The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-09-08
CARELESS KEEPER
Dangerous Lunatic Escaped
From Snake Hill
Asylum.
AT WORK FOR DAYS
He Pried Loose the Bricks
and Threw the Mortar
Out the Window.

John Bradley, powerful and danger
Gus lunatic with a homicidal mania, es-
capped from the Snake Hill Lunatic Asy-
lum last night for the third time. He
is still at large
AS in his previous similar escapes Brad
ley exhibited rare summing in his plotting.
He was gone over an hour before his abb
sence was discovered. He is known as
a dangerous man, and a dfiigent search is
being made for him In this and neighbor-
ing counties
The cell from which he escaped IS To-
Gated on the second floor of the asylum,
and has a window at the front of the
building 1t is at the end of a long COR
ridor and so far removed from where the
attendant in charge usually sits that the
lunatic was able to bore his way through
the front of the building without being
heard His absence was not discovered
until after ten o'clock last night, and it
is believed he must have dropped to free
dom through the hole he had made at
least an hour before.
The clever lunatic must have spent sew
eral nights at the work. He first loosen
ed the wainscoating at one side Of his
cell and then with sharp stick he pried
the mortar from between the bricks that
separated him from freedom. This NOR
tar he carefully threw between the iron
bars of the window to the yard below.
Each morning he would cover his work
by replacing the loose bricks and cover
ing them with the wainscoating. How
long he worked in this manner can only
be assumed, but the job up to the last
must have been completed early last
night. He then quietly removed these
and probably squeezing his body first
through the 15x1S inch opening he had
made, dropped about 20 feet to the ground
and escaped under cover of darkness into
the adjoining meadows.
When the escape was first discovered
by the attendant in charge of the ward,
while making his usual inspection of the
cells, a general alarm was sent to the po-
lice. throughout this and neighboring
counties and every available attendant at
the institution started on search for
the fugitive lunatic. The meadows were
thoroughly secured and parties searched
in different directions for several miles,
but no trace of the desperate man could
be found.
At the D., L. and w. r. r. freight
yards, about a half mile from the asylum
some men said they had seen a man with
out hat or coat board West bound
freight train about s:i5 o'clock. 1t is now
believed that Bradley is the man. A close
watch IS being kept on his former haunts
in lower Jersey City, where it is believed
he will return as he did the first time ne
escaped.
Bradley was committed to the asylum
several years ago and shortly afterwards
he made his escape by locking his keeper
| in a cell and walking out of the asylum
with the aid of the keys which the Keeper
had left on the inside of the door OF the
ward He was captured about month
afterward near his former home in Pa
yonfa avenue. Jersey City.
About a year ago Bradley escaped by
prying out the bricks of his cell with the
| leg of his iron cot The residents of the
small places in the neighborhood Of Snake
| Hill and those on the western slope OF
the Heights were terror stricken for sew
eral months and were afraid to leave their
| houses at night He was captured in a
| town In the west and brought back here.