The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1914-05-14
AIDING GIRLS TO
ESCAPE IS COSTLY
TWO GREAT NORTHERN BRAKE
MEN GIVEN LIMIT BY
JUDGE DIEHL.
WARRANTS OUT FOR OTHERS
PRACTICE OF LURING GIRLS
FROM STATE HOME SCHOOL
MUST CEASE.

AT irregular intervals since the es.
Establishment of the Home School fol
Girls in Sank Centre the inmates have
been able to take French leave of the
institution.
This has been made possible ne.
cause the discipline at the institution
is largely on the honor plan and the
girls are given every opportunity and
encouragement to improve their men
tai, physical and moral condition.
In several instances the girls have
been lured away by men, or aided by
men in their escape.
On the evening of April End, while
an entertainment of some sort was
being carried on in one of the cottages,
an inmate, committed from st.
Paul, went into the basement and
turned on the water. This was part
of pre-arranged plan, and during the
excitement following, the St. Paal
girl and the others made their
escape. Their absence was dis
covered within few minutes and a
search instituted. Hearing their pur-
suers the girls hid in the brush and
the searchers passed within a few
feet of them.
The girls made their way to Melrose
on foot, arriving there about eleven
o'clock. They hailed a switching crew
In the west end of the yards. The crew
took them onto the engine until they
had their work finished and later
brought them food and furnished
liquor and kept them until about 2:3O
a. M, when they turned them over to
couple of brakemen about to leave
with an extra for Minneapolis. They
placed the girls in box car, where
they remained until after the train
passed st. Cloud, when they were al
lowed to ride in the caboOse on into
the city, where they arrived about five
o'clock on the afternoon of April 3rd.
One OF the girls returned to her
home in st. Paul and was brought
back to the institution by her father.
On April 10Th the other two girls
telephoned the Home School authori-
ties that they were at Prescott, Wis,
and they were later brought back.
One of them was very i'll as a result
OF exposure and has been confined to
the hospital ever since her return.
Upon being returned to the institu-
ton the girls became very penitent
and told Mrs. Morse all of their ex-
periences. The superintendent got in
touch with the Great Northern offici-
ais who promised their hearty Coop
Grafton IN the matter and put their
own detectives in the case to round
up the guilty parties.
1t seems that the next DAY after the
affair in the yards, one of the switch
men, Dunnell by name, was dis
charged, and later the other two men,
bers of the crew, Paul Atchison and
Amos Whittimore, skipped out. War
rants are out for their arrest.
The two brakemen on the train, G.
M. Nicely and w. H. Mickey, the lat
ter the Herald understands, at one
time resident of Sank Centre, were
rounded up by the railroad authori-
ties and turned over to the officials at
Sank Centre on Wednesday afternoon,
who promptly landed them in Jail af-
ter the girls had positively identified
them as the men who had them in
charge from Melrose to Minneapolis.
Friday, Conductor Grinnell, in charge
of the extra, was brought before the
girls but they could not identify him
positively but thought he was one of
the men they saw.
Grinnell at first denied all know
ledge of having seen or heard any
thing about the girls being on his
train but later admitted that he knew
the girls were there but was told that
they were MelrOse girls out for lark.
The prisoners were brought before
Judge Diehl Friday evening for
preliminary hearing. County Attor-
ney Paul Ahles represented the State
and Attorney Kelsey of Sank Centre
the defendants. The two girls able to
attend the hearing told straight
forward story, both insisting that they
told the switch and freight crews that
they were inmates from the Home
School and if Mrs. Morse found out
that they were assisting them there
would be trouble. Attorney Kelsey
gave the girls severe cross examin-
alton but their testimony could not
he shaken. After the States testi-
mony was in Mr.. Kelsey advised his
clients to plead guilty to the charge
of "aiding and assisting three pris-
oners from the Minnesota Home
School for Girls in their escape from
the custody of the superintendent of
said school and providing food and
shelter and secreting them on April
3rd, 1914"
The law is weak regarding crimes
of this sort and makes the one assist
ing guilty of the same degree OF CRIME
for which the party assisted was con-
yicted. In this instance it was a mis-