Someone on the Loki team is a big true crime fan. Season 1 revealed that Loki was the real identity of the mysterious D.B. Cooper, a real-life hijacker and thief who parachuted away from a plane with a load of money in 1971 and was never seen again.
Now, the fifth episode of season 2 – “Science/Fiction” – has tossed another famous mystery into the mix, revealing that the timeline identity of adorably goofy TVA tech Casey is that of Alcatraz escapee Frank Morris. So, who was the real Frank Morris?
Escape from Alcatraz
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary is the most famous prison in American history. Located in the San Francisco Bay, the island became a prison in 1934 and was considered impossible to escape from. Security inside was incredibly tight, and even if you could somehow escape your cell, this is a small island. The mainland is just 1.25 miles away, but the water is cold, currents are strong, and swimming to freedom was considered a death sentence.
That didn’t discourage Morris, a bank robber who’d previously escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and had been recaptured and sent to Alcatraz. He teamed up with brothers John and Clarence Anglin, and car thief Allen West to concoct a plan that’s equally cunning, creative, and ambitious.
Over months, they slowly chipped away at the ventilation ducts under the sinks in their cell using equipment secretly purloined from the prison. Once they had access to the utility corridor, they set up a secret workshop, assembling a raft from raincoats and plywood, life preservers, and paper-mache heads to fool the guards into thinking they were asleep.
On June 11, 1962 they executed their plan and were never seen again. Investigators found fragments of the raft and one of their improvised life jackets, but the prisoners vanished. Whether they drowned or survived is one of the great true crime mysteries, albeit one that will probably never have a definitive answer. Well, in our world anyway.
The MCU solves the mystery!
As per Loki, the amiable Casey was actually Frank Morris all along, and it seems his mysterious disappearance was due to him being zapped away to another time by the titular trickster (though we don’t know what happened to his fellow escapees).
Whether next week’s finale will touch on any of this remains to be seen, but we’re tickled that someone on the Loki team is squeezing in some real-life mysteries. So, what’s next for the show: will we learn the true identity of Jack the Ripper? Who killed the Black Dahlia? Cracking the Zodiac Killer’s code? Fingers crossed this true crime hot streak continues.