Convicts Kill Warder

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 25, 30 January 1937, Page 5

Convicts Kill Warder

DASH FROM A FRENCH GAOL Five convicts effected a sensational escape from prison in Haute Savoie recently, after strangling a warder, and made their way into Switerland. Three of them were arrested later at Feterne, and offered no resistance. Their method of escape was unprecedented for French prisons. It appears that one of the convicts managed to unscrew the lock of his cell, knocked out the warder, and took his keys from him. He then released three other convicts, who, hike himself, were serving life sentences for the attempted murder of a woman tobacconist. The warder apparently recovered and tried to raise the alarm, so he was set upon by the four men and strangled with the leather strap of the time-recording ■dock he was carrying. The convicts then went to a common cell containing ten men, and released another of their friends. The men, all Swiss, apparently had outside assistance, for ladders were found near the two walls they had to scale. The dead warder's body was found by a colleague making his rounds. The man's skull was fractured and his legs were doubled up and bound by his flannel body-belt, while his arms were tied behind his back with galvanised wire.