The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1952-11-28

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Winnie Ruth Judd, led searchers
a battling chase today after her
sixth escape from the State Hospi-
tai for the Insane.
Red-haired Winnie Squirmed out
through sawed window screen
last night.
With her customary craftinesS,
she left nothing to show just how
she circumvented the many pre-
cautions taken to keep her in.
It was her second escape this
year from the hospital where she
has been confined since 1888. In
1881 she killed two girl friends
and shipped their dismembered
bodies to Los Angeles as baggage.
She was sentenced to be hanged
but was found insane jus, II hours
before she was scheduled to go to
the gallows.
Her flight last night set off a
frantic search not only for 48-year-
old Winnie but for an unknown &C
complete or accomplices.
'She had help some way or
other to make the escape" said
DR.. M. w. Conway, hospital super
intendent.
Sheriff's 1t. Frank Mitchell
agreed. "She definitely had help"
he said.
Mitchell led a band of officers
and hospital attendants on an I'M
productive search of the dark,
shrub-dotted asylum grounds.
This, DR.. Conway said, is how
Winnie got out:
About 1880 pm. last night she
complained of headache and said
she was going to take a bath. She
went into the bathroom, carrying
a robe over her arm. Fifteen min
utes later an attendant looked in
and she was gone.
A hole Is inches square gaped in
the heavy mesh window screen.
The glass window had been
cranked outward.
The window was nearly six feet
from the ground.
'"The saving was an expert job, "
DR.. Conway said. at wasn't some
thing she did tonight"
Mitchell said that someone
must have helped her to the
ground as she came out the win
dow. The hole in the ocreen was
so small she would have had to
wiggle out"
Mrs. Judd left strands of her
auburn hair and thread from her
green sweather on the severed
. ends of the one-eighth inch wires
of the screen.
This sixth chapter in "The Es-
capes of Winnie Ruth judd was
especially harrassing to DR.. Con-
way.
81 don't think anyone has tried
harder to hold this woman than
we have" he said as the search
went on. "But you can't hole that
type of woman in paper sack.
He said that after her last es-
cape Mrs. Judd was placed in the
hospitals strongest ward but even
those facilities were inadequate.
DR.. Conway said he was going to
ask the Legislature to provide
funds to erect building for a
full-security criminal ward.
Winnie is so willy that she made
her getaway under the closest
scrutiny. DR.. Conway said he had
been suspicious of her for the last
two or three weeks because she
had become quiet and bitter and
had stopped writing her customary
letters.
He inspec ted the es-
cape window Wednesday and
gave it a good humping" with.
out discovering the saving. He ex-
pressed the opinion she had been
cutting on the screen for two or
three months and hiding the sawed
wires with chewing gum.
There are only two cranks in
each ward for the glass windows.
They are kept under lock. But
Winnie had one, even though both
cranks assigned to her ward still
were in place.
After Mrs. Judd escaped last
February she was allowed to tell
her story of the old killings to
the county grand jury. The jury