Joliet Prisons

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The man who tried to break into
the old prison as well as out of it

Gallows waiting for him

On a spring night in 1923, a young Mexican man entered the United States illegally at Laredo, Texas. He would return home a few years later as a hunted man with a gallows waiting for him in Joliet, Ill.

Bernardo Roa was 23 years old when he drifted into Chicago and got a job as a chauffeur. The salary wasn't much. He wanted more. So, with a gun in his hand he attempted a robbery of the ticket agent at the elevated station on 29th Street. Charles L. Johnson, the agent, was shot and killed. And Roa was sentenced to life inside the state penitentiary at Joliet. Inside those prison walls, he met a bunch of tough guys with the same code of conduct.

They were all willing to do anything to gain their freedom.

This story begins on the first Saturday in May, 1926. A bat cracked in the bottom of the last inning, but the runner in prison garb didn't beat the ball to first base. The convict runner threw up his hands in disgust after making the third out. The baseball game was over. But seven other convict spectators smiled to themselves. They wanted to be out, too. That Saturday afternoon baseball game inside the walls of the Stateville Penitentiary had given them time to work out final details of an escape plan. Stateville, then the newest maximum security prison in Illinois, was only two years old. The new prison had been built to eliminate overcrowding at the old prison on the east side of Joliet. Most of the men doing time in the new prison had started that time at the old prison, which was located just a few miles away. <

Big Charlie Duschowski, one of the two ring leaders of the seven desperate men, was doing time for murder. He had killed a Chicago cop. The other ring leader, Walter Stalesky, had been sentenced to 10 years to life for armed robbery. They figured that they had nothing to lose with an escape attempt. But their plans didn't include the hangman's noose that was waiting for them. The other five convicts were Charles Shader, James Price, Robert Torrez, Barnardo Roa and Gregario Rizo. Shader, Roa and Torrez were serving life sentences for murder just like Big Charlie.

All of the convicts except Stalesky worked in the prison's shoe shop. There they had access to scissors and files used in the cutting of leather. Those tools were easily converted into crude knives. Their plan called for the seven men gathering in the lobby outside the office of Assistant Warden Peter N.M. Klein. His office was in the prison's solitary cell building. During the following week, each of the convicts submitted a request to see Klein, a lenient man who had allowed discipline to become lax inside the new state prison.

The seven convicts were asking for transfers to the honor farm. On Wednesday, May 6, 1926, the six men from the shoe shop moved through the prison hallways on their way to see Klein. Stalesky, who worked in the prison laundry, joined them when they passed his work station. Each of the convicts carried a prison pass with authorization to see the assistant warden. Each was also carrying a long knife concealed inside his prison uniform. Big Charlie had a club made from an iron bar under his shirt.

When they reached the lobby, they didn't wait to be called inside Klein's office one at a time. They rushed the door. Jacob Judnich, guard in charge of the cellhouse, and Samuel Oden, a convict trustee who served as the guard's assistant, tried to stop the charge. A struggle followed and both men fell wounded and retreated to the safety behind a locked door. Oden, a giant black convict, was critically hurt with stab wounds in his chest. Klein was completely surprised when the seven desperate convicts entered his office with a demand that he walk them to the south gate as a work party. He refused and Big Charlie cracked the assistant warden over the head three times with an iron club. With this first blood, the other six convicts started slashing Klein with their knives. The administrator received 11 wounds, nine of which could have been the fatal one. ""He's dead. What do we do now?'' one of the convicts asked. Torrez and Rizo grabbed the keys to solitary cells and rushed out to find their friend, Nathan Leopald. The 20-year-old son of a millionaire, who had made national headlines two years earlier when he was tried for the murder of little Bobby Franks in Chicago, had stolen coffee and sugar a few days earlier to get himself locked up in the solitary cell building. Leopald had already written a farewell note to his father on the rough board seat of a bench in his cell. ""Dear Father,'' it said, ""As I am about to go away, I want you to know that in my last hours I acknowledged that had I followed your teachings, I would have avoided trouble. I am sorry, dear father, for the trouble I have caused you and realize that I did not do the right thing.'' Leopald, a genius, had taught English to both Rizo and Torrez. He had been Shader's cellmate for more than four months.

