The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1911-05-25
FUG|I|LE CONv|CTS|
MEN WHO ESCAPED FROM JOLIET
PRISON ELuDE PuRsuERs--
HIDE IN WOOD.
One Rccaptured Declares Farmer and
Wife Whom They Bound and
Gagged Probably Dead.

Chicago, May 24.--4Fleeing ahead OF
the long line of man hunters who for
three days have been beating the
bush" in southern Will and northern
Kankakee counties, Burglar George"
Connors and r. A, Atkins. the two es-
capped Joliet penientiary convicts,
are believed to have eluded the hunts
men and to be either safely hidden
with friends in Chicago or on their
way to the Canadian border.
Connors, who for two days had bat.
tied with the posses bounding his
tracks, was sighted only once yes.
terday. AS day was peepng he was
reported 10 have been seen CROSSING
a highway in northern Kankakee
County and travelling briskly. Late
Monday night he broke into farm.
house and carried away sufficient food
TO last him several days.
In Woods and Underhrush.
In the dense woods and nnderbrush,
| where yesterdays man hunt was
staged, more order prevailed than on
the previous days, when hundreds of
wild shots were fiked and numerous
farmers and penitentiary guardsmen
barely escaped being struck by bull
lets.
Connors, who had told his fellow
convicts who were recaptured that ne
would battle to the death before he
would be captured and who fired sew
eral fusllades at his pursuers when
they doggged his heels too closely,
was not caught up with" and there
was little excitement in the methodi.
cal hunt which Warden Murphy con.
Quoted.
At intervals signal shot would
ring out, when some guardsman or
farmer happened onto likely clew
The line would break and swing into
the scene of the shooting and then
back to full length, and the drive"
would commence again.
While the hundred guardsmcn and
their farmer helpers were sweeping
the southern part Of viii County,
Chief of Police Harry De Miller, Po.
lice Captain Martin Murphy and Po
lice Lieutenant Connors Of Joliet,
with several detectives, were out in
automobiles along the Mills road
| searching for the little farmhouse
where Wllamm Butsch, one of the
recaptured convicts, says an aged
farmer and his wife are lying, bound
hand and foot and gagged. Late that
night they returned to the city and
reported there hunt had been fruitless,
Repeat His Assertion.
Butsch, who is serving sentence
for operating confidence game, was
taken to Warden Murphy's Office
from solitary confinement" in the
morning nd questioned new regard,
ing his story of the assault on the
&ged farmer and his wife. He reiter
ated his statement that he. Jake Folk
. negro convict, and Connors had at
tackled couple when they showed
resistance when the trio broke int
the house early Sunday morning am
that after badly beating the farme,
the three tied him and his wife to
bed and gagged them.
They will be dead when you fint
them because we tied them awfu
tight" Butsch said.
| The failure Of the posses to locat,
The farmhouse has caused Warder
ply to place little credit in the con
| yict's story.
"Butsch seems sincere, but some O
these men tell remarkable storie
which have no foundation" the war
den said He may have told tn,
story in the hope we would be la,
in our hunt for Connors and Atkins
Warden Murphy said there was
chance that Connors was hiding II
| the dense woods, although he be
iieyed the desperate had out-foote
the guards No trace OF Atkins ha
been found since the sensational es
cape OF the prisoners over the prison
quarry stockade during the heayl
storm of last Saturday night.
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