The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks (28 page)

The morale among the escapees was low. “If Banghart doesn’t score,” McInerny noted, “We might as well go back to the main gate at Stateville and apply for readmittance.” But Touhy’s friend came through, with a new car, some money, and the address of an apartment where they could hole up. This all sounded like good news, until they saw the state of the basement flat. “Warden Ragen wouldn’t allow a pig from the Stateville farm to set one cloven hoof in the place,” was Touhy’s acid description years later. He was quick to get himself out of there and into a different apartment, particularly when Nelson and McInerny started drinking and causing fights.

Banghart knew that they needed to make some serious money in order to afford a proper lifestyle, possibly even including plastic surgery, which would set them back around $100,000. He tried to keep the others under control, and when they went out to get supplies, he would follow at a distance, carrying his shotgun wrapped inside a newspaper.

By this time the search was being conducted by the FBI. The prison escape was the responsibility of the state police – it wasn’t a felony at the time – and the fugitives had not crossed state lines, so the Bureau couldn’t get involved initially. However by the autumn of 1942, the military draft was in operation, and when the men failed to present themselves for registration under the Selective Service Law, they became draft delinquents, and thus the Bureau’s responsibility. This was a little bit disingenuous, as Touhy was over draft age and had served in the US Navy during the First World War, but it provided the excuse that FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover needed for clearing up the mess. The full resources of the Bureau were directed towards the hunt.

Although checks were kept at every border crossing, and every law enforcement organization in America was put on alert, the focus was firmly on Chicago. The Bureau agents calculated that Banghart would be keeping the group close to his former base of operation, and that the men would probably have assumed identities from people whose wallets they had pickpocketed, in case they were stopped in the street for any petty misdemeanour. The first of the fugitives who was caught because of these checks was Nelson.

He and Stewart had been abandoned by Banghart and the others after they had gone out and got roaring drunk. Banghart had pistol-whipped them severely, leaving them unconscious, and when they had recovered, they had gone their separate ways: Nelson had headed to Minneapolis, Stewart to a former girlfriend’s house. Nelson contacted his mother in northern Minneapolis on 15 December; she immediately told the police. The FBI deduced that he would probably be living in a cheap hotel, and started to cross-check residents of these with the names of Chicago citizens who had lost their wallets recently. A mere twenty-four hours later, “Harold Seeger” was located in just such a motel, the door to his room barricaded, and a gun under his pillow. He was arrested, but refused to talk.

As it transpired, his silence didn’t make a difference. On the same day that Nelson was arrested, the FBI tracked down Stewart. The same principle had been applied: when Stewart had made contact with a friend in Milwaukee, the call was traced to a payphone on North Broadway in Chicago. The FBI saturated the area with agents, asking people if they had seen Stewart, and received multiple confirmations that he had been there.

Stake-outs in the vicinity produced results on 16 December. A known associate of Stewart’s was spotted standing awkwardly on a street corner, clearly waiting for someone. The Bureau agents were disappointed when the rendezvous wasn’t with Stewart but with another man, whom they followed anyway to a hotel on West Harrison Street. A check of the register revealed that “James Shea”, who had lost his wallet and ID three weeks earlier, was living there. Rather than arrest Stewart immediately, and get the same lack of cooperation that their colleagues were receiving from Nelson, the agents decided to be patient and follow him.

Four days later, their patience paid off. Stewart met up with two other men, who the agents guessed were couriers acting as go-betweens for Stewart and the other gang members. They therefore arrested Stewart, and started to follow the new pair of suspects. The next day, 21 December, they saw one of them meet Banghart and Darlak in a crowded downtown area. Banghart was carrying his shotgun beneath his newspaper, as he always did when he went out, and rather than risk a shootout in a crowded area, the agents switched their surveillance on to him.

This proved harder than they expected; Banghart was used to throwing off tails, and the agents were lucky that they weren’t spotted. However, over the next five days, they were able to ascertain the location of the other gang members. McInerney and O’Connor were in one apartment; Darlak and Banghart were in another, with Touhy a regular visitor.

