Evening star., 1923-10-08
SLAIN PRISONERS
LEFT DEFIANT NOTE
"KiIIed Ourselves" Message
Read-WidoW of One Ad-
mits Smuggling Arms.
Nv the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
EDDYVILLE. KY. October s.-A
note to his wife. scribbied with I"
lead pencil on the back OF letter ny
Monte Walters. reputed leader OF
trio of convict murderers. found dead
in the mess hall of the western Ken
lucky state penitentiary here satur-
day. when authorities entered the
building after a siege of eighty-one
hours, was made public by prison
officials.
Love to you, beloved am
wounded and surrounded by guards.
Goodbye know you will be-
the note read. Death apparently
stayed the hand Of the writer before
the message was completed.
other Messages Found.
An examination OF the room in
which the bodies of the desperadoes
were found disclosed number of
pencil -scrawled messages on the
back of a wooden bench, signed by
Lawrence Griffith.
Remember. you didn't kill us all.
Killed ourselves" one read. indicat-
ing that the theory that Harry Fer
land and Griffith killed themselves
was correct.
'Def1ants (defiance) from the dead"
was the text of another of the mes
sages
Two graves in the cemetery Of the
western Kentucky state peRttentiary
over which the earth was freshly
heaped and the bullet-scarred mess
hail. in the center of the prison area.
are mute reminders today of the des-
perate last stand Of the trio.
ISs..y n-u-- n..5 vVn-
Members of the storming party en-
tered the mess hall after 1t had been
filled with ammonia fumes. prepared
to meet three desperate gunmen. and
round Monte Walters, Lawrence Grif-
fifth and Harry Ferland stiff with
the rigor of death.
All of the gunmen had been dead
for at least thirty-six hours. and in
the cases of Griffith and Ferland.
whose wounds indicated death from
suicide. opinion was expressed that
the end might have come forty -eight
hours before the siege was resumed.
Walters, believed to have been the
last to die, was shot through the
head. and had been struck by rifle
grenade.
Prison routine. disrupted when the
gunmen shot four guards. three IA
tally, in an attempt to escape from
the prison Wednesday morning, prac-
tically is restored to normal. Troop
&. from the National Guard machine
gun company at Hopkinsville. and a
detail from the Mayfleld guard COM
pany, ordered to the scene of the riot
by Gov. Edwin p. Morrow, have left
for their homes.
Lights and Water Restored.
Electric power lines. cut by bullets
fred by the besieging forces, with a
result that lights and water. the lat
ter from electrically driven pumps,
for the prison and the town of Eddy
Vile were cut off had been repaired.
Prison authorities directed their ef-
forts to restoring the machinery of
prison routine. A pressing problem
was the repairing of the equipment in
the prison kitchen, located on the
ground floor of the bullet-torn mess
hall. The prison dining room was on
the second floor of the building held
by the desperadoes. and during the
siege 1t was necessary to feed the ap-
proXimately $50 prisoners in their
cells with emergency rations and food
cooked in the small kitchens Of the
prison hospital and the warden's
quarters.
Authorities are initiating a search
ing investigation to determine the
manner in which Walters and his
companions obtained the pistols with
which they fatally wounded Guards
Hodge Cunningham, V. B. Mattingly
and w. p. Gilbert and shot William
Gillihan seriously.
WIDOW SAID TO CONFESS.