Salt Lake Telegram | 1937-08-20 | Page 4 | Through Their Fingers

Through Their Fingers TUST what Incompetency, stupidity or plain J neglect permitted the escape of Harry Edwards Ed-wards and Einar Johansen from the Grand Junction Junc-tion jail Thursday would be hard to say at this distance but surely one factor entered into it, or that all three did is a possibility. Their recapture re-capture late last night, unarmed, afoot and exhausted, ex-hausted, does not alter the case. Known to be desperate) criminals, heavily armed and, police say, avowedly minded to shoot it out with anyone who should attempt to capture cap-ture them, apparently when lodged in jail in Colorado they wr rchad si csiuaily asa .. down-and-out vagrant might have been. Peace officers of experience know all the hiding places for weapons and ssws resorted to by professional and confirmed felons, yet after the escape one officer volunteered that saws possibly may have been concealed in the men's belts. That was a noble thought but seemingly blossoming into full bloom about six hours too late. Possibly the saw was hidden in a shoe, even between layers lay-ers of a sole. There sre a dozen places it may have been, but after the escape what's the use of talking about it? Fact is, the tool was cleverly hidden in a waistband. Major Hoople would have managed this better. bet-ter. In one of his amazing exploits he told of capturing a desperado, taking the laces from his shoes and cutting all the buttons from his trousers. trous-ers. Boys and girls were quick to realize that i this would have impeded his movements if he tried to escape, make running well nigh impossible impos-sible and would have kept at least one hand very busy but maybe the policemen do not read the funnies" and wouldn't know about such fool , ideas. - Knowing the character of the men, though, i It seems odd thst they were not smart enough to have them under constant watch. Whatever Ideas if any they might have had didn't seem to Jell very well. The three others who were taken with Edwards Ed-wards and Johansen, two of them with prison records, if not their confederates, were at lesst touring companions. The third, if not an evildoer, evil-doer, was at least in bsd company. The capture of the quintet, which was the idea of a storekeeper, store-keeper, telephoned to the Grand Junction police, "-was a red letter event or the Colorado officers, ."but to let them slip through their fingers erased all credit and has made them ludicrous indeed. The worst part, of course, is thst this bungled Job permitted these desperate and hardened criminals to gain freedom imperiling society. Since they first escaped capture after the reign of terror her created by the kidnap bandits, they have been linked with many other bold crimes. The only possible public comfort rests in the unwillingness of their three companions to leave Jail with them Ralph Myers, paroled Tfrom the Utah state prison lsst June; Dan Shea, another old offender, apd Jack Shaw, at first booked as Shea and claimed to be his son. Thus "is another shining example presented of the amount of reform and regeneration achieved in prison by confirmed criminals, of the unwisdom of too early termination of sentences and the public pub-lic peril in abuse of parole powers.