Touhy had had a couple of close shaves during the preceding few weeks. When he visited one friend, he realized that there were FBI agents waiting for him, and he was able to give them the slip. On another occasion, a Chicago patrolman addressed him by name – but the cop simply wanted to thank him for a kindness he had done during the Prohibition era, and didn’t report him. In fact, he paid for Touhy’s fuel at the filling station where they met.

On 27 December, FBI agents confirmed McInerney and O’Connor’s identities by obtaining some discarded bottles from their apartment while they were out, and checking the fingerprints. J. Edgar Hoover then travelled to Chicago to oversee the final plans for the raids on the apartments personally. Where at all possible, civilians were removed from the neighbourhoods of the two apartments, so that there was less chance of collateral damage. Lines of fire were calculated to ensure the safety of all the agents involved. The local police’s assistance was needed to close off the streets once the operations got under way.

The following evening, McInerney and O’Connor left their apartment, returning by 11.20 p.m. Two Bureau agents were waiting for them inside; others took up position in and around the building. Alerted by something, the two fugitives went to their apartment door with guns drawn. As soon as they opened the door, one of the Bureau men called out that they were federal agents and told them to put their hands out. McInerney and O’Connor fired into the darkness but missed. The FBI agents were shooting at two targets silhouetted in the door frame; they didn’t miss. The two men were blown back by the force of the bullets, and fell over the banister to lie dead on the second-floor landing. In McInerney’s pockets were the address of an undertaker, and an excerpt from a poem.

Even as the FBI agents turned their attention to the other apartment, Touhy was starting to get an uneasy feeling, suggesting to Banghart that they should look for a new hiding place after he spotted men talking to each other out on the sidewalk late at night. Banghart told him not to worry.

The next morning at 5 a.m., they were woken by powerful searchlights directed into their apartment. Through a loudhailer they heard an FBI agent tell them they were surrounded, and advising them to surrender immediately. They were given ten minutes to think about it; if they hadn’t come out by then, the FBI would go in, shooting. Realizing that their escape was over, the three men – Banghart, Touhy and Darlak – surrendered. They were amazed to find J. Edgar Hoover himself presiding over the arrest. “You ‘re a lot fatter than you are on the radio,” Banghart told him.

Banghart was shipped to Alcatraz. Touhy was informed that, under an obscure Illinois law, he was liable now to serve Darlak’s term as well as his own; his sentence was therefore now 199 years. Banghart and Touhy continued to maintain that they had been framed for the kidnapping, and in 1954, a federal judge agreed with them. Touhy was released in 1959, but was shot twenty-five days later. He died within an hour, after commenting to a newsman, “I’ve been expecting it. The bastards never forget!” Banghart was freed in 1960, and spent his final twenty-two years living on a small island in the Puget Sound.

Sources:

Touhy, John: “Jake the Barber, Roger Touhy, and an Escape From the Big House” (Search International, 2001)

FBI website: “Famous Cases and Criminals: Roger ‘The Terrible’ Touhy’s Gang”

Touhy, Roger with Ray Brennan:
The Stolen Years
(Pennington Press, 1959)

United States of America Ex Rel. Roger Touhy, Relator-Appellee, v. Joseph E. Ragen, Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet, Illinois, Respondent-Appellant., 224 F.2d 611 (7th Cir. 1955) Federal Circuits

New York Times,
10 October 1942: “Touhy Mob Heads Break From Prison”

Time magazine,
19 October 1942: “Back to the Roaring ’20s”

Although it would become best known for its implementation of the Stop programme to deal with sex offenders, Peterhead Prison in the Scottish county of Aberdeenshire spent many years as a home for some of the worst offenders within the Scottish legal system. Described by an Open University Study in 1991 as “a prison of no hope”, it was nicknamed Colditz by its inmates in 2010, not because of its impregnability, but because it was too cold. The temperature didn’t affect one of the most famous escapers from Peterhead, “Gentleman” Johnny Ramensky, though. He managed to leave its confines on five separate occasions over a twenty-five-year period, once by swimming away on a cold November morning.

