Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1905-09-16
COUNTY PRISONERS ESCAPE
Five Men Gain Their Liberty from Jail
During the Night
BELIEVED TO HAVE HAD OUTSIDE AID
sheriff Power oners Reward for Each
Fugitive, one of whom is
De Lacey, Under Peniten-
tiRry Sentence.

Five prisoners got away from the county
jail Friday morning between 3 and 4 o clock.
They are Fred Leonard, in for holding UP
bunch Of men IN a drug store; Harry
DeLacey. under sentence Of two years for
obtaining goods under false pretenses;
Hugh Ward and James Young, chicken
thieves, serving six months sentence,
which would end December %, George
Castle, awaiting trial for stealing a tub
OF butter.
Jennie Mcpherson the matron, hearing
q noise Of falling tin trays in the kitchen,
got up and proceeded to investigate
Reaching the kitchen door, she saw two
men standing near the door leading into
the yard on the west side Of the jail. Her
frst thought was that the men were burg
lars, she says, and she inquired what they
were doing there. They did not answer
and she moved toward them.
Then noticed another man." said Mrs
Mcpherson, standing near the window
through which food is passed from the
kitchen into the cell room. He came to-
ward me and then one Of the others gave
me shove which sent me against the
stove. Then all three passed out, one man
carrying in his hands his shoes, which
he had been trying to put on as came
In"
MatrOn Gives Alarm.
Mrs Mcpherson at once gave the alarm
TO Night Jailer Nick Power a son Of the
sheriff, who was on watch down stairs
and to Jailer Roach, who sleeps up stairs
in the southwest corner Of the building
The police station was at once notified
and telephone messages also were sent to
nearby towns to watch out for the escaped
prisoners.
sherinf Power has offered a reward OF
$3.50 each for Leonard and DeLaeey and
$50 each for the others.
All the circumstances surrounding the
escape point clearly to outside aid having
been extended the men who got away. The
sheriff has I'm his possession a powerful
brace. fitted with a strong steel drill, on
which soap had been spread. 1t would not
have been a hard matter TO pass the drill
In to a prisoner. but the handle OF the brace
has been sawed to make it small enough to
pass through the interstices of the cell door
This handle was originally round about
two and half to three inches in diameter.
II is now square, about an inch and half
in diameter. There has been an attempt to
efface from the four sides the marks Of re-
cent saving.
Each Took His Turn.
with the steel drill the five men probably
Spelled" each other in the work of drilling
out the rivets which held the iron bars of
the cell. The five were in one CELL on the
second tier. and far enough away from the
Jail office that there was little danger Of
discovery unless some other prisoner should
have sounded an alarm.
Six rivets were drilled out from the in
side and one end of a fiat cross bar was
loosened from the side support. With this
end free the matter of kicking off the bar
-
break It sharp of at one end, and a short
perpendicular bar also was broken of in a
similar manner This made n hole in the
iron work about thirteen inches long by
seven wide, and having a side extension,
where the perpendicular bar was broken
over which a man could pass his arm, al
lowing the short end to pass under the arm
nit AS none of the escaped men was above
the average in bulk, TO work out was com
paratively easy.
Once outside the cell the men either
dropped from the gallery to the floor be
low or walked around the gallery and down
the stairs in front of the entrance to the
Office from the cell room. Here, on a cot,
Morris Bass, a United States prisoner. was
sleeping and they seemingly could not
have gotten by him without brushing
against his cot, or at least awakening him.
Bass says they did awaken him and that
one of the men slugged him, but Nick
Powers sitting in the office a few feet
away, heard not the slightest sound OF
anything wrong. Bass evidently is under
suspicion by the sherifrs force as being in
the plot. Jailer Roach thinks he probably
was the tool OF the persons on the outside
without whose active aid the escape could
not have been effected. This Bass denies
but he is being put through a line of ques-
tioning that may develop something later
on.
still Hemmed in.
Arriving at the point where Bass had hi
cot the Ave men were still surrounded by
all sorts OF bolts and bars. But there wal
in front of them the opening, closed by
an iron door, through which the food II
passed from the kitchen into the cell room
This door is fastened with a hasp and I
heavy lock on each side, and the mer
whose business II was to see that thes'
were secure swear that the inside lock wa
properly locked last evening. The inside
lock was either left open was opened
in some manner. The prisoners took /
with them, so that It cannot be ascertaine'
whether II was filed on. This seems to b.
out OF the question. because it could no