NOTORIOUS ESCAPEE?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 5

NOTORIOUS ESCAPEE?

DEVIL’S ISLAND PRISONER EDDIE GUERIN AGAIN? A man who is believed to be Eddie Guerin, tlie notorious ex-prisoner of

Devil’s Island —the dreaded penal settlement off the coast of French Guiana —was recently arrested in London. He is in the custody of the police on a charge of stealing passengers’ luggage at Victoria station. It is just a year since Guerin published the story of his life —intended as an object-lesson on the folly of crime, which he maintained does not and cannot pay. Escaped in Canoe

Thirty years ago, in France, Guerin became associated with “Chicago May,” a notorious woman criminal known to the police of Europe and America. With her he was convicted of robbing the American Express Company of £6,000, and of a previous robbery of £IO,OOO from the Bank of Lyons. He was sent on a life sentence to Devil’s Island, where Dreyfus w r as a prisoner for many years, but in 1905, after suffering prison horrors for four years, he escaped, with two companions, in a dug-out canoe. Eluding the warders one dark night, they launched the boat, and on this frail craft paddled toward freedom. Eaten by Sharks It was a terrible voyage. One of the prisoners lost his sight, fell overboard, and was devoured by the sharks that followed the canoe incessantly, bnt the other two reached Dutch Guiana safely. From there they reached Georgetown, Demerara, and eventually New York. Guerin came to London, where he again met "Chicago May,” who had been released from prison. The association, however, proved his undoing, for the woman in 1907 betrayed him to the police, who arrested him at the request of the French authorities. He successfully fought against extradition on the ground that he was a British subject, and was released from prison. Wounded in Bloomsbury

On the night following his release he was in Bloomsbury when a hansom cab drove up. In it were “Chicago May” and a man named Smith, who leaped out, and fired several shots at Guerin, wounding him in the foot. Both Smith and “Chicago May” were arrested, and at the Old Bailey she was sentenced to 15 years’ penal servitude, while Smith received a life sentence.

A man who was stated to have given a false name and address, and to have refused to allow his fingerprints to be taken, was charged at Westminster Police Court with the theft of a suitcase. It was alleged that he took the suitcase from the booking hall at Victoria station, and ran into a restaurant, with the owner of the bag, Mr. Verner, a commercial traveller, in pursuit. The prisoner, said Mr. Verner, raised his umbrella, and said: —“You —, if you follow me I will knock your brains out.” Counsel for the prisoner applied for bail, but the magistrate said he must first give some account of himself, and the man was remanded.