Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-12-10
CRIME CAREER
GUT SHORT AS
FREEDOM NEARS
Shot in Back While
Waiting for Darkness
to Cover Trail.
Companions Who Fled
With Killer Captured;
One Negro Injured.

Little Rock, Ark, Dec. o.
(By The Associated -Press) =
Tom Slaughter, desperado,
came to the end of his long
career of crime Friday night
in the fastness Of the Saline
county hills. He was shot from
behind by one Of the white
men whom he led to liberty
y from the state penitentiary
here Friday morning.
The report of Slaughter's
death was confirmed late Fri
day night by Sheriff j. j.
Grow, of Saline county, leader
of one of the posses on the
killers trail.
Not only is Slaughter dead, but one
of the five negroes who fled with him
In the spectacular escape Friday morn
ing is dying In the hills beside the
bandits body, while the white compan-
ion who shot him down from behind.
and the three other negroes are in
custody.
-,he man who killed Slaughter is ].
G. Howard, who was serving three
year term for forgery. Howard. &C
cording to a statement he made Friday
night, had been waiting to turn upon
Slaughter.
Il left with him with the intention
OF killing him the first chance l got"
he is quoted as saying.
Slaughter was shot twice through
the head and once through the back.
The negro. who Is dying beside the
bandit, received his wound early in
the morning at Benton, during the bat
tie between officers and bandits.
Someone smuggled revolver to
Slaughter In the death cell and he at
tackled a guard. Warden e. H. Demp-
sey and Mrs. Dempsey and their son
and two daughters were locked in the
death cell by the bandit.
belonging to Mrs. Dempsey. which was
standing in the prison yard.
Later Friday morning Slaughter
passed through Benton, about 20 miles
south of Little Rock, and engaged in
gun battle with the city marshal,
who had been notified of the escape
and was on the lookout.
Under. Death Sentence
Slaughter, under sentence Of death
for killing Of trusty guard at the
state prison farm at Tucker, Arkansas,
where he was serving a life sentence
for the killing of Deputy Sheriff Row
Brown, of Hot Springs, took six con-
victs with him. Six negroes under
death sentence in connection with the
riot at Elaine, Ark, in 1919, refused
the opportunity and remained in their
cells.
Feisning illness Slaughter succeeded
in getting a guard gsG to open his his eel cell
night. He held up this guard and an
pistols and then forced them to 60
ahead of him to the stockade where
their presence admitted them and per-
mitted him to overpower the one guard
on duty there. Slaughter then opened
the cells and offered all the prisoners
liberty. Only six took advantage of
the offer and two Of the guards were
locked up.
Guards Locked Up
He next took ore guard to the of
flee of the penitentiary with him and
took possession of it, turning the
guards on duty there over to the men
who elected to escape with him. Next
he went to the hospital and forced a
nurse to precede him outside the walls
to the apartments occupied by Warden
e. II. Dempsey and his family. The
nurse awakened them and Slaughter
then forced them to accompany him to
the death cell, where they were
locked up. He told them he would not
harm them and later brought them a
Dot of coffee with cream, sugar and
cups.
Slaughter then threw the gates of
the penitentiary wide open and leisure
ly went about fitting himself and COM
panions with civilian clothes from the
commissary.
At 2:3O a. M, Warden Dempsey
said, he heard an automobile leaving
and with the aid of prisoners about,
who cut a hole through the floor at
his direction, escaped from the death
cell and spread the alarm.
Slaughter had taken en- automobile
belonging to Mrs. Dempsey.
Life Of Crime
Slaughter is 26 years old He told
an Associated Press correspondent at
the time of his first incarceration in
the penitentiary here that he was rear
ed in southern Arkansas and when II
years old was convicted of charge Of
grand larceny and sent to the reform
school. He served his term and then
drifted into Oklahoma. Since that
time he hiss participated in numerous
banditry, holdups, etc. He escaped |
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