothy Vail has reached his Promised Land,
and freedom is another step closer.
[energetic music]
- The attic-- it's pretty tall.
Lotta open space.
It's where all the ventilation goes,
the air ducts that exhaust the air from the block
to fresh air and bring in-- And keep air moving.
- You get up into the ceiling,
and as you came through that hole,
right in front of you was a vent
probably 4 foot by 4 foot
that led out to the roof, with the louver at the end.
- This is the first time that Timothy Vail realizes
that he may actually make it onto the roof.
But the vent is sealed.
Vail must figure out a way to open the vent.
While back at the cell,
Timothy Morgan is keeping watch.
Morgan is excited they may actually be able
to escape soon.
But there was a problem.
♪ ♪
An officer is coming down the hallway.
As he walks past,
will he notice that Timothy Vail is missing,
and there's a dummy in his bed?
- It's tough sometimes, because an inmate's sleeping,
and you don't see his chest rise and fall,
you're supposed to, what, bang the bars and wake him up?
Now you've woken up the next guy.
And then you'd have a bunch of complaints about that.
So, it's tough.
That's why I never liked working midnights.
- The guard walks past the cell looking at Morgan,
never noticing the dummy in Vail's bunk.
Meanwhile, back up in the attic,
Vail uses the only tools he has with him--screws.
- Vail pried away part of that aluminum ductwork.
They peeled it and got inside the ducts.
- But it's getting late, and Vail doesn't want to risk
the guards finding the dummy in his bed.
So he rushes back to his cell before the standing count.
The next night, Timothy Vail continues his search
to reach the roof of the block.
He crawls through the duct he opened last night.
- The end of that ductwork, all that were there were
the blades that go over a duct
to keep animals out.
- They could easily bend those aluminum louvers
and get out on the roof.
- Vail doesn't risk going out onto the roof
because he's afraid they might be found out.
They only have one shot to escape.
He looks through the aluminum louvers
for something they may be able to use to scale the wall
away from the wall tower guard's watchful eyes.
But he doesn't see anything.
- They gotta figure out how they're gonna drop down
40 to 50 feet.
- Timothy Vail needs to find or make something
so they can lower themselves down three stories.
Up until this point,
Timothy Vail has overcome every obstacle with ease.
Will this be the one that ends his dreams
of escaping this hellhole?
♪ ♪
- It's been four months since Timothy Vail
started his plan to escape this derelict prison.
He's broken out of his cell
and explored the attic above him
and identified an escape route.
His next step is to figure out
how to climb down from the roof
of the three-story building without being caught.
Plain old bedsheets.
Standard issue for prison escapes, right?
Tie them together like this, make a long rope.
It's not original, but Vail thinks it's the best way
to rappel down the 46-foot brick wall of Elmira Prison.
The only trouble is, between him and his cellmate,
they only have four sheets.
That's nowhere near enough.
♪ ♪
- The only sheets that the correctional facility
issue inmates are two white sheets,
but you can get sheets as a package.
The wife can send her husband sheets, or the girlfriend,
or the mother can send them sheets.
Well, if the inmate gets two,
and the other inmate gets two issued to him,
and they each get two in a package--
So, start adding up the numbers,
they can get more and more sheets.
- There's a limit on what you can have--
A limit--but honestly,
that might be something that the officer would overlook,
you know what I mean? He'd look and say, "All right,
I'm gonna make a big stink about three extra sheets?"
You know, you're not thinking,
"Okay, he's gonna go through the ceiling
and come down the side." You're thinking,
"All right, so what? He's got three extra sheets."
- Anticipating that they may have to make a rope
to climb 40 feet down from the roof of the building,
Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan
have collected 11 sheets over the past several weeks.
Now, it's time to put the sheets to use.
They fashion a rope by knotting the sheets together
and reinforcing the knots with packing tape.
They test its strength
by tying it around the bars of their cell
and pulling as hard as they can.
Hopefully, it's strong enough
and long enough for them to scale the wall.
Now, they're ready to make their escape plan a reality.
The 10:30 p.m. count has just passed,
and the lights are out.
It's go time.
♪ ♪
They put their dummies in their beds
and strip down to their underwear.
- They rub their bodies down with kind of a grease,
kind of a lubricant that would ease the passage through,
because they made the hole just barely big enough
so they could squeeze through.
- And they described how they had to lift one arm higher
and one arm lower and change the diameter,
or the width of their shoulders,
to allow them to squeeze through that little hole.
