Anatomy of a Jailbreak
Sheriff Woolery foils a plot to escape the King County jail, uncovering acid and a sharpened knife.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Sheriff Woolery, assisted by Jailer Munro and ten deputies, surprised the inmates of the county jail yesterday morning by routing them all out of the south wing and locking them up in the boys' jail while they made a systematic search of the cells for contraband. The search was prompted by information that a plan was arranged for a general attempt to break jail. The sheriff uncovered two excellent saws, two pocket knives, and learned of a bottle of acid that the prisoners managed to dispose of down a sink drain at the first sign of the search. One of the knives was found on Charles W. Nordstrom, a man under sentence of death for the murder of William Mason at Cedar Mountain; it had been sharpened to a wicked point. The sheriff believes the information was correct and that a concerted effort was imminent.
“One of the knives was discovered on Charles W. Nordstrom and was a heavy pocketknife with a blade nearly four inches in length, which had been sharpened to a wicked-looking point.”
The King County jail has long been a site of civic friction, and the 1893 concerns over prisoner security and 'contraband' echo the persistent debates regarding the conditions and management of our modern detention facilities.
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