No jail could hold this bandit
History was made at the Joliet women's prison in the summer of 1920. Hazel
Burmeister broke out and was on her way to becoming a media darling.
Maybe even a legend.
The pretty young socialite was the first-ever woman to escape in the
prison's history.
Hazel was raised in Chicago. Her wealthy grandfather was a wholesale
candy dealer. In 1919, Hazel and three male friends robbed him.
They all got caught but grandpa had the robbery hushed up. Hazel, then
19, moved in with a wealthy woman. One day Hazel walked out of the apartment
with the woman's sable coat and $10,000 worth of jewelry.
She was arrested in New York City with the loot. Hazel made tabloid headlines
there by teasing the reporters and sticking out her tongue for photos. She
was sent home and convicted of theft.
Sentenced to serve 1-10 years in prison, she arrived in Joliet on June
28, 1920. Less than two weeks later, she escaped with two trustees.
After the night count, they took a key to the chicken house and discovered
that it opened several other doors, including the cellhouse main door. They
had earlier found some street clothing to wear.
And they just walked away from the prison.
Trustees Wanda Swischer and Natalie Herman voluntarily returned to the
prison a few days later.
But Hazel was gone.
With a nationwide search for her, several daring robberies were credited
to the "girl bandit" and her friends. She was captured in Milwaukee
in 1923. But she escaped again.
Hazel didn't surface for two more years. In the the fall of 1925, she
was arrested for passing a bad check in New York and sentenced to 30 days
in the county jail. While there, prison officials here learned of the arrest.
They wanted Hazel back in Joliet to complete her sentence. But she didn't
want to go back to prison.
Using her feminine charms on a deputy walking past her cell, Hazel grabbed
his revolver from its holster. She quickly shot herself three times in the
chest. She was reported to be dying.
Newspapers called her the "bandit queen" and spread her story
nationwide.
But Hazel didn't die. She was returned to the Joliet prison in 1926.
That fall, a parole board member became interested in her case. Hazel was
suffering from tuberculosis. Again she was reported to be dying.
Hazel was paroled on Dec. 6, 1926, and sent to a sanatarium. After a
long rest, she was released and went to the east coast.
Then she bounced some more bad checks and went to a county jail. A bootlegger
and gambler fell in love with Hazel and posted her bond. He attempted to
pay off her bad checks and the victims she had robbed.
Shortly after that, Hazel robbed her bootlegger friend and disappeared.
She hooked up with another man and several robberies were credited to
the pair. In 1928, Hazel looked up an old society friend in New York City.
That friend allowed Hazel and her "fiance" to move in for a few
days.
They beat up the wealthy woman and robbed her of $6,500 worth of jewelry.
The law caught up with them in Albany. Hazel was put in jail.
"I won't be here long," she vowed to reporters and cops.
No one knows where she got the handful of mercury tablets that she swallowed
in her cell. Hazel's last newspaper headline said the beautiful bandit queen
was dying in a hospital.
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