The United States Penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, is a maximum-security federal prison. Before 2006, it had never had a single successful escape. One inmate, convicted killer Richard Lee McNair, changed that using nothing but patience and a job assignment.
McNair had been given a routine prison job repairing torn mailbags. Using materials available to him on the job, he built a kind of makeshift escape pod, complete with a small breathing tube poked through the packaging.
He hid himself inside a pallet of mailbags, which was then shrink-wrapped as part of the normal shipping process. A forklift loaded the pallet and carried it out of the prison entirely, with no one aware McNair was inside.
The pallet was delivered to a nearby warehouse outside the prison walls. McNair waited silently until warehouse workers left for their lunch break, then cut himself free from the shrink wrap and walked out.
What happened next made the escape even more remarkable. A police officer patrolling nearby actually stopped and questioned McNair shortly after his escape, without realizing who he was, and let him go.
McNair remained free for months, evading a massive nationwide manhunt. He wasn't recaptured until authorities tracked him down in Canada more than a year later, ending one of the most unusual prison breaks in U.S. history.
