by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Over the years, the Homestead has had a couple of series of presentations dealing with criminal justice in greater Los Angeles, these being under the headings of “Curious Cases” and “Female Justice” and looking at notable examples during our interpretive period of 1830-1930. On this blog, we’ve highlighted some instances from these series while also offering posts that have looked at other crime-related topics.
This latest entry is about a particularly remarkable criminal who was “Wanted As An Escape” by Los Angeles County Sheriff William I. Traeger in a broadside dated 20 July 1921. Zephie Saunders, it was stated, was “convicted and sentenced to from 1 to 15 years for burglary to San Quentin prison and while awaiting transfer he escaped from [the] prison ward of [Los Angeles] County Hospital [in the] early morning of July 19, by cutting through brick walls.”
The 26-year old was described as being 5 feet 5 1/2 inches in heights, weighing 135 pounds, with hazel eyes, light hair and good teeth, as well as having a small scar on the right side of his chin and a running sore from an infection on his right arm. It was added that he was a Golden State native and a jeweler by trade. It turned out that these last two items, as well as his name were false information, but that hardly is a surprise when it comes to self-identification from a criminal.
The Los Angeles Record of the 19th ran its report on the hospital breakout under the headline of “Jailbreaker Given Help” and it was remarked that,
That Zephie Saunders, who escaped from the county hospital jail ward early today, was assisted by other persons is the belief of Undersheriff [Eugene V.] Biscaliuz. Whether this help came from confederates on the outside who aided him to open the hole in the wall or helped him to escape by auto will be investigated. The two watchmen at the county hospital who had the prisoner in their care will be closely questioned at the sheriff’s office late today.
The paper added that “hundreds of circulars,” presuming the one we are featuring here, “have been sent to all parts of Southern California, along with telegrams, while all deputies available were scouring the region for the escapee. It was observed that Saunders managed to bore through an 18-inch thick brick wall using only a spoon and a chair rung and the hole was above six feet from the ground. Anyone helping from outside would have needed a ladder, while daily cell sweeping took place and there were no reports of any mortar or brick dust, though brick pieces and mortar was found after the escape.
The same day’s Orange County Plain Dealer wrote that,
After working with but one hand, the other being disabled [from that injury mentioned in the broadside], for more than a week, and skillfully concealing his activities from guards by means of a dummy . . .
Saunders completed his task of digging his way to freedom within 12 hours after he had been sentenced to serve an indeterminate term in San Quentin prison . . .
Three weeks ago he was ordered to the prison ward of the hospital from the county jail after he had injected a disinfectant into his arm, causing an infection . . .
Carefully concealing the mortar and keeping the brick of the wall in place until a hole sufficiently large for his body had been made, Saunders succeeded in fooling the prison ward guards . . .
A[t[ 6 a.m. today a guard entered the cell to arouse the prisoner. He found that the “occupant” of the bed was merely a role of bedding formed into a dummy.
In its issue of the 20th, the Record noted that a photograph was being circulated of Anne Farmer, said to be Saunders’ girlfriend and who was under probation for selling a coat that he stole. Traeger and Biscailuz assumed that his first stop after breaking out of the jail ward was her residence.
Meanwhile, puzzlement was expressed about how Saunders dug his way through the brick wall, while the hospital’s superintendent commented that it would cost $50,000 to make it so escapes were impossible. This was deemed unnecessary because a new jail, likely to have a hospital ward in it, was expected to be built soon. The super, Norman Martin, declared that escapes could only be prevented by the diligence of the guards and H.W. Wood was fired because of the prisoner’s ability to break free.
Because of the disappearing act, a judge had to suspend proceedings in a pending case against the prisoner. The Los Angeles Express of 25 August somewhat airily commented that “Saunders had expressed pained concern when two additional counts were added to the original charge of burglary. He so deplored the three charges that he resolved not to fact them.” The paper added that the prisoner’s injured arm was in a plaster cast bound to his side and he managed to break out “with one arm hors de combat.”
