News

One of the greatest escapes in the history of the county’s jail

By Scott Wagar

02/26/2013

In 1911, one of the biggest jailbreaks in the history of the Bottineau County jail took place at the Bottineau Courthouse, which in turn would cause a terrible crime to take place in Winnipeg, MB, just months later.

The five men included Thomas Dunn, Frank Irwin, James Wilson, Pat Rae (AKA John Cummings) and Jack Rae (AKA Emil Bantz), which made their second break from Bottineau’s jail in just over 14 days.

“The bars of the county jail have again proved inadequate to hold three highwaymen, Wilson, Dunn and Irwin, and two grand larceny prisoners, Cummings and Bantz. For the second time in little over two weeks these five sawed their way to liberty. The latest evidence that these men disliked and scorned the cells and bars of the county’s Bastille was given last night just after supper hour when they deported without ceremony through one of the windows on the west side of the jail,” stated The Bottineau Courant. “The eight prisoners in the jail were taken to supper a little after 5:30 and were turned back into the jail about 6 o’clock. About twenty minutes later Deputy McKinnon went down to lock the men in the steel cages and noticed a cold wind blowing through the jail. An examination showed that a window on the west side was open and that two bars had been cut off in a very workmanlike manner, presumably with tools furnished by someone on the outside.

“The fire whistle was blown and the firemen and a number of other citizens induced to join the hunt for the prisoners but no trace of them was found beyond the report of the five men were going north and that two had turned west near William Dinwoodie’s farm on the edge of the mountains,” The Bottineau Courant added. “This morning it was reported that two men had called the John Steen farm north of Souris and had secured breakfast at Ed Moline’s cook car.”

The five men’s escape from jail started in September of 1911. According to court records, the Roes made their first appearance in court on Sept. 14 for grand larceny in Omemee after stealing a gold watch belonging to Mary Zuleger, another gold watch owned by Dora Zuleger, one gold ring of Oscar Larson and a ladies gold locket and $1.70 belonging to D. Zuleger and Miss Trudell, all at a value of $45 dollars.

For Dunn, Irwin and Wilson, their crimes took place in Upham when the three men grabbed, assaulted and took a loaded revolver and shot the weapon over the head of Green Gipson, while at the same time stealing $16.85 from the man.

With sentences handed down, the five men escaped from the county’s jail in early October, but were captured immediately. Just two weeks later, the five men made their grand escape for the second time.

In December, Irwin and Wilson were discovered in Winnipeg after being arrested for assault and coming in contact with a man they knew too well.

“The second escape of the three highwaymen from Bottineau County jail was a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ at least so far as James Wallace, alias Wilson, alias Kelly, was concerned. Word reached here yesterday that he had had been sentenced to seven years hard labor on a charge of assaulting a hotel clerk with a razor,” The Bottineau Courant stated. “Sheriff Sandstrom found, on his arrival at Winnipeg last week that only two of the former inmates of the county jail had been apprehended, namely Wilson and Irwin. These two stated that they lost Dunn a few days after their escape from jail and do not know where he is. The two taken into custody had arrived in Winnipeg a week ago last Saturday and were apparently outfitting to go to the lumber woods. Their arrest was due to a row which took place in the Savoy Hotel, where they were stopping. Wilson and the hotel clerk quarreled about some money matters and Wilson finally said, ‘I’ll cut the heart out of you’ and slashed the clerk across the side of the face with a razor, cutting to the bone. He then ran out of the hotel.”

While running out of the hotel, Wilson ran right pass Gibson. What Gibson was doing in Winnipeg is unclear in the newspaper article but it was believed that he was either visiting the city or was on his own manhunt for the three fugitives following their trail all the way to Manitoba’s capital.

While making a run for it, the local police caught Wilson and later in the day found Irwin and took him into custody where Gibson identified the two men.  

With Wilson sentenced to a Canadian prison for seven years, Sandstrom returned to Bottineau with only Irwin, who enjoyed the art of speaking to a point.

“The sheriff arrived home on Wednesday evening bringing Frank Irwin with him. Irwin talked pretty freely about the escaped from jail and says they had a pretty strenuous time of it especially during the first two days. It was very cold and they were hungry until they found a bachelor’s shanty somewhere over in Rolette County and spent a whole day feeding on bacon and biscuits they found there and in resting up,” The Bottineau Courant stated. “When they left the hills they went to Boissevain, thence to Killarney and back west to Hartney where they worked on a thrashing rig for a couple of weeks.

“He also says that they used a hack saw to get out of jail here, but will not say how it was procured,” the newspaper continued to state.

Irwin was given additional days in jail for his escape. However, Dunn and the Roes were never mentioned again in court documents from Bottineau County, nor did their names appear in The Bottineau Courant ever again, leaving their whereabouts and the remainder of their lives unknown to the people of the county.

As for the jail cell, at least two more people escaped from Bottineau County’s jail in 1911, but while Sandstrom was in Winnipeg an individual was called in to take care of the matter of the breakouts and the five who caused such a commotion in their jailbreak.

“An expert is here repairing the damage done in the jail by those slippery individuals,” stated The Bottineau Courant that December in 1911.