BAKED TO DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 223, 20 September 1938, Page 7

BAKED TO DEATH.

PRISON BARBARITY.

FOUR CONVICTS KILLED.

OTHERS DRIVER STARK "MAD"

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SAN FRANCISCO, September 1

America has been shocked at prison Wbaritiee disclosed in the investigation of the deaths of four convicts in the Philadelphia County Prison in etuffy eells. The four hunger-striking men were •uffocated, and their roaeted bodies sub•wjuently found.

Charles I. Enjrard, Secretary of Wei '•re, said that two men from his office and two State policemen would make a test and subject themselves to the same conditions the prisoners faced in the heated cells, termed ae "horrible ae the black hole of Calcutta."

"They plan to close the windows and ventilators," he said, "just ae we understand they were closed on the Sunday Bight, and have the eteam pressure in the radiators turned on to the same degree they were when the prisoners were in there." He said he wanted to know if large radiators in the cell block "were really needed ju*t to heat the building in the Winter, or if there was something else in mind." • William B. Mills, superintendent of the prison, said if the building wae deliberately planned ae a "roaster," he wae unaware of it. Organised Revolt. The coroner said the convicts euffocated in almost airtight cells, where they w ere confined during an organised revolt aguimt ii •'monotonous" diet. Steam radiator* whp tinned on full, he declared, and 'in two days' steaming they (the c nvicts) literally baked to death." He averted "the lilte ium not wen eeen in history."

Common Pleas Judge Gerald F. Flood placed the coroner and the district attorney in sole charge of the investigation after Coroner Charles A. Hersch charged that the arrest of the two guard* by city police was "premature."

The guards, Alfred W. Brough (39) and Francis Smith (43), were held in £500 bail for further hearings. Herach said the arreets, ordered by Mayor 8. Davis Wilson, were made without his knowledge. He declared the action temporarily halted investigations by himself, the district attorney and the State, in as much as the two guards had volunteered information and that now they "don't have to talk unless they want to because they are defendant*."

Mayor Wilson said he had a statement by a witness that these two men (the guards) turned the eteam on, and added: "I did my duty under the law. So far ae I am concerned, I shall do nothing more." Warden's Statement. Warden William B. Mills, who had claimed that "not a violent hand wae laid on prisoners," said: "Someone, as yet unidentified, closed the windows in the cell blocks and turned on the steam raiatore." The radiators are in a corridor outside the celle, he said, and could not be reached by any prisoner.

Next day a group of "tough" guarde, whose duties, Coroner Hersch eaid, included punishing unruly convicts, was blamed for the prison's deathe. Hersch called thie class of guarde a "mob of terroriete," and said: "We are going after members of the mob and find out how they operated."

He said deathe of the four men indicated that the building had been used intentionally by some of the guarde as a "roaster" for disciplining prisoners. He eaid his investigation indicated that a "higher up" aleo was responsible for the deaths. It was thie official, the coroner declared, who gave the order to "turn on the heat" in the punishment cells.

"We have definite information as to the identity of the "higher up , who was responsible for the incarceration, punishment and death of these men," Hersch jeaid. He added that the information concerning the "higher up" wae given by four guards during six hours of questioning. Hersch was convinced the temperature must have been nearly 200 degrees in the celle. One purpose in questioning the guards, the coroner added,

wae to determine "whether turning on the heat wae a common practice" at the prison. Heat On and Off. "We have learned that Captain James McGuire, of the prison staff, returned from a vacation at Wildwood which he cut short on the Sunday," Hersch said. "It was about 5 o'clock when he went to the isolation block. He found the cloeed and the heat turned on. He ordered guards to turn off the heat and open the windows. Some time later —we don't know when—the heat wae turned on again and the windows closed. What we want to know, in view of these facts, is whether turning on the heat was a common practice."

Of the 20 others incarcerated in the superheated celle, some of them were described ae driven "etark mad" by the night of terror, and were ill from shock and fever. Five remained in the hoepital in a precarious state.

Assistant District Attorney John A. Boyle declared that the four dead men had been "tortured intermittently for three days." Those who eurvived, he eaid, were not placed in the isolation celle until the second and third days. "Three daye of that heat were more than human flesh could bear," he said. "That is why four dead and 21 survivors were found by the guards the following morning."

Dr. Martin P. Crane, coroner's physician, reported the deaths were caused by "heat stroke of the asphytic type." He explained this meant that the men's respiratory and circulatory systems, taxed to the limit in an effort to keep their bodies at a normal temperature, were overcome finally and no longer could utilise oxygen. This, he eaid, led to asphyxiation.