The Foggy Breakout
Convict John H. Toy escaped the penitentiary Saturday under heavy fog while working on a new barn.
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.
John H. Toy, a convict, escaped from the penitentiary Saturday afternoon and up to the present time has not been apprehended. Toy, with several other convicts, was at work on the new barn that is being erected at the penitentiary, and it was from this place that he succeeded in getting away. About 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon a very heavy fog came up, and it is supposed that Toy stepped behind the barn out of sight of the guard and, climbing over the fence into the open field, made for the road and disappeared. Toy was serving a three-year sentence for larceny. The escaped prisoner is 26 years of age, five feet, six inches in height; has brown hair, blue eyes and weighs about 115 pounds. The left index finger is cut off from the first to the second joints.
“About 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon a very heavy fog came up, and it is supposed that Toy stepped behind the barn out of sight of the guard.”
Escapes from the state penitentiary were once a common source of local anxiety and community alerts in the Walla Walla valley, reflecting the town's historical identity as a hub of state correctional facilities.
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