Evening star., 1933-06-01
FUGITIVE CONV|CTS
| STIR THREE STATES
Two From Oklahoma Escape
After II Get Away From
Kansas Prison.

SLOAN SPRINGS. Ark, June 1
@.-Oficers today were Closing in
on a densely wooded section near
here in the belief some of the Kansas
State Prison convicts had taken
refuge in the hills after exchanging
several shots with Chief of Police
Bob La Toilette here last night.
BY the Associated Press.
McALESTER, Okla, June 1.-Fugi-
tives from two States prisons left reck-
less trails across four Southwestern
States today.
Violence flared at scattered points
along the routes of flight chosen by the
IL desperadoeS who fled in two groups
from the Kansas State Penitentiary at
Lansing Tuesday. Bloodhounds shifted
at the heels of two convicted killers
who emulated the Northern convicts
and dashed away from the Oklahoma
Penitentiary here late yesterday, hold
ing for time a guard hostage.
The Kansas convicts kidnapped Kirk
Prather, whose term as warden ended
last midnight; two guards and three
women. The warden and the guards
were freed near Welch, Okla; the
women near Pleasanton, Kans.
Disarmed Guard.
Disarming Tom Baskin, guard who
was escorting them from repair work
at the prison women's ward, the two
Oklahoma fugitives, Jim Stribling, an
Indian, and H. D. Bradbury, sped away
in Baskin's motor car after throwing
the guard out and later abandoned II
ON a rocky mountain road near Hay
wood IL miles west of the prison. A
dozen guards and a pack of blood
hounds beat the brush throughout the
night.
A gunfght at Sloan Springs, Ark,
between Chief Of Police Bob La Fol-
lette and three auto thieves who
abandoned a Kansas car, seemingly
that taken by one group OF the Lam
sing fugitiveS, and the robbery of a
motoring couple by two prisoners near
Seneca. Mo. bore out officers opinions
that the Kansas convicts were gaining
the Ozark Mountains and hills in the
area where Oklahoma, Arkansas and
Missouri converge.
In this section are the Cookson Hills,
a refuge for the lawleSs since frontier
days and, in the belief of Warden Sam
Brown of the McAlester Prison, the
goal of his two runaways.
Suspected Of Murder.
Officers also suspected the Kansas
convicts of killing Night Policeman
Otto Durkee, who tried to prevent a
tire shop robbery at Chetopa, Kans.,
early yesterday, and during the day
there were reports that Wilbur Under
hill the "tri-State terror" who led the
Kansas break, was leading fleeing
bands near Miami and in Usage County,
Okla, to the West. Search, however,
was fruitless.
The two convicts who hitch-hiked q
ride with B. X. Blair and Miss Alice
Clark and Clifford Dopson. One OF
Braithwaite of Joplin, Mo-, threatening
them and driving them 2 hours before
them, Blair said, declared he was In
releasing them, said they were jim
the group which kidnapped the women
in Kansas. He also said according to
Blair: II had to kill bull"
The prisoners conversation, Blair de-
clared, indicated they had separated
from their three pals" but a short
time before There were five men In
the group which captured Mrs. M. j
Wood her 17-year-old daughter Louiss
and Miss Cloris Wears, II, Of Kansas
City, Kans., and six, led by Underhill,
in the band which abducted the warden