The Great Walla Walla Manhunt
An elderly convict pulls a vanishing act, leaving local authorities chasing shadows after allegedly swindling locals out of thousands.
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.
D. E. Shepherd, the aged convict who walked away from the penitentiary last Saturday night, is showing the same cunning in keeping out of reach of his pursuers as he did in planning the neat coup he executed on unsuspecting victims in Walla Walla, whereby he managed to clean up something like $2,000 in six months. One posse sent word to the prison last night that a warm clue had been struck, but nothing further had been heard from the members up to this afternoon, though Superintendent Dryden said that he expected a telephone message any minute. The suspicion that Shepherd's relatives have entirely spirited him out of the reach of the prison authorities or are hiding him somewhere in the valley until a favorable opportunity to get away presents itself is gaining ground.
“D. E. Shepherd, the aged convict who walked away from the penitentiary last Saturday night, is showing the same cunning in keeping out of reach of his pursuers.”
Escapes from the state penitentiary were once a staple of local news in Walla Walla. The public fascination with 'cunning' criminals often obscured the reality of the prison system, which was then, as now, a major pillar of the town's local economy.
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