Built in 1888, Peterhead Convict Prison always had a bad reputation. It was the first such prison built north of the border – until then, convicts were sent to serve their sentences in England – and was always behind the times in receiving upgrades. Electricity wasn’t fully available until 2005 – a year before serious discussion began about closing the prison down. In 1987, it became well known after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered the elite Special Air Service regiment into operation on the mainland UK for only the second time (officially) to end a siege and rescue a hostage being held by prisoners.

Safe-blower Johnny Ramensky was born to Lithuanian parents in North Lanarkshire in 1905, and moved to the Gorbals in Glasgow aged eight, following the death of his father. He drifted into a life of petty crime, and was sent to a borstal in 1921 where he spent three years learning the tricks of his trade – as has been noted on many occasions, these young offenders’ institutions often were the most effective school that any of its inmates attended. He embarked on a career of housebreaking, receiving an eighteen-month sentence in 1925 after pleading guilty to sixteen charges and a further three-year sentence in 1927.

Ramensky was sent to Peterhead prison for five years in 1934 after blowing a safe at a bakers in Aberdeen, and made his first escape from there in November. Two years earlier, a man had managed to get away from a work party in the Peterhead quarry, but had been shot by the warders. Gentleman Johnny was the first to do so from within the walls of the prison. He was able to get over the walls between six and seven in the morning – either using a ladder or standing with his back against the wall, and heaving himself up it just using his shoulders, since he was incredibly strong. He was in ordinary prison uniform, with ordinary black shoes, but this wasn’t designed for the depredations of a Scottish winter.

As soon as his absence was noted, a major manhunt began, with farms searched and road junctions monitored. Ramensky travelled as far as Ellon, fifteen miles south-west of the prison, and evaded the police, who had blocked the only route over the river Ythen on both sides, by swinging on the girders and stonework of the bridge. After waiting until darkness fell, he then headed south towards Foveran, but was spotted running across a field. He was apprehended, and despite carrying an iron bar in his hand, he surrendered without a fight. He had been on the run for twenty-eight hours. He was returned to Peterhead, where the governor ordered that he was shackled. The newspaper reports of this treatment led to questions in the House of Commons, and the decision to abolish this form of punishment in Scotland.

Ramensky’s decision to abscond is often, wrongly, ascribed to the fact that he was denied permission to go to his wife’s funeral. In fact she didn’t die until three years later; Ramensky wasn’t allowed to attend the ceremony – the authorities at Peterhead didn’t make any allowances for him after he had embarrassed them by escaping.

A further spell of imprisonment followed his release in 1938, when he blew open a safe at the Empress Laundry in Aberdeen. He gained a certain notoriety when he informed the police after he was convicted that there was still an undetonated charge within a second safe on the premises.

When war was declared in 1939, Ramensky wanted to join up, but his various petitions to do so were turned down. On his release in 1942, he adopted the name Johnny Ramsay, and ended up in the Commandos. There are many stories about his safe-blowing exploits during the war, many probably apocryphal, but his less-legitimate talents were certainly put to good use.

Ramensky was given the opportunity to “go straight” after the war, but turned it down, and was back in prison again, this time at York, by 1947 (he was only demobbed in September 1946!). Thanks to lobbying by his girlfriend and the local MP, he was moved to Scotland, but on his release, he blew open a post office safe in Glasgow, and was sent to Peterhead on 20 February 1951.

By this time, Peterhead wasn’t as escape-proof as its staff liked to think. On 12 December 1950, its inability to hold onto the prisoners was brought up in the House of Commons, and the Under Secretary of State for Scotland, Peggy Herbison, noted that “Twelve prisoners have escaped from Peterhead Prison during the last three years. Nine were recaptured within twenty-four hours, one within two days and two within three days. They committed no offences while at liberty except, in two cases, the theft of motor cars to assist their escape.” However, inquiries held after each escape noted that “there is neither laxity of administration nor, indeed, of discipline in this prison”.

Eighteen months after Ramensky returned to Peterhead, he escaped once again. Annoyed at not being allowed to travel to visit his very sick mother, he got out of his cell and climbed on to the roof of the prison, then jumped down into the yard below. Newspaper stories at the time suggested that he had lathered himself with soap and slipped through the bars of his cell, but this seems rather less likely than he had found a way to deal with the locks. He had left a dummy in his bunk to avoid detection.