Women Who Escaped From Prison

The Niantic Five

In 1984, five women managed to escape the Niantic Correctional Institution in Connecticut. The women managed to squeeze between the steel bars of a window in a maximum-security section of the prison. This was the only state prison for women, and it featured an open-campus style with no fences around the perimeter. The women magically escaped despite the fact that the bars on the window were spaced only 19.7 centimeters (7.7 in) apart and were 38 centimeters (15 in) high, covering the entire window. The prison didn’t realize that the women were missing until bed check was performed that night, which was about an hour after the women were last seen. Their escape was short-lived, though, with two of the women being caught the day after escaping and one more captured two days after. The fourth suspect was caught just over a week from escaping, and the last of the women finally turned herself in to police ten days after walking away from the prison.