Criminal Snatched From Prison

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27441, 30 August 1954, Page 11

Criminal Snatched From Prison

(Rec. 12.10 a.m.) BOSTON. August 29. Two gunmen, silk stockings pulled down over their faces, broke into a Boston prison in daylight yesterday and released Elmer “Trigger” Burke, a notorious New York criminal suspected of six murders. The two men broke through four locked doors after entering the Suffold County Prison almost within view of hundreds of pedestrians. All three men made'off in a waiting car. The prison authorities said the two intruders first broke the lock of the teavy steel door leading to the 'street. They then picked the lock df the thick wooden door, and cut their way through two more to reach the prison exercise yard. Burke broke away from the “exercise line” of 119 other prisoners and sprinted toward the prison yard door. A guard gave chase but was halted by one of the intruders, who threatened to “blow his head off.”

All three men ran to the street, leaped into a car, and sped away. A full-scale manhunt is under way throughout the New England State and New York.

Burke, described by the police as “a kill crazy psychopath,