Evening star., 1934-09-30
JURY MAY PROBE
ESCAPE Of GANG
Hunt for Mais and Legenza
Spreads-Three Shot
in Flight.
(Continued From First Page.)

CONTINUED From First Page)
fugitives might have been provided
with material for DISCUSSES.
Shoot Three In Flight.
A general lookout was broadcast to
Washington Immediately after the
men escaped about II am, shooting
down two policemen and q jail ofiicer
in their desperate flight. Police here
were organized at once for a concerted
hunt.
However, the gangster pair, under
death sentence for the murder of e.
M. Huband, Federal Reserve bank
mail truck driver, during q hold-up
in Richmond last March, are so well
known to the local force that police
here believe they will avoid Washing
ton, where they had staged hold-ups
at the Union Station and Heurich's
Brewery.
Nevertheless, Union Station ticket
booths and train gateways were under
surveillance, as were all known resorts
of the underworld.
Guns Puzzle Officers.
Authorities were at a loss to explain
how the pair obtained the As auto
matics with which they shot down the
three officers, critically wounding one
OF them, as they were summoned from
their death cells to confer with their
attorney regarding an appeal
1t is said that all suspicious char
acters' were searched when they yisi-
ted the jail. Jail attendants were
present when the McKeever woman
and Mais mother called to talk to
the doomed man.
Virginia and Washington police ran
down many false rumors YESTERDAY
and last night. Police here were in
formed the "gangsters" were seen in
house on Rhode Island avenue md
also in a crowd before an F street
tneater. Both rumors were un.
founded.
Virginia police, hearing that two
suspicious characters" had stopped
at Warsaw, asking the way to a Po-
tomac River ferry, learned that the
men were Richmond detectives. At
least Is detectives on special duty
were patrolling Washington last night
on the lookout for the fugitives.
Shot Through Chest.
Police Officer W. A. Toots was shot
through the chest and critically
wounded as he rushed toward the Jail
door from the outside, according to
the Associated Press account of the
sensational break. The wounds of
the other two officers, Warden w. A.
Moore and Deputy Sergt John A.
Selph, shot down inside the jail, were
not believed serious.
Racing through an alley, the pair
held up a mail truck at pistol point
and forced its two occupants to drive
several blocks, where they leaped from
the machine and dragged E. T. Car
penter from a gray sedan which he
was parking. The fugitives disap-
peared around a corner and no trace
Of them has been uncovered since.
At the time of his escape Mais had
not recovered from six bullet wounds
in his back, inflicted by Baltimore po-
lice at the time of his capture. He
and Legenza. who boasted at his trial
that he had cracked safes from New
York to New Orleans, and was doing
time for q safe-breaking job when
he escaped from the District Reforma-
tory early in the Summer of 1893, had
been slated for transfer to the death
cells at the Virginia State Peniten-
tiary.
The attorney for the gangsters,
| Charles q
Virginia State Legislature, ducked be-
hind furniture and the armed guards
fell fiat on the floor when the shoot
ing started. Moss had come to confer
with Legenza, scheduled for execution
October %, and Mais, who was to die
early in November.
Witnesses Guarded.
Shortly after the break, precautions
we're taken to prevent gang reprisals
against Arthur (Dutch) Misunas, for
mer member of the gang, who turned
states evidence, and Mrs. Mary Eliza
beth Fontaine, sweetheart of slain
gangster, who gave police their first
inside information on the activities of
the gang.
Police Chief Ernest w. Brown said
here yesterday that Mrs. Fontaine had
returned to her former home in Can
ada, and Washington police tele-
graphed Canadian officials to guard
the witness there. Police would not
disclose Mrs. Fontaines present where
abouts.
The Richmond News-Leader last
night said it had learned a searching
| investigation of the jailbreak will fol-
low the first rush of pursuit.
Demand for probe crystallized as