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Show I J. fit. Martin, I Blackmailer, I Has Escaped . I Man Who Terrorized Ogden Five Years Ago Gets Out of Penitentiary by Disappearing in a Ii Berry Patch and General Alarm !s Sounded Rumor Circulated That Fugitive Had Made His Way to Ogden Warden of Penitentiary I Offers a Reward of $500. I' Alios spending more tban five roars of a life sentence anl bavinc boon denied commutation of hi? Bentence, end aftor making a complete confes-eion confes-eion of a nnmb r of blackmail crlmea Jifommitted in Ogd n. Joseph EI. Mar-If Mar-If tin escaped from the state penilen-1 Ir tiary at Salt Lake about 11 o'clock last" night, according to word received hro from Warden Stom No trace of the escaped man had been found up to a late hour today, although police I authorities throughout this and all It surrounding states have b en notified. Martin has been in the state prison lnre April 1014, when he was sentenced sen-tenced to serve five years for assault with a deadh weapon with intent to do bodily harm. He was laler tried again in this city on a fharpe of burglary, burg-lary, and on December 11. 1915, he was convicted and sentenced to a life H term. Many Ojrdrn cltlxena Trill recall the blackmailing crimes in Ogden in the foil of 1913 and the spring of 1914 of ' li which Martin was convicted Mr. and Mrs Ralph Bristol, Mrs. LeRoy Eccles, C. B Wallin and R B. Porter of mm Ogden wore among those blackmailed by B otto Escapes In Dark. According to information received her Irom Ma StbrrS Martin had been a trust) at the penitentiary for (he II past two years, acting as head of the H commissary. His position as such required re-quired hi? presence in the warden's buildingkffliicb is outside of the prison wii. in which Martin slept. Martin left the warden' building IE last night about 11 o'clock and as seen by guards. He walked outside and made in the direction of the dairy huilding ThSp building is partly -ur rounded by fruit bushes and is a dnrk-H dnrk-H oned spot. When Martin reached these bushes, ho walked into them and disappeared from :-ight. He was missed shortly after and the search started, but no trace of the fugitiw has been found Believing that Martin might come to his home in this city, the Ocden police and sheriff's office were notified noti-fied and warned to be on the lookout. Every officer and deputy in Ogden was i immediately notified and a net was I spread. Two police officers spent the night in the vicinity of Martin's home, but 'no trace of the man was found. General Alarm. Warden Storrs stated this morning that every city in the state and all sur-j rounding suite- had been notified of Martin's escape and authorities furnished fur-nished a complete description He also stated that a reward of $500 had i been offered by the state authorities for Martin's apprehension Early this vear Martin attempted to get a parole from the state board of, pardons To help him in his struggle. he made a complete confession of his crimes in the presence of his many j Victims and the prison authoritli The board of pardons, however, failed' to grant him a pardon. The motive of the confession, ac-cordlns ac-cordlns fo Martin's own statement.1 was that he was full of remorse for! what he nad done, and distressed in, mind 'jpi ause nifl guilts conduct had I involved his wife and children in hard- I Ship. Six months before this time, Martin made tin unsuccessful attempt i tor pardon The news of the confession of guilt came as a surprise to Martin's wife, v bo had Id out through the entire trials and years which he bad spent in I the prison that he was not guilty. She ! is at the present time struggling to j keep up her ln'Uie and in m nl nn lv-r children Martin in his confession implicated only one other person.1" Tom Jones, it one time street supervisor of this eity and a well known pool hall proprietor, who was found dead, hut the relatives of Jom s resented 'he eharge anil pr sented proof to the contrary The arrest and conviction of Martin followed a series of threatening letters let-ters received by wealthy citizens of this . tj in ihe fall of 191 :, which culminated cul-minated early in the morning of November No-vember 2. 1913, in the dynamiting of the home of LeRor l? ESccles, 2535 Ec le ; avenue, v week later David Ed wards, a Finkerton defective, was shot in a fulile attempt to eapture the blackmailer. Edwards, disguised as leRoy Eccles. who had been called upon to deliver $1,000, went to a lone, ly spot on West Seventeenth street near the Oregon Short Elne railroad tracks, with the determination to "get" the bandits He was fully armed, but, hr 'ore he was given a word of warn ing. he was fired upon with shotguns and fairly riddled with steel ball bearings bear-ings which the shells contiined Edwards Ed-wards later recovered, and participated participat-ed In the trial. Martin's Confession. The confess-on whieh Martin sijrnod at the state prison last February reads as follow s : Salt Lake City. Feb. 11. 