Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1912-12-23
AUTO BANDIT TRIO
SOUGHT IN GIRLS
JA|L-BREAK PLOT
Auto Awaited Out
side of Newark
Jail Walls.
BOYS PLAYING ON CORNER
PREVENTED BOLD DELIVERY
Six Women Who Had Cut
Screens and Bent Bars Wait
ed Too Long.

Il udTlnB anu all Out SUCCESSFUL Jdli
delivery from the women's section of
the Essex county jail are being
sought by the police today.
With these men waiting in tour
ing car outside for them. six girl pris>
oners twisted thick iron window
bar from its socket and bent it aside,
cut their way through wire netting,
sawed ons six-inch shutter bar and
tore two Others out bodily.
They tied a twenty-foot rope lad
der, made of torn blankets, to an
other bar and were ready to slide two
stories to liberty.
The signal had been given from the
outside the automobile, engine rum
ming. was ready to dash up and pick
them up, and there was little danger
of discovery.
But a gang of happy schoolboys,
intent on planning the best way to
spend their Christmas holidays, nois-
| ly picked out the corner of Newark
exactly at O'Clock Saturday night,
when the girls were ready to flee.
! All unconscious that they were
hindering a jail delivery, the boys
amused themselves noisily for an
hour. During that time two of the
| fuming men twice tried inconspicu-
ously to make the gang move on.
Girls Hold Conference.
The girls, baffled by this develop
ment, must have held a conference,
for four of them returned to their
cells and made up bedclothes dunn
miles in their cots.
Bessie Wilson, who is held as a
witness In an automobile theft case
involving three men, slipped into the
cell of Mrs Helen Waller, a convict
ed bigamist,
Four Hide in Detention Room.
The four others, Mrs. Maria Nell
son, who is also q witness in the auto
case; Elizabeth Mahan, a 17-year-old
girl, of Orange, who once escaped
from the Orange Memorial Hos
pital after a fake attempt at sui
eide; Millie Shuretta, who is ne1d as
a witness against Mrs Ciccone,
charged with numbering her husband,
and Rose Maurer. who is charged
with misconduct, hid in the witness
detention room at the end of the cor
ridor. It was in this room that the
window bar had been loosened and
bent and the ether preparations
made.
Their hurried plans must have been
completed just at 8 O'Clock, when
Keeper Hollis shouted his usual warn
ing 'All in your cells.
The locks were then set for the
night. Mrs. Waller, however, asked
and obtained special permission from
Mrs. John McGuinness, the matron, to
take bath.
After waiting for what she deemed
a SUFFICIENT time, Mrs. McGuinness
went to the bathroom for the girl
and found her gone. She hurried
back. surmising that something was
afoot. She looked into the cell of
Bessie Wilson and saw the girl ap-
parently asleep in bed.
"Are you asleep already, Bessie"
she asked.
Bessie didn't answer and the ma
tron put her hand through the bars
and pIucked at the bedclothes. Then
she found she had been talking to a
dummy made of blankets and a pill
low. She rushed into the still open
cell of Mrs. Waller, found the cot
empty and then, looking beneath by
instinct, found Mrs. Waller and Bes-
sic Wilson crouching there.
The alarm was given. In the wit
ness room the other four were found
Screen Cut. Bar Bent.
A careful examination of the win
dow revealed the fact that the girls
had raised one of the seven heavy
three-ouarter inch iron bars from its
socket and bent 1t to one side. The
screen outside had been cut cleanly
with a knife, although no blade or
saw could be found when the cells
were searched.
The shutter is built of six-inch
boards slipped into slanting sockets.
Two of the pieces had been showed
out and allowed to fall into the
yard, and a third, which had stuck,
had been cleanly cut in half with
saw.
The improvised rope, which was
twenty feet long and just reached to
the ground, had been made from a
double blanket, torn in strips.
Descending 1t the six would have
found themselves in the jail yard,
with q sixteen-foot fence separating
them from the street. The gate, with
its heavy hinges and lock, however.
Is comparatively easy to scale, as
was demonstrated in the recent escape
of FIVE men from the jail.
'Tt was really that crowd Of boys
celebrating their Christmas vacation,
I suppose. that prevented the Jail es-
cape" said Mrs. McGuinness today.
"The attempt was to have been made
between and 8 o'clock, l am sure.
But the boys stopped that.
These boys, as we found after
wards, had seen two men walking up
and down from z o'clock on. An auto
mobile with one man in 1t was await
ing a little way down the street"
Bessie Wilson later confessed. it is
said, that the three men had aided
them and were waiting TO carry them
away. None of the six win be al
lowed to see visitors until a thorough
probe is concluded.
4 Sheriff Monahan win not be able
tContlnued on SECOND ranel