ESCAPEE CAUGHT AT WOODVILLE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 47, 11 March 1937, Page 9

ESCAPEE CAUGHT AT WOODVILLE

-Own Correapondent.) .

Prisoner Who Leaped From Train at Stratford LIFTS FROM MQTORISTS

(By Telegraph-

PALMERSTON N.? This Day. The hunt for William Joseph Fox who escaped sensationally from a train at Stratford on Monday night while heing escorted to prison, ended at Woodville late ' yesterday afternoon, his arrest heing effected hy a party of Palmerston North and Feilding police imder Inspector J. Cummings, in chaxge at Palmerston North. The wanted man was taken completely hy surprise and suhmitted without any demonstration. Since Fox's escape was first notified, both the Palmerston North and Feilding police have been keeping a striet vigil on ali main entrances to the district. The first intimation that a man of his description was in tho vicinity wa3 secnred by Sergeant Angland, of Feilding, and as a result the search was intensified, a3 many as 16 members of ■the police force being detailed for this special duty yesterday. The next news of Fox came from Woodville, for which place Inspector Cummings set out immediately accom.panied by Sergeant Angland, Constables 'Turnbull, Johnston (Feilding), Chapman, Bowley (Palmerston North), £,nd Detectives Power and Compton (Palmerston North). At Woodville they Were joined by Constable Skinner. Fox was located at a house on Eace.course road and this place the police jsurrounded. tio time was lost in entering the building, some of tho officers going in by way of the front door and jothers through the back door. The wanted man was found in the kitchen, totally unaware that the police were so close on his trail. He- was brought back to Palmerston North and placed safely under lock and key again. 1 He will appear before the Court again ithis morning and probably will be rejmanded to appear at New Plymouth. It appears that after his escape at Stratford, Fox remained there Monday night and set out southwards next morning. In the afternoon he took shelter and on Tuesday arrived in the vicinity of Turakina where he stopped for that- night. He came on to Feilding yesterday and got as far as Woodville by late afternoon. Passing motorists gave him short lifts here and there on the way down the coast. An escape from his escort was made at the Stratford railway station on Monday night by William Joseph Fox, who was being taken to the Waikavo ', prison. Fox and another prisoner were : being taken north on the New Plymouth- Auckland night express, and Fox made his dash for liberty by diving * through an open window when the train reached the crowded Stratford station after 8 o'clock. Fox, at the recent session of the Supreme Court at New Plymouth, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and two years' Teformative detention for aggravated assault on two police officers and for bigamy. He figured in an incident in which a rifle was fired when two police officers attempted to interview him on a farm at Aotuhia, near Whangamona, on the Stratford main trunk railway. The Stratford station is in the middle of the town, and Fox disappeared through tho crowd.