Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-05
PRISONER
| FO|LS JAIL BREAK
Gun Seized in Death Row Cell
and Arrests Made on
Story by Bell.
By the Associated Press.

] BY the Associated Press.
CHICAGO, October "A wholesal,
delivery from ''murderers' row" in tn,
county jail was frustrated tonight b,
officials as the result of information
supplied by Frank Bell, who Frida,
night told sensational story of having
participated in the Staying of ALFRED
(Jake) Lingle, Tribune reporter.
At Bells direction police seized 9
pistol concealed in a mattress in the
cell of William Lenhardt of Cleveland
who is awaiting execution. Howard
SoSke, a pal of Lenhardt, and the
driver of a taXicab were arrested while
waiting outside the jail In the car
William COMMON, jail guard. impli-
Gated in the plot by Bell, also was
seized. Soske and COMMON confessed
their part in the plot, according to
Warden David Moneypenny.
Plot in Cell Barred.
Bell, Moneypenny said, sent for Sergt
Frank Donahue this afternoon and in
formed him that Lenhardt had a pistol
that he had sawed the steel screen out
of his cell door and that he was going
to escape after smuggling the guard. A
posse organized after Donahue notified
the warden's office found the pistol in
the mattress. in which three steel bars
were also concealed.
A watch was then set for the cab,
which brought the arrest of Philip
Marks, the driver, and Soske, his pas
senger. Soske told of having been q
fellow-prisoner with Lenhardt and OF
visiting him at the jail after his own
release, At Lenhardt's request. he said,
he bought saws and turned them over
to COMMON, who delivered them to Len
hardt.
Ienhardt, who was sentenced 10
death February 20 for the murder OF
Milton Valisopoulos in q hold-up of q
restaurant June 10, 1929, later admitted
the plot, Moneypenny said. Lenhardt
said he had intended to drop some
money on the floor in front of his cell
and call his guard, James Ryan, to pick
it up. He was going to slug the stoop-
ing guard, he added, push out the sawed
screen; free Bell with Ryan's keys, and
then escape in the taxicab outside.
Mother Aids Prisoner.
The warden found that the saw
cuts in Lenhardt'S cell door had been
filled with a dark paste, to make them
invisible.
Soske told Moneypenny that he sent
the pistol to Lenhardt through Con-
Mon and that it had been given to him
by Lenhardt's mother, Mrs. Julia
Glovka, 1914 East Seventy-ninth street,
Cleveland, Ohio.
Soske said the mother told him to
help her son escape because she feared
he was to be executed. He said he had
struggled the saws to Lenhardt about
six weeks ago, had gotten the paste to
him later, and had delivered the pistol
to COMMON at the latter's home last
Tuesday, telling him it was medicine.
Asked what the pistol was for, Len
hardt told the warden:
in case of emergency. might
Oh, I didn't plan to shoot anybody.
It would have been so easy to get out
of this place If somebody hadn't double
crossed me-probably Bell.
Confession Of Bell.
A minor stick-up mans story that he
drove the automobile used by Jake
Lingle's slayers failed today to impress
Chief Investigator Pat Roche, who has
devoted all of his time to the case since
the newspaper man was shot down
June 9.
The confession made by Bell before
the Lingle inquest jury last night
named Joe Traum, Indiana gang leader,
now in Leavenworth, and Richard Sui
Ivan, held in jail as co-defendant with
Bell in the cafe killing. as the men he
drove to the corner Of Randolph and
Michigan boulevard just before the
Lingle killing. He also named blonde
young man" as having gone with Traum
and Sullivan into the pedestrian tunnel
where Lingle was slain.
Scouting Bells story as merely an
attempt to get a light sentence for the
cafe mans death, Roche said:
why, I've got two other men in jail
who have confessed that they took part
in the Lingle murder. One of them
swears he did the actual killing. The
other fellow not only declared that he
had a part in the Lingle case, but that
he also handled one of the machine
guns in the st. Valentine day massacre.
When I asked him to describe the in
terror of the garage where the seven
men were moved down, he couldn't
do it."