The paper’s 19 September edition reported that Saunders was nabbed in Sacramento and was in the custody of Berkeley police officers, who wanted him for alleged crimes in that university town, when he escaped, according to the latter city’s police chief, August Vollmer, who had that role in Los Angeles in 1923-1924. A week later, the Pasadena Star-News noted that Saunders was picked up in San Francisco, though it was later reported that the arrest was in Marysville, north of Sacramento, and it was asserted that “one of the cleverest forgers in the West was caught.” The Crown City’s police chief, Charles H. Kelley, sought to have the suspect brought down to Pasadena to face charges of forgery and robbery in multiple instances.
The paper added that Saunders and Farmer were arrested the prior March on the burglary charge for which he received his San Quentin sentence and she her probation for five years. Kelley asserted that, after escaping from the county hospital, Saunders went to Pasadena, committed his crimes, and used $200 from one of the forged checks to buy a motorcycle and head to the north. After an arrest for crimes in Berkeley, the prisoner said he’d committed a robbery in Sacramento and was willing to be taken there so he could identify the house—it was then he escaped from the Berkeley officers.
On 28 September, Saunders was taken to San Quentin, but eight days later was transferred to Folsom. Records show that he was born in Massachusetts and was a machinist by trade (not a jeweler), but resided in Missouri where he was first convicted on a forgery rap in February 1916 and sentenced to 15 years in state prison at the capital, Jefferson City. He was paroled in September 1920, but was considered in violation for leaving the Show Me State, though his register listing shows an escape in August of that year–this might have referred to his escape in summer 1921. Also of note were a trio of aliases: E.S. Rendell, the name of one his Pasadena victims, Walter Duncan, and Dick Preston.
Saunders was two years into his term at Folsom when he, known under another name of Albert Preston, was on a road gang returning to the prison after working in Trinity County in the northwestern part of the state. On 19 August 1923, he effected his escape from the gang and headed north into Oregon, where he was apprehended in the state capital of Salem after forging almost $3,000 in checks there and another $2,800 in Portland.
A Folsom guard was sent there to bring him back and the two were on a Southern Pacific train in early November, with the guard in the lower berth and Saunders, secured with handcuffs and irons, in the upper. Somehow, the prisoner managed to escape through a bathroom window while so manacled and without waking the guard.
This time, Saunders, after stealing and passing bad checks at Bay Point, near Pittsburg and northeast of Oakland, headed back south and committed another Pasadena theft of checks. He then continued in that direction, probably also by a Southern Pacific train, as he passed a forged check in La Jolla north of San Diego, and then headed east and was found in El Paso, Texas. There, he assumed the identity of Dr. Dale I. Martin, who lived and practiced medicine at Orland, northwest of Sacramento, and, having robbed the physician there after escaping from the train at Weed, forged checks for nearly $1,500. Saunders not only stole the checks, but took personal papers to help secure his false identification and also grabbed a supply of morphine from the doctor’s office, while an Orland drug store was also robbed.
Pasadena Chief Kelley dispatched Detective Sergeant Robert E. O’Rourke to the Texas border city to bring Saunders, who was apparently looking to head into México and had a young woman from Louisiana, Vera Ford, as a newly wedded wife after a ceremony in Yuma, Arizona, back to the Crown City and the Pasadena Post of 15 December recorded that the prisoner had papers from a resident of that city, a San Francisco doctor and a Fresno man with him as part of his convincing forgery schemes.
O’Rourke and his prisoner were on a Pullman sleeper car of the Southern Pacific’s Golden State Limited when, at 2 a.m. one night as the train rolled through a portion of New Mexico, Saunders complained that his leg irons were hurting him as he wanted to roll over onto his stomach. When the officer went to adjust them by first removing the chains, the convict pulled out a .38 calibre pistol (how this and a .32 were smuggled aboard the train is an obvious, but unanswered, question, but O’Rourke assumed El Paso officers searched the prisoner—who, of course, also had a package of small saws wrapped in cloth around his waist—these were to be used in cutting his cuffs and chains).
