Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1933-03-02
CONVICT DIES IN
PRISON WHERE HE
SPENT 60 YEARS
Heart Disease Takes Notorious
Jesse Pomeroy Sentenced
When Boy.

Bridgewater, Mass.-Jesse Pomeroy,
Massachusetts notorious life prisoner
who had spent all of his years since
the age of fourteen behind prison bars.
died ut the state farm here at the age
of seventy-fOur years.
Robert z. Sherman, superintendent
of the state farm, said that heart dis
ease was the cause.
POmeroy was transferred here from
the state prison In Charlestown four
years ago because of declining health.
He had spent the mos: of his time al
state prison in solitary confinement.
although the last few years at that
institution he had been accorded the
liberties of ''trusty."
He strongly opposed his transfer
to the more liberal atmosphere of
the state farm because, he said. he
did not want to leave his friends at
the prison which had been his home
since boyhood.
Tortured Young Children.
Pomeroy's brief career of crime be.
gan at the age of thirteen. Children
four and FIVE years of age had been
found from day to day tied to tele-
graph poles, or strapped to boards, in
Chelsea and the South Boston dis
tricts, stripped of clothing and suffer.
+, ing from cuts and bruises.
They said an older boy had attacked
them, trussed them up and then
beaten them with sticks and ropes.
The schools of the city were searched
and in one, Joseph Kennedy. boy
victim, pointed to young Pomeroy and
said he was the assailant.
II know him by his eye" said Ken
nedy.
One of Pomeroy's eyes was almost
albino, the other blue.
For these assaults, none Of which
proved fatal, Pomeroy was sent to a
reform school, from which he was re
leased II months later. Within six
months he killed two children in a
frightful manner. The body of Horace
Millen, four years old, was found Oh
the clam flats in South Boston, mu
tilated and buried in ashes in the eel
lar of the Pomeroy home.
1t was for the death of the Milien
child that jury found Pomeroy guilty
of murder in the first degree ION the
grounds of atrocity."
But William Baston, at that tine
governor of Massachusetts,, was op.
posed to capital punishment and re.
fused to sign warrant for the exc
cution. His successor. Gov. Alexander
II. Rice, committed the sentence to
life Imprisonment at hard labor.
Continually Tried to Escape.
The hard labor part of the punish
ment did not, however, work out. The
keepers found that POmerOy man.
aged to fashion tools for escape from
almost anything upon which he could
lay his hands. He was given only
food and books, but even then man
aged to contrive tools.
Saws made from scraps of steel
from the leg of cot and from cans;
drills fashioned from screws and
pieces of scrap metal. files and knives
were products of his ingenuity. With
these he made at least IL attempts to
escape.
In one of his essays toward free
dom he tunneled with nail. an i'm
provised chisel and homemade file
to within few inches of liberty when
a trail of lime dust exposed his work
His last serious attempt was in 1912
when he sawed three bars from his
cell, fitted dummies in their places to
cover his activities and, when ready
for the dash. slipped through the hole
and was creeping along the corridor
toward an unsuspecting guard when
he aroused a sleeping cat. The
startled feline yeowled and jumped al
him. The guard found him armed
with dagger and equipped with
file and three saws.