TERRACE GAOL TRAGEDY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4905, 20 November 1925, Page 3

TERRACE GAOL TRAGEDY

A PREVIOUS OCCURRENCE. THE ESCAPE OF POWELKA. The exploit of the unfortunate prisoner who was left in a straitjacket, handcuffed, and with his feet bound with a leather strap, and was found half-an-hour later strangled with the strap that had been left around hisi feet reminds.. us .of the occurrence at the Terrace Gaol fourteen years ago, when Joseph Powelka disappeared without a trace from the specially-constructed condemned cell, and has never since been heard of (states the Wellington Dominion). The cell was not as specially strong as it should have been at the moment, however, for the observation window was loose in its frame, the covering door over it had been left open, and a door across the corridor leading into Woolcombe Street and liberty was also conveniently unlocked, while outside was the friendly gloom of 4 a.m. on a winter’s morning. ■ Powelka’s escape created a great stir, as it'was the fourth and finSl escape of a series extending over a period of six months. He was a young man of 23, and got into trouble in March, 1911, on ,a housebreaking charge at Palmerston North. A,t the lock-up there he asked permission to go out into the yard, and promptly scaled the fence and got away. He was captured two days later at Ashhurjst. Then the following month he escaped from the police station cells while awaiting trial, and was pursued with great hue and cry at Palmerston North, two persons being fatally- shot in the tally-ho'. Powelka was again recaptured and sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment on a long list of charges, and declared an habitual criminal. For a month or twb the Terrace Gabi held him successfully, but on August 18 he cut through the window of his cell and escaped in broad daylight into the premises of Mr W._H. Bennett, next door .to the gaol, being shortly afterwards recaptured hiding under the house. After that he was put in the condemned cell, next to the prison office, so as to be under close observation, but ten days later there wasn’t anything to observe, for Powelka, as related above, has. vanished into thin air, and despite the sixty policemen told off to scour the countryside pfr him, his 'subsequent history is an unsolved riddle. *