Evening star., 1928-11-18
ng Criminals Made Remarkable Getaways From Atlanta

Of disorderly Scamper toward Lake
wood Heights. Encountering a citizen in
his automobile, the fugitiveS offered him
81 900 bill (which It was discovered
Chapman had brought in in the heel of
his shoe when admitted II he would
drive them TO safety. On his refusal,
Chapman stuck a gun-origin to me
unknown-at his head Whereupon the
driver carried them some distance.
Finally they abandoned his car. COM
mandeered cruising taxi-and sped on
toward Athens. town about IS miles
distant from Atlanta.
But the tidings of their escape had
already been flashed far; and wide over
Georgia. It was not long after their
terrified driver-taking his orders from
pistol jabbed in his back-had
routed his taxi through a supposedly
deserted street in Athens, that an
armed posse suddenly surrounded the
vehicle. In the melee that ensued
Chapman was seriously wounded In the
stomach. Gray had instantly sur
rendered Chapman was rushed TO the
Athens Hospital.
RUT once more. amazing TO relate,
Chapman was to accomplish es-
cape. And 1t came about primarily
through his genius at malingering.
For, while his wound was painful. 1t
was not such, as Chapman we'll knew,
as would long prevent his return to
the prison. His inspired powers Of du-
plicity then came to his aid. A few
nights after his arrival he asked the
o,,ard 70 a1I0yy him III, On no Ypi1bt
see If he could walk. Whereupon he
designedly collapsed in a heap on the
floor When the rather kindly guard
had gotten the apparently unconscious
form of the outlaw back ictc bed, that
custodian thought that he might with
perfect safety give his legs a much
needed stretch by brief absence from
the room.
When he returned. a few minutes
later Chapman was nowhere to be
seen! The guard and n1rse then be-
gan excitedly to search the hospital.
1t turned out that once again had
Chapman made rope If bed sheets
wherewith to effect fight BY this
extemporized appliance 5e had gone
down hand over hand to the ground,
IS feet below his window Down In
the basement he was shortly found.
cringing for warmth by the side OF the
furnace. So terrified was the nurse
at the ghastly apparition OF Chapman
that she promptly developed a wild fit
of hysterics-so wild that the cavalier
guard was compelled TO pinion her.
While he was engaged in hl~ benefcent
pacifications Chapman bolted for the
cellar window-and was gone!
His fertile brain had not been idle
while he lay on his hospital cot. BY
some means, never clearly disclosed,
Chapman had smuggled cut letter
to confederates. At the moment of
his window descent they evidently had
not been on hand. But now, near the
hospital, they waited with Il high-pow-
cred car CHAPMAN was bundled into
the machine and they ThiSked him
away. The date was April f. 1929,
And-with this splurge of drama
Gaping his fiction -colored career
neither hide nor hair of Chapman was
seen until about 2 V years later, when he
was caught in the most Incidental way
through a robbery involving murder in
the State of Connecticut He was re-
turned to Atlanta. where he spent a
brief term in the hole punishment
celD, later to be retrieved by legal pro-
ceedings Of the Connecticut authori-
ties. That tangle of extraditive sub
tleties and all the public -curdling
moves and thrills Herewith connected
are too fresh in the mines of readers
to call for much attention from me.
But Chapman had come at last to
the end-to the end of his files, his
hacksaws, his knotted bed sheets-and
his rope! BY what a sinister CO.
incidence was he at the close of the
drama to feel about his neck the very
hemp that so often had typifled his
escapesl Rope was fitly 10 be his cpl
taph. What memories must have surged
behind that half-ascetic brow as he
chafed in his cell at Wethersfield-
Anderson powerless to help him more,
all the old pals far out of reach; I'M
potent this last tragic time to put into
action his fine scorn of tn, Justice he
had for 20 years cheated ana outraged.
That was the end of Chapman, student,
romanticist, scholar weaver Of verses.
depraved psychopath and arch GRIM
inal, child of perf1dy and doom.