1910 loseph FI. Martin has this day, in the pr sence of Mr and Mrs. Ralph Bristol, Bris-tol, Mrs LeBoy Eccles, R. B Porter and C. B Wallin, admitted the writing of all the so-ealled blackmailinr letters, let-ters, except one connected with and used by the state in the case of the State vs Joseph II Martin at Ogden. Utah. The i rials were he,i n 1914 and 1915 at Ogden, Utah. 6 These cases grew out of various attempts at-tempts to secure money and valuables from the Dee. Bristol, Boyle, Wallin, Culver and Ecleg families. Mr. Martin admits his connection with all of these attempts to secure money and aluables and that he wrote the letters as above stated, and expresses ex-presses his regrei for having been conncc ted .with these unfortunate c ir c umances His statement as to the methods employed and the manner of. carrying out these various attempts connects one Tom Tones, a former resident of. and in one time connected with, the street department of the elt of Oc den. In all of these transactions. Mr. Jones died the day following the arrest ar-rest of Mr. Martin "I have consented to this as a public pub-lic statement." (Signed JOSEPH H MARTIN'. Following the shooting of Detective I Edward a number of rewards were j i f," red for the apprehension m the criminal. These rewards finallv ! totalled i'.'.i'ou, which did not include moneys offered b) the railroad com- panies if the blackmailers should prove to be connected with train hold ups at Reese and Five Points in January, Janu-ary, 1911. and June, 1910 Previous to the dynamiting of the Secies home a man numed Myron A. Smith was arrested on the charge of; being implicated in the attempted j M;n kruail of the Bristol family. Smith. however, was later released. In onnection with the attempts to j i .n'ure the blaekmailers Ihere were some amusing incidents. One night following the receipt of threatening j letters by the Eccles family, guards were anxiously awaiting outside of j that home. The blackhanders had Kiven instructions that a bag containing contain-ing the money was to be placed in a bugy drawn by a white horse Two men walked past the Eccles home I they looked mvsiorious and the j guards determined that at last the ; fdackhanders or their 6couls were at hand The horse and burv,-v was driven driv-en from the home, a bag containing washers in the seat. The Eccles auto-j mobile, a big touring car. was filled with armed men. The man driving the white horse was stopped by two men. There was a clicking of shotguns shot-guns and the searchlights of the auto turned on the mysterious slranzers. It developed that they were reporters who were themselves on me hunt for the blackmailers. Witn the single exception of the memorable Lopez man-hunt, it is probable prob-able that no other criminal case in me history of Utah attracted wider attention atten-tion from public, officers of the law, federal operatives, professional and amateur defectives. For months alter the receipt of the original blackmail ing letters, and particularly after the canyon road episode, Ogden bristled with sleuths. Those not actually cm i ployed by prominent families to work' on the case took it upon themselves to put on a still hunt, the rewards aggregating ag-gregating $9,000 furnishing the lure. Detectives Swarm. At times the detectives falrlv fell over each other. At one time, early in the chase, two Pinkerton detectives were actually arrested by police officials, offi-cials, but were soon released. s evidence evi-dence of ine interest taken in the pursuit pur-suit of the blackmailers, there were more than twenty claimants to the rewards re-wards following the arrest and con-v.rtion con-v.rtion of Martin, 'rials question was decided in the Second district court, lue total being prorated in accordance with each man's responsibility, to - bst judgment of the court The boldness of the blackmailers and their heusational methods naturally natur-ally repulte1 in blunder., and misunderstandings misun-derstandings among members of the various official and semiofficial forces at the outset of the series of murderous murder-ous crimes. One of these occurred In the spring of 1913 in connection with the demand for $1,nro to be contributed contribut-ed equally by 'the Bristol and Dec families. Arrangements were made bj