San Quentin Break

Around a table at San Quentin Prison one morning last week met Frank C. Sykes of San Francisco; Joseph H. Stephens, Sacramento banker; Warren Atherton, Stockton lawyer. They were members of California's Board of Prison Terms and Paroles and at the moment none was particularly happy about it. Clyde Stevens, a notorious bandit, had just accomplished his fourth bank robbery since they paroled him last October. The Press was hounding them again for laxity.

But what could they do? San Quentin Prison, jutting into the Bay 10 miles above San Francisco, had space for only 3,000 inmates. Crammed into it were nearly 6,000, world's biggest prison population. Only way the Board could make room for new prisoners was to shunt old ones out as fast as they could. Meantime those remaining stirred like cattle squeezed in a ship's hold. A score had lately been sent to dungeons for riot & rebellion. Pondering their problem, the boardmen and Secretary Mark Noon adjourned to Warden James B. Holohan's house for lunch.

The meal was nearly over when a convict suddenly appeared in the doorway. No penitent whiner was he. Instead he leveled an automatic, barked, "Hands up!" Warden Holohan was returning from the telephone. His guests saw three more convicts knock him down, crack his skull with their pistol butts. Boardman Atherton addressed the first convict: "If you boys are on the square and promise no shooting I'll go as a hostage, but remember I'm the father of four children."

Snarled a convict: "Guess we'd better take all of you. You guys take off your clothes. We need 'em."

Convicts and boardmen traded clothes. Far too perturbed was Boardman Stephens to care that his new trousers did not meet in front. Secretary Noon telephoned the captain of the guards, got him to promise no shooting. Herding their hostages into the warden's automobile, the convicts roared through the prison gate.

Over northern California spread a general alarm. Highways were blocked, drawbridges raised, a swarm of officers and two U. S. Army pursuit planes put on the trail. After a few miles the convicts tossed out Secretary Noon to warn pursuing police that the boardmen were still in their automobile. Finding a raised drawbridge in their path, they doubled back, sped unharmed through the helpless posse. The police caught up again, burst their quarry's rear tires with a blast of bullets. A slug plowed through Boardman Sykes' thigh, pinked Boardman Stephens' leg.

Two hours and 54 miles away from San Quentin, the convicts sighted a creamery, jumped. The convict-clothed boardmen tumbled out of the careening automobile, screaming their identity just in time to keep police from shooting them down. The convict leader peered from a creamery window, got two barrels of buckshot full in the face. At that the other three, all wounded, marched out with hands in air and the most sensational break in San Quentin's history was over.

Back in the prison hospital, where Warden Holohan lay seriously hurt, the convict leader died. To the shock of Boardmen Atherton, Stephens and Sykes was added chagrin when the recaptured convicts confessed that it was Clyde Stevens who had smuggled their guns into the prison. Next day on a swampy island in the Sacramento River, police caught Bandit Stevens.

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