The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-07-04
PAST HOUNDS YATES
BACK TO SING sing
Former Pal Forced Master
Jailbreaker to Pay and
Pay, He Says.
TRIED TO LIVE STRAIGHT
Married and Held Good Job
When Extortioner Be-
gan to Collect.

Safely returned in handouts to Sing
Sing yesterday. elusive Chester Yates
robber, traveller and master jail breaker
who has been lodging police and prison
authorities for seven years, unfolded
thrilling tale Of romance and adventure.
punctuated with some hard luck details
The money and other Ill gotten gain his
robberies prohted him. he now asserts
another crook" got away from him by
extortion.
Keepers Michael Mack and Robert
Martin greatly relieved the suspense Of
Warden Edward v. Brophy and the en-
tire official stan of Sing Sing when they
appeared at the prison front door with
the daring fugitive. who often boosted no
cell would hold him. In seven years
Yates has broken out of Sing Sing, the
Tombs and four other bastiles. The two
keepers kept the escaped convict tightly
handcufed from the minute they opened
the iail cell that held him in Kansas
City throughout the journey East until
they passed through the gateS OF Sing
Sing.
Yates refused to tell how he managed
to escape from Sing Sing during the fog
on the morning of December Is, 1912, or
how he beat" New Orleans jail four
years ago, when rearrested and held
there for the Sing Sing getaway.
"On the way" said Keeper Mack, Yates
gave US not the slightest trouble He
seemed to be depressed: In fact. dunn
founded when we called for him. He told
US that when arrested he had Q good
job earning S45 a week honestly for .
Kansas City shoe concern.
Yates startled prison officials By ans
| nouncing he had married since breaking
out of Sing Sing four months after he
had been given a twenty-one years sen-
| tence for snatching $4,000 from Aaron
Bancroft, broker.
Yates talked with Warden Brophy. Or.
Amos o. Squire prison physician;
| Father Cashin and other prison attaches.
| The jailbreaker revealed that In seven
years he had roamed over twenty-eigh
States. sldestepping policemen and try
| ing to live down his past. But a crimi-
nal whose acquaintance he made In New
| York. knowing he was wanted for jail
breaking. picked up his trail and black
mailed him. He was mulcted out Of
money until. he said. he refused to dis
gorge any more. Then. he claims, the
extortioner told the Kansas City police
| there was a reward out for him and
where he could be found. Much OF the
money he got by the Bancroft robbery.
he limited. was taken away from him by
4 the merciless blackmailer.
i've been working in Kansas City four
years." said Yates, with the same shoe
concern that employed me before I got
into trouble. l was doing clerical work.
l was surprised when Sing Sing guards
appeared to take me away.
when 1 first got out Of Sing Sing
couldn't sleep. l was afraid OF being ar
rested. A doctor told me TO take lauda-
| mum. Then began taking morphine.
did not do anything wrong in Kansas
City. ! decided to go straight. settled
down there four years~ago, had nice
home and was earning s46 week. l
married a very nice girl. But along
came that crook who was in on my past
and that Sing Sing escape. He threat
ened to give me UP unless came across
with money. paid. and paid. and paid
believe me, until finally determined to
give him no more. He must have turned
me in then for the bulls came and
locked me up in Kansas City"
He is now kept in an isolated CELL
where other prisoners cannot have ae-
cess to him.