A quick-thinking O’Rourke, however, noting that one of Saunders’ legs was still secured, drew his revolver and fired off four shots. One hit the prisoner below the left eye and to the side, but the soft-nosed bullet did not do much damage, as it was lodged under the scalp. Another bullet hit the left arm and, as Saunders tried to turn, the last pair entered his back. When the train pulled several hours later into Tucson, Arizona, the wounded man was taken to a hospital for treatment before the journey back to Pasadena was resumed.
After arrival and upon questioning, Saunders apparently told Chief Kelley “that Detective O’Rourke was the first officer that he had been unable to overcome and that he had escaped several times from officers, even when manacled. The prisoner was so certain of his next escape that he’d told his new bride to meet him in the seaside town of Venice, west of Los Angeles, for a rendezvous.
The prisoner very easily and cheerfully disclosed details of his criminal career to the Pasadena authorities, declaring that passing forged checks at banks was easy and that when he did so at a Crown City institution, he was wearing the uniform of a police motorcycle officer. It was noted that Saunders “has an extensive wardrobe and that he made frequent changes of clothes” when committing his crimes.
More importantly, Saunders disclosed that his real name was Albert Morton Stewart “and that his home is in Detroit, Mich., where he has a mother and two sisters.” While this latter part cannot be verified, the name was the one that was his basically from this point forward. Stewart, attesting that his name was not Zephie Saunders, was arraigned in early February, after recovering from his injuries, and appeared at the Pasadena Justice Court with his arm in a sling and a facial scar having just come from the same county hospital jail ward from which he escaped in 1921.
The Express of 12 March observed that the trial unveiled “the tale of the operations of a modern criminal, who coupled his alleged scientific forgery with two daring attempts to break from captivity,” though that number was actually three when factoring in the county hospital escape. The 22 November 1923 break-in of the Pasadena home of banker Hanford Lockwood involved Saunders’ sitting at the owner’s desk and spending several hours studying his victim’s business papers and handwriting. As happened before, when he presented a check at a bank, he was told to return with a signature and he did, expertly forged.
While Stewart, as noted above, openly confessed to Pasadena police officials, the paper continued that,
On February 28, when he had practically recovered, General hospital authorities discovered that Stewart had removed several bricks from the wall and was preparing to make another getaway.
The Pasadena Star-News of 3 April reported that Stewart, who later was handed a one-to-five year stint for fleeing the prison road gang, pled guilty two a pair of forgery charges and was handed a sentence of 1 to 10 years at Folsom, while burglary counts were temporarily dismissed and, apparently, never refiled. Eight days later, the convict was received at the state prison, from which he’d escaped not quite a year before.
This time, his ID card showed a dozen aliases, including Zephie Saunders, while it was recorded that his left hand was crippled, likely from the gunshot wound. Moreover, he was identified as a plumber, while his sentences were noted as 1-14 years, with the two running concurrently. Unlike in the 1921 prison records, there is a photograph of the prisoner, taken in his civilian clothes on arrival. In the register, there was an addition on 11 September 1925 that Stewart’s credits for good behavior were forfeited.
The reason looks to have been because, as reported in the Star-News of 31 July 1924,
Albert Stewart, alias Zephie Saunders, escaped from the Folsom Penitentiary last night . . . Stewart was in company with William Aberton, serving a life sentence for robbery committed at Alameda in 1921.
The pair were found missing at dinner and a search found them “within the outer walls of the prison,” but the account added that “officers escorting him to Folsom prison blocked an attempted escape on the way from the north.”
Stewart remained secured at the prison for more than three years and, while he never set foot in greater Los Angeles again, we’re going to return for a second part because of the astounding events that took place later, including a large-scale deadly riot at Folsom, another escape—this time from a hangman’s noose, and a release from prison despite a life sentence for murder. Check back for that very soon!