The Savannah morning news., 1903-02-25


THE hanging of a colored man in the
District the other day brought to my
mind the only execution that l ever
saw, that of George Fletcher, a muir
derer, down in Nogales, about fifteen
years ago." said an Arizona man re-
siding in Washington, according to the
Washington Post. But it wasn't so
much of Georges finish that 1 was
thinking as of the funny way that he
made his escape from the Nogales Jail
couple of weeks before he was due
to take his final walk.
Fletcher had killed a couple of
prospectors for the dust they had on
them, and the posse had to put up a
pretty hot chase alter him before they
finally SHARED him in the Antarita
mountains. There was a dead case
against him, and he himself made no
bones Of the fact that he had slaugh-
tered the pair of prospectOIs, and so
he was condemned to death in pretty
short order. George had been a frie nd
of the warden of the Nogales Jail, Jim
Evans, and so when Jim got charge of
George he made it pretty easy for the
murderer, seeing that George was
scheduled to cash in at so early a day
One night, a couple of weeks before
Fletcher's day Of doom, three of War
den Evans cronies dropped in at the
Jail for Little game of draw. They
played at table placed at the head of
the main corridor. near the warden s
office, and the table was so placed that
George Fletcher could watch the pro-
gress of the game from his cell.
The warden and his three c1onies
had been playing for an hour or so.
when the warden observed that
Fletcher was watching the game with
a rather wistful eye. He wanted to
make Fletcher's last days as easy and
comfortable as possible and so he said
to the prisoner:
w ant to sit in while, George?'
sure do replied Fletcher, CRATE
fully.
" All right, son.. said Warden Jim,
and he got up from the table. unlock
ed the cell door and let George out.
The prisoner had about $500 in gold
that his desperate mates had sent to
him to make his Jail life comfortable.
and he produced his canvas bag,
bought a stack, and was soon swing
ing along, enjoying himself and mo-
nOpolizing all the luck from the mo-
ment that he sat into the game.
After about an hours play, Warden
jim got up and said that he'd Just go
through the Jail and do his locking up
Tor the night, and then come back and
SIT in again when he had accomplished
his task.
You boys go ahead, he said in de-
parting for another portion of the Jail,
and I'll be back Directly
The warden hadn't left the table for
more than three minutes before one of
his cronies fancied that he detected
Fletcher tho Toy'c -
picking up card from beneath the
table. He jumped up and strobe
around to the prisoners place, and
there he saw whole bunch of good
cards lying at Fletcher'S feet.
So you're dishin' 'em out t y'self,
are We, We onnery ombrey" yelled the
warden's chum, and straightway he
and the other two men grabbed
Fletcher altogether and incontinently
dumped him out of the window of the
warden's office, completely forgetting
in their excitement and wrath over his
cheating, that he was a murderer I'M
der sentence of death. They didn't re-
member that fact until ten minutes
later, when Warden Jim Evans re-
turned from his tour of the Jail and
burnt them up with a cussing for their
craziness.
Fletcher wasn't slow to get next to
good thing when it came hiking his
way, and the manner with which he
struck out and only hit the high sand
knobs was a caution to elias 1t took
three weeks for the posse to spring
him again, and when they at length
took him he was far toward the middle
of Death Valley, and almost delirous
from the lack of water. They nursed
him back to life, returned him to the
Nogales Jail, and in due time he was
executed. He was not allowed to
mingle up in any more poker gam IS
while awaiting his final piping out,
either