Jailer Accused of Aiding Prisoner’s Escape in Tacoma
A jail cook alleges that a jailer pressured him to flee during an administrative transition, raising questions about a recent high-profile escape.
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.
Scandal has been created among Pierce County officials by the statement of Charles Thornton, cook of the county jail, who says Jailer Stottke advised him to escape while a change of officials was being made yesterday. It is, therefore, assumed that Stottke connived at the escape of Patterson, a prisoner who was serving a fourteen-months' sentence. Thornton says that Stottke told him he was a fool to remain, but Thornton says he did not want to escape as he was confined for no just cause. It has been inferred that Jailer Duval allowed Patterson to escape, but the register of the prisoners shows that he did not secure the jail keys until after the prisoner was gone. Patterson was not received by Sheriff Matthews as a prisoner, his name being erased from the inventory.
“Thornton says that Stottke told him he was a fool to remain.”
This report of administrative corruption and 'erased' prisoner records captures the chaotic, often lawless nature of early frontier county governance. Such stories of internal graft in the justice system remind us that the integrity of civic institutions has always been a contested and precarious reality.
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