Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1907-04-29
WOMEN PRISONERS
FO|LED JAIL
BREAKERS
Bold Plot by Penitentidry Con.
viCtS to Escape From Ber-
ndlillO County Prison.
CHISELING THROUGH STONE
WALLS WITH SHEARS

A bold plan to break Jail was frus-
trated yesterday by two women pris-
oners, who notified the guards, Deputy
Sheriff Q. Coulter, Perfecto Armijo,
Jr., and Joseph Leacua, that a num-
ber of the prisoners were implicated
in plot to dig through the stone wall
of the building from the corridor with
pair OF shears Had the men been
allowed to work an hour longer they
would have made good their escape.
The prisoners engaged in the affair
were Joseph Fisher, Joseph Burns, Il.
B. Herman, Henry Caine and william
F. Rogers. Fisher and Herman were
under sentence to the territorial PEN
ientiary and were taken there today.
While three men spelled" each
other in chiseling on the stone wall,
the other prisoners danceu, shouted
and sang to distract the attention of
the guards from the sound of the
shears striking the hard stone.
An investigation was made and
Fisher and Burns were found down
on their knees, behind the steel cage,
digging the hole through the stone
wall. by which escape would be easy.
A hole three feet long and two feet
deep had been made with a pair of
scissors, a tin can and a long wire.
With the scissors the sand stone was
cut i'm small pieces and the wire used
to pull the cement and rock out. If
the men had not been caught they
would have escaped in another hour.
When caught the men offered no
resistance, and when ordered to
march into the steel cage they obey
ed, but with considerable muttering
and sullen faces According to the
women, whose names could not be
learned, they heard a scraping noise
all morning. beginning about
O'clock at which time the men were
allowed the freedom of the corridors
on account of it being Sunday. Not
paying any attention to the noise un-
til two young boys; who are in the
Jail on minor charges, complained of
hearing the noise, then the women
decided to notify Deputy Sheriff Coul-
ter in charge.
Deputy Sheriff Armijo, Jr., said
that when Rev. Johnson Of the col
ored Baptist church came at 3 O'Clock
to preach to the prisoners he noticed
that Fisher, Burns and Herman were
not listening to the sermon and he
furthermore recalled that the prison
ers interrupted the sermon very fire.
quently with "Halleujah" and
amen" and laughter, but did not
think anything about 1t, suppOsing
that the men were In unusually good
spirits.
Deputy Sheriff Coulter said that the
men had been raising med" all morn
ing, singing, dancing, praying, shout
ing and laughing, which was kept up
all day in order to allow the three
men to work without interruption.
When supper was served to tie
prisoners last night they were very
surly, muttering threats against t"e
guards and when the guards came
for the tin dishes they found them
mashed and battered beyond recog-
milton.
John Fisher, f. B. Herman and an
other man, implicated in the plan TO
break out, were taken to the terri
torial penitentiary this morning by
Sheriff Perfecto Armijo and Deputies
Armijo, Jr., and Romero, to begin
serving their sentences. The men
were aware OF the plan to take them
last week they formulated plans to
have three OF the men dig through the
wall while the rest created as much
noise as possible to distract the
guards attention.
Fisher goes to the penitentiary for
a year for committing an assault up
on T.. Zito at the New York saloon
with intent to kill, anu had he not
been implicated in the plot, he would
have been released from the peni-
tenitiary i'm eight months. By being
implicated in am attempt 10 break
Jail, all good behavior time which he
might have obtained at the peniten-
tiary is lost. The other men also lose
good behavior time allowance.