Background
After his father, Aldo Burrows, deserted the family, Michael took his mother's maiden name because she told him that his father was an alcoholic which was later proved untrue. Following his mother's death caused by a brain aneurysm Lincoln became his guardian and took care of him and prevented Michael from taking his own path into the life of crime. They both traveled in and out of different foster homes. Though they were usually kept together, there were times when circumstances required them to be placed separately. One such instance occurred when Lincoln did a sentence in juvenile hall on assault charges when Michael was eleven. Michael was once placed with an abusive foster father, who was later killed by Aldo, where he rescued him, though the murder itself was never solved. When Michael would wake up in the mornings not knowing where his brother was, there would be an origami crane next to his bed, a sign his brother was watching out for him. In Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois, Michael took an elective survey class in Arts and Crafts, which had a section to origami. He was immediately drawn to the precision and patience, which fascinated him to an extent that he began constructing a number of cranes out of any material he could find; a habit which continued into adulthood. He was a gifted student with an impeccable record, and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Loyola University Chicago, after which he became a successful structural engineer at the architectural firm of Middleton, Maxwell & Schaum in downtown Chicago. The sixteenth episode of the series, "Brother's Keeper", reveals Michael and Lincoln's relationship three years before Lincoln was imprisoned at Fox River and the reason why Michael would go to such extreme lengths to save his brother from his death sentence. Michael's discovery of his mis-perception of his brother and his brother's sacrifice for him prompts him to change and help Linc.
Read more about this topic: Michael Scofield
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