- The night they actually left,
Vail went first. He's the smaller guy.
And according to their story, too, that's what they also say.
He clears the way. Makes sure everything's good.
They get through. They had a bucket
with some soapy water that they wash up with,
try and get the Vaseline off themselves.
They put their clothes back on and go into the vent.
Bend the louvers out, get out onto the roof.
[uneasy music]
- They did not know
what they were gonna be able to attach their sheets
tied in a rope to when they got on the roof.
It turns out the roof is two--is multi-level,
and to get from the lower section to the upper section,
there's about a three or four-rung ladder
attached to the brick wall.
And they get up there and said,
"Sheesh, the prison gods are shining on us tonight.
There's a ladder for us to tie on to right over the edge."
- The area where they decide to descend
is obscured from the guard tower.
The only thing standing
between the escapees and freedom
is a 46-foot climb down their makeshift rope.
- Morgan looked over the edge and said,
"I'm not going down there.
I'm not going down that rope. You are crazy."
It was a long ways down.
So, Morgan chickens out. He doesn't want to go.
He talks about retracing his steps
and going back to get in his bunk.
"This is over, as far as I'm concerned."
Vail talks him into, "No, I'll show you how to do it."
- Vail begins his descent.
At first, it looks easy for him.
But halfway down the wall, disaster strikes.
- He got his arm caught in the rope when he was coming down,
and when he was trying to free it...
♪ ♪
[thudding]
He fell like 25, 30 feet.
[dramatic musical sting]
- So that left Morgan up on the roof,
looking down at Vail.
He's trying to talk to him, but he can't yell
because inside that wall are officers.
So he can't yell out to him. And Vail's not moving.
[dark music]
Morgan's contemplating, "What do I do?"
- For all Morgan knows, Vail is dead.
[intense music]
Does he go back to his cell,
or does he try to make it down the sheet ladder
and risk the same fate as Vail?
Either way, at this moment,
the escape looks dead in the water.
- Timothy Vail's body lies lifeless at the bottom
of the walls of Elmira Correctional Facility.
His partner in crime, Timothy Morgan,
is scared that he will suffer the same fate
going down the homemade sheet ladder.
- Morgan's contemplating, "What do I do?"
Do I climb back in the air duct,
back into the attic,
and try to squeeze myself through the hole?
After a while, he's like, "I've gotta make a decision.
I've gotta make a decision."
And he grabbed on to the rope, and he went down.
♪ ♪
Because he was so scared, he actually hung on
and made it all the way down.
- At this point, Vail comes to.
But he's seriously injured.
He has a fractured shoulder, chest injuries,
and a sprained ankle.
He isn't going to be able to run into the woods
like they planned.
- They sat there for a good period of time,
you know, maybe up to an hour or more,
Vail trying to recover from this fall.
[punchy music]
- After four months of tedious painstaking work,
the inmates are free, but Vail can barely walk,
and they are unsure of what to do next.
- They had no plan after they got out,
which is mind boggling
that they would spend all that time with this plan
and then not have the exit plan once they get out.
I mean, had they had somebody
on the outside there with a vehicle,
they could have just walked down the hill,
jumped in the vehicle.
Maybe they thought they could just go down
and steal a car, and away they go.
But I don't think they were planning on Vail getting hurt.
- Vail recovers just enough
to make their way into the nearby town
and then into the surrounding woods.
[alarm blares]
- Vail and Morgan have been found missing
from their cells.
The inmates have a four-hour head start.
- When we saw the rope, we knew indeed
that they had gotten out.
- A search mission mounts.
Roads are blocked, helicopters deployed.
Anyone and everyone
are looking for these two escaped convicts.
[dramatic music]
After a day in the woods,
Vail is starting to succumb to his wounds.
He has to get off his feet.
Morgan and Vail decide their best bet
is to try and steal a vehicle so they can leave the area.
- They eventually stole a van.
It was reported, and the van was spotted a short time later
right outside a supermarket in Horseheads.
They were cornered by state police
and gave up peacefully, and that was it.
[dramatic chords]
- Timothy Vail is sent
to the maximum-security prison in Dannemora...
Home of another famous prison break.
But that's another story.
He won't be eligible for parole until 2041.
His former cellmate and co-conspirator, Timothy Morgan
is sent to Auburn Correctional Facility,
and won't get out before 2035.
And to make sure neither of them cooks up another escape,
they're both held in solitary confinement,
23 hours a day, seven days a week.
They're going nowhere for a long, long time.