letters for a member of each of the familleg. one a woman, to drive a white hcrcc. hitched to an open buggy. aloo a I , prescribed route and dlivr over the rnone in gold. After a consultation anions the local officers at Ogden and I the Pinkerton detective ngency It was planned to disguise two men as members mem-bers of the two families and send them out with the ultimate object of get-tins get-tins a few shots at the blackmailers. John Lambert, a private detective, of Ogden, was selected to Impersonate the woman in the case A Pinkerton operative named Johnson was selected as his pr tner and the driver. Both were well supplied with artillery, tn-cludlng tn-cludlng sawedoff shotguns and automatic auto-matic pistols. Unfortunately the mes-Bengers mes-Bengers were entrusted with $500 in cash instead of a bag of washers, the usual camouflage in such affairs. After driving along fifteen or eighteen eigh-teen city blocks to a dark, lonesome spot on East Seventeenth street the white horse outfit was suddenly halted halt-ed at a point near Glenwood park. The occupants of Ihe buggy went into tli arrangements with ihe understanding understand-ing that they were fo open fire the mo-I mo-I ment they w ere stopped. However, l-somoihmg else happened when they' found themselves confronted by a awed-off Bhotgun in the hands of a i tasked man. The casb was handed over, somc-body somc-body Btarted Bhooting and the white horse did the fastest half mile of Its I lifetime before stopping well out of i i ange of fl inc buckshot, and the same (kind of pciirts whistled through the tret over the heads of a score of Officers Of-ficers hidden a quarter of a mile be pond the scone of action Aeeordlng to the best information available Lambert and Johnson failed utterly to cet their sawed-off shotcun--. ; I into action, due to the fact that these weapons seemed to have become badly tangled in laprobes, women's clothing land the line-Mart line-Mart in':, eonnection with the blackmail black-mail nd robberv started in October, I'll' v. hen he js alleged to have gone' to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Georgo I ' ulver and. at the point of a pistol, compelled them to hand over their diamonds. Later the home of Mrs C. B Wal nn was i merea out the demand of the robbers for Mrs Wallin's diamonds was frustrated. A short time later the robber made a second visit to the Wallin home and compelled Mrs. Wallin Wal-lin while in bed to hand over her diu-icond diu-icond rings. In the early part of April. 1913, Mrs. Ralph E. Bristol and Mrs. Thomas D. I let received blackmail lettr-rs demanding de-manding $ltioO Several telephone rails were made to the Bristol and Dee homes and directions were given for the payment of the money. One of Mn instructions was for the placing Of the money demanded in a bag and the liming of a single rig to the f:,n on road, east of Glenwood park, where the blackmailers wero to meet the rigs and get the money. The officers turned over the bag of gold Efforts of the police and sheriff's department were unavailing and then the governmenl Bent its investigators jto the city and started work on the case. The government men immediately immed-iately ordered the arrest of Martin and his nephew, Harry Martin. It was learned that Martin had gone to Morgan Mor-gan where he was found in a barn, nursing a wound in the leg. A grand Jury was summoned at Ogden Og-den and later indictments were returned re-turned against Martin and his nephew. Every effort to locate the latter has been of no avail. In the Wallin case it was brought out that Mrs. Wallin had received a letter from the robber offering to return re-turn the diamonds for a certain reward. re-ward. Mrs Wallin agreed and the arrangements were made and perfected perfect-ed and corned out for the meeting of Mr and Mis Wallin and the robbers at the corner of Washington avenue ad Thirteenth .-treet. Prior to th- return of the Wallin diamonds, dia-monds, the f'ulvers received a similar sim-ilar proposition from the robbers and, m carrying out the plans the Culvers lost about $150 more and did not re-j ceive their diamonds. Rewards aggregating $3500 were paid Edwards and others who had a par. in the arrest and conviction of Martin. I TT,J -.1 . i euuverea irom nis wound nnd married the nurse who attended linn in Ihe hospital. Dr. (.'. F. "Osgood, another important witness was murdered mur-dered in front of the Eccles building about four years aco. and Kytka died recentlj in San Francisco. Edwards also died recently. A rumor was circulated this morning morn-ing thai Martin had made his way to i gdl n, hut there was no foundation lor the report |