Indications are the youthful convict had worked out plans for the escape, which included the escapees making their way down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico and eventually to South America. But that plan was tossed aside with the murder of Klein. Leopald refused to leave his cell. Meanwhile, word was sent for guard Captain John Keeley to report to Klein's office. He walked in and saw the assistant warden's body on the floor. But before he could react, Keeley was surrounded by men with knives. They ordered him to walk with them as a work party to the wagon gate at the south wall. ""We've already killed once, maybe twice, so we got nothing to lose by killing you,'' Big Charlie said. ""If you refuse, we'll kill you and call Capt. Kelly. If he refuses, we'll kill him and call Capt. Hammermeister.'' Keeley, a veteran in prison work, realized he would die if he refused the orders. He walked the work detail to the wagon gate.

A guard there challenged the work party. Keeley said nothing and hoped to make the guard suspicious. But the guard opened the gate. Outside the gate, Capt. Hammermeister, who was supervising another work detail, asked where they were going. Keeley again said nothing. ""Get to work then,'' Hammermeister ordered. One of the escapees mumbled a profanity at the captain, who turned back to his own work detail. Keeley asked for Assistant Warden Klein's personal car, a large touring car that was chauffeured by trustee John Cassidy. The car pulled up a few moments later and the seven convicts as well as Keeley got inside. Cassidy was ordered to head south from the prison. On Route 7 near Morris, the car pulled to the highway shoulder. Price and Shader jumped out of the car and took off running through an open field. The other five convicts and their two prisoners went on down the road and stopped near Marseilles.

Capt. Keeley and trustee Cassidy were handcuffed back to back with a tree between them, only after the convicts had an argument about killing them. Keeley yelled at a small boy who appeared at the top of a nearby hill. But the youngster ran away. The guard and the trustee were trying to release themselves from the handcuffs when the boy returned with a Marseilles police officer. Keeley attempted to explain what had happened. But the suspicious cop refused to release the two men. Eventually LaSalle County Sheriff E.J. Welter arrived and ordered that the cuffs be cut. By this time, the five convicts had skidded into a ditch at a place called Sandy Ford. The big touring car had overturned but no one was hurt.

Unable to turn the car back on to its wheels, the five escapees took off running across country. They found John Kolesar hunting small game. They took his shotgun away from him and ordered Kolesar to take them to his farm house. They changed part of their prison uniforms to civilian clothing and talked about plundering nearby farms for more weapons.

They were now armed with one revolver, a shotgun and their knives. They tied up Kolesar and left. He freed himself and called Streator Police Chief J.H. Hopkins, who quickly organized a posse of citizens. More than 150 armed men joined the search as word of the escape spread. Prison Capt. C.A. Bigford and a group of guards joined the manhunt that centered around the tiny village of Lenore.

There on a railroad bridge, Roa, Torrez and Big Charlie attempted to shoot it out with part of the posse. Roa's leg was badly broken by a blast of shotgun pellets. Big Charlie escaped but was captured later the same day. Capt. Bigford and his guards searched the area all night. The next morning they were going through a barn when the captain climbed a ladder to the hay loft. He was prodding the hay when the muzzle of a shotgun was thrust into his face. He heard the click of two hammers falling and thought he was going to die. But strands of hay prevented the falling hammers from exploding the shotgun shells. Bigford leaped to the ground and ordered his men to fire their guns into the loft.

After the first volley of shots, the shotgun was tossed out of the loft. Stalesky and Rizo surrendered. Five of the convicts had now been captured. Shader, still wearing prison pants with a civilian shirt, was captured in a wooded area of LaSalle County on Friday. He said he and Price, who had gotten out of the car near Morris, had been together up through Thursday. Shader's hand had been severely cut from a fall off a freight train. One posse member had caught just a glimpse of Price as he darted into a heavily wooded area along the Illinois River. He had turned to fire two shots from a revolver as he disappeared. One of the bullets hit a tree just inches from the head of the LaSalle County sheriff. Price disappeared, the lone convict to successfully escape.

Will County State's Attorney Hjalmar Rehn quickly called for a grand jury to investigate the escape, prison conditions that allowed the escape and Leopald's role in the escape. The six convicts were brought back to the old prison to await trial. ""I hope to have these murderers receive the punishment they deserve- death by the rope,'' Rehn said. Reports were flowing into the state's attorney office about the prison's lack of discipline, favoritism showed certain convicts and jobs being sold. There were rumors about women visiting convicts at the honor farm and captains taking prisoners to ""places of amusement'' in Joliet. Rehn vowed to get at the bottom of it all.

