Let’s remember when four area men tried to break out of the Monroe prison, on this day in 1959 (July 6)
Who doesn’t love a good prison break story?
HistoryLink has all of the details, and they’re all amazing.
On Monday afternoon, July 6, 1959, four prisoners attempt an escape from the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe (Snohomish County) by overpowering three guards and taking them, 26 visitors, and 11 inmates hostage. The prisoners, armed with long kitchen knives and sharp meat forks, sequester the hostages in the visitors’ room, demand a getaway car and safe passage to Canada or they will “start killing people and rolling their heads out, one by one.” After nearly 14 hours of negotiations, the situation is resolved when guards, wearing gas-masks, flood the room with tear gas, storm in, and subdue the rebellious inmates. Although shaken and suffering from the adverse effects of the gas attack, none of the hostages is injured. The incident is one of the most dramatic escape attempts in Washington state penal history.
Oh there’s more:
At about 2:30 p.m. Guard Joseph M. Harris, age 41, was monitoring prisoners working in the kitchen area when he was confronted by four inmates, armed with two heavy, foot-long kitchen knives and two long, dual-pronged meat forks, and taken prisoner. The men marched Harris, at knife point, up the stairs to the second floor and into the visitors’ room, slamming the door behind them and breaking the viewing window. They told everyone to be calm and nobody would get hurt. They intended to take a few hostages, probably guards, and break out of the reformatory. The hostage guards were told to sit on the floor in the back of the room and be silent.
The inmates were identified as: Richard Walter Murray, 20, sentenced in 1957 to serve not more than 15 years for grand larceny; Robert E. Jasmin, 23, sentenced in 1956 to serve not more than 20 years for armed robbery; Donald Dean DeCourcy, 22, sentenced in 1957 to serve not more than 15 years for grand larceny; David King Owens, 18, sentenced in January 1959 to serve up to 15 years for burglary. All the men had lengthy juvenile records, including assault, auto theft, and arson. Jasmin had escaped from the reformatory farm on February 23, 1959, and was recaptured the next day. Murray and DeCourcy had escaped from the reformatory farm on March 31, 1959. They were recaptured in Oregon four days later and brought back to Monroe by Lieutenant Maley, now a hostage.
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