Meanwhile, Leopald said he had nothing to do with the escape. The youthful killer, along with his partner, Richard Loeb, had names that were famous in newspaper headlines. Leopald and Loeb, brilliant college students, had killed their young victim to see if they could commit the perfect crime. Clarence Darrow, the famous defense lawyer, had narrowly saved them from execution. The state's attorney questioned why Leopald, who had plenty of money on the prison books, would steal coffee and sugar and get himself tossed in the solitary cellhouse. Leopald, who had taught English lessons to two of the Mexican escapees and been Shader's cellmate, said he had written the farewell note to his father because he feared that he was going to be murdered.

Papers were discovered in Big Charlie's cell containing the names of several towns along the Mississippi River. Authorities pieced together the original escape plan down the river and eventually to South America. Big Charlie and Stalesky claimed that Leopald had been the brains behind the escape. Shader backed up their story. But the three Mexicans refused to talk about Leopold. After hearing more than 100 witnesses, the grand jury indicted the six convicts for the murder of Assistant Warden Klein. The grand jury also termed the two Joliet prisons ""a disgrace to the state and a menace to its people.'' The investigators recommended the firing of three top prison officials, including Warden John Whitman, and six of his subordinates.

Capt. Keeley, the hostage in the escape, was fired by newly installed Warden Elmer J. Green. But Keeley wasn't among those recommended for dismissal by the grand jury.

In December, 1926, the six convicts were found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. Sheriff Albert Markgraf ordered the construction of a gallows in the yard next to the county jail in Joliet. Shader, the youngest of the six killers, called the gruesome sight ""our play pen.'' Torrez, Roa and Rizo were housed in one cell on the third floor of the county jail. Big Charlie, Stalesky and Shader were kept in another cell on the other end of the third floor.

Special guards were hired to watch the killers. But by this time, the six condemned men had become famous names. They received lots of letters and people from all over wanted to visit with them. On Feb. 20, 1927, Sheriff Markgraf inspected the cells. His instincts must have told him that something more was coming before the killers dropped through trap doors on the gallows outside. ""It's better to lock the barn before the horse is stolen,'' the sheriff said after inspecting the cell bars. ""I just wanted to make sure the cells are in good condition and contain nothing which might aid the prisoners in an attempted escape.'' The circus like atmosphere and popularity of the condemned men continued through the rest of the winter. The convicts had frequent visitors and special defense funds were organized to appeal their case to the state supreme court. Roa, Torrez and Rizo were extremely popular within the Hispanic communities from Joliet to Chicago. They had lots of visits from beautiful young ladies who brought them baskets of fruit and special food. Roa, who played his guitar, and Rizo, who played a mouth harmonica, charmed the young ladies with songs. They all talked in Spanish and the jail guards had no idea what was being discussed. On Saturday morning, March 12, 1927, the three Mexican convicts escaped from their cell by cutting through the iron bars with saw blades.

They had two pistols when they confronted the guards and tied them up. They took Deputy Sheriff John Kirincich as a hostage and forced him to drive them toward Chicago. Roa had tossed the saw blades to the other three convicts just before they left the jail building. Big Charlie, Stalesky and Shader had almost sawed the lock from their cell door when the escape attempt was discovered. If they had an additional half hour of time, they, too, would have gotten out of their cell. The car with the three jail escapees and their hostage overheated in South Chicago. A taxi driven by John Marciniak was stopped. The taxi was speeding when it was spotted by a Chicago police car on the south side of Chicago. Deputy Kirincich jumped out of the cab screaming, ""I am a deputy, these are the escaped convicts.'' That started a gun battle. Officer Lee Grant was killed and Officer William Frost was wounded. The taxi driver suffered a minor wound during the exchange of about three dozen bullets. Rizo fell wounded with a police bullet in his chest. Torrez was captured. And Roa, who had received a leg wound when captured in the prison escape, disappeared. He was never seen again in the United States.

State's Attorney Rehn would later discover that the saw blades and guns had been probably smuggled into the county jail by 19-year-old Juanita Gallardo of South Chicago. The dark haired beauty, who was known as ""the sweetheart of Little Mexico,'' had met the three prisoners through Rizo's younger brother. He had first asked her to visit the three condemned Mexicans.

Juanita had visited the three prisoners several times and admitted that she had fallen in love with Roa. He had written her at least three long letters in Spanish pledging his love for her and her 2-year-old daughter. Juanita's husband was then serving time in a New Mexico prison. In one letter, Roa had sent her $5 to buy the saw blades. ""You are the only one who has shown any interest in saving our lives in this manner,'' Roa wrote when he asked for saw blades. ""Give many kisses to Carmelita and accept a hug from the one man who really loves you.''

The beautiful young woman denied that she had smuggled the saw blades and guns to the prisoners. She said she had just tried to comfort them in their final days. Rizo, who was recovering from his wound, and Torrez said the saw blades and guns had been brought in with a basket of bananas. They further implicated a 15-year-old Mexican girl from Joliet, who had also been charmed by Roa. The teen-ager had smuggled in more saw blades after the first two blades had been worn out. Rizo and Torrez said they had finally broken through the bars the Friday night before the escape. The mouth harp had been played to cover the noise of the sawing, which was kept low by putting soap and vaseline on the iron bars. Sheriff Markgraf put on extra guards to watch his prisoners, which now numbered only five. He hoped there wouldn't be another attempted jail break. But his hopes were in vein.

On Monday, June 13, 1927, Shader, Big Charlie and Stalesky escaped from their cell in the county jail by using a key that had been crafted from a piece of bone. They tied up two jailers and made their way to the cell holding Torrez and Rizo, who had recoved from his wound. But Torrez refused to leave the cell. The other four men made their way to a room where they found a pistol, shotgun and rifle. Sheriff Markgraf was surprised when he entered the room and found the four men. They struggled. A big dog named Whiskers, who belonged to a jailer, saw the struggle and tried to help. The dog sunk his teeth into the leg of one of the killers. But Shader hit the dog with a rifle. The blow was so strong that it bent the rifle barrel.

Using the sheriff as a shield, the four killers marched him out into the yard where Markgraf's car was parked. They all got inside. But as the car started to pull out of the yard, it was stopped by a hail of gunfire from about 50 armed men. Rizo died from new wounds in the chest and head. Stalesky was wounded. Big Charlie was pulled from the car and beaten by a crowd of angry guards. The sheriff, who had two bullet holes in his hat, had seen Shader run back inside the jail as the crowd pulled Big Charlie out of the car. But a search of the building didn't reveal him. Shader had made his way into the jail's garage and escaped through a window to an outside alley. Now there were just three prisoners to hang. Several hundred people gathered in front of the county jail during the night of July 14, 1927.

The fog was thick and the summer air was hot and damp. But the crowd waiting outside the jail wanted to get inside a pine stockade where the three killers were scheduled to die on the gallows at sunrise. The crowd grew to more than 1,000 long before dawn arrived. One of those waiting outside the jail was the widow of Assistant Warden Klein, who had been murdered. ""I have been suffering for a year now,'' she said. ""I will continue to suffer the rest of my life. They will suffer only a few minutes and that is not enough. Life is sweet to them now. People have been begging for them, have been trying to save them. They want to live. So did my husband, but they had no mercy for him. I wish I could press the lever that springs the trap.'' Inside the jail that night, the three condemned killers had their usual supper of bread and coffee. Big Charlie, Stalesky and Torrez had grown full beards to wear to the gallows.

Torrez and Stalesky prayed in their cells. But Big Charlie Duschowski remained silent. He had refused to see a priest and even had torn up a prayer book after it was handed to him. The sheriff ordered the prisoners handcuffed to cell bars at 2 a.m. He feared an attempted suicide might delay their date with the gallows. The handcuffs were removed at 4 a.m. when the killers were given new clothing.

Each man was given a new white shirt and a pair of dark blue pants. Four priests arrived 30 minutes later. They started reading prayers. At that point, Big Charlie asked to talk to a priest. And with no more possible escape attempts in sight, the big convict privately made his peace with God. The hanging was supposed to take place at 5:30 a.m. But it was delayed because of crowd problems. Hundreds of morbidly curious men were pushing and shoving for a place behind the pine stockade. Hundreds more of people were gathered out in the streets and on roof tops hoping to catch a glimpse of the three killers on the gallows. Several fights started in the crowd.

The three prisoners were removed from their cells at 6 a.m. They were wearing straps around their arms with their hands in cuffs. At the jail exit, the sheriff read to them the death sentence. ""All right, let's go,'' Big Charlie said. The killers and six guards were led into the jail yard at 6:12 a.m. Torrez coughed and licked his lips. Big Charlie and Stalesky smiled at the crowd. A newspaper reporter assigned to the story described how the condemned men marched out with firm steps that didn't falter. All three men forced a sneering smile from the top of the gallows, the reporter wrote. The killers said goodbye to each other as black hoods were placed over their heads. The time was 6:15 a.m. The sheriff signaled the hangman who pulled a lever. A thud sounded as the trap doors dropped and three necks were snapped. The thud was followed by a unison gasp of the crowd. Four people in the crowd fainted. Many others got sick. And the assistant warden's widow smiled. Several spectators attempted to cut pieces of the hanging ropes for souvenirs. More than 15,000 people passed through a Joliet funeral home that afternoon and night to look at the bodies of the three killers.

Many fathers marched their sons through the funeral home with the same warning lecture: ""See what happens to you when you're bad.'' Shader, who had escaped in the second county jail break, was captured in the summer of 1928 when he came home to visit his mother and two sisters in Chicago. He was returned to the county jail to await the noose. ""I do not want sympathy,'' he said on Oct. 9, 1928, the day before his date with the gallows. ""I would rather go out there and die than get on my knees and ask them to send me back to the pen. I don't want a new trial because I don't want to go back to the pen. I am not afraid. All that I ask is they have sympathy for my mother.'' Asked why he had dared to visit his mother, he replied, ""You know when a fellow gets out, he is not free. I wanted to get back to the place that I knew I ought to stay away from. I cannot describe the feeling, but it is terrible and it makes you do things that get you caught again. I don't want to live like Roa and Price are living, like dogs, hunted where ever they go, always expecting something to turn up that will expose them.'' At 6:02 a.m. the next morning Shader dropped through the gallows trap door. He was one of the last men to hang in Illinois. The electric chair had replaced the gallows in the state in 1927. But the new form of execution didn't apply to any murder done before July 1, 1927. The old gallows was stored away to wait for Price, who had gotten away in the original prison escape, and Roa, who hadn't been found after the first jail escape.

Price was eventually discovered in a New York prison where he was serving 10 years for a robbery there. In 1937, 11 years after he had escaped from prison, Price was brought back to Illinois and convicted for his role in the murder of Klein. Price was sentenced to 150 years in prison.Twenty five years later he was paroled to a veteran's hospital in Daton, Ohio. He died there in 1965. Roa, an illegal alien and perhaps the most clever of the seven men to escape from prison in 1926, was the lone killer to make good the escape. He was suspected of leading a bandit gang in a daring robbery of the West McHenry State Bank in 1927. The bandits got away with $12,000. And Roa apparently retreated to safety across the border in his native Mexico. In 1935, Warden Joe Ragen vowed to do everything possible to bring Roa back to justice in Joliet. Federal agents located him in Mexico City in 1938. Mexican officials arrested Roa and agreed to extradite him to Illinois for a $1,000 reward. The state governor said he would come up with $500 of the reward if the Will County Board would come up with the other half. But the county board said no. ""If the state wants to hang Roa, let the state put up the full reward,'' the county board declared in an official resolution.

Roa disappeared again and didn't surface for another 10 years. In 1948, Mexican police arrested him on a drug charge. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull informed county officials that Roa could be extradited from Mexico. Legal papers were prepared. President Harry Truman appointed Deputy Sheriff Roy Doerfler, who later became sheriff, as the agent to go to Mexico and get Roa. But Doerfler was advised by a letter from Washington, D.C. that he shouldn't go to Mexico until officials there were ready to release their prisoner. That word never arrived. There were rumors that a relative of Roa was a high ranking government official who stalled the extradition. Nothing more about Roa ever surfaced in Illinois again. He had escaped from the Will County gallows, which was stored away in an old police garage in downtown Joliet. The gallows was moved after a fire destroyed part of that garage. But no one can remember where the gallows was moved to. Roa is the only man who ever escaped from the gallows in Illinois. If he's still alive, he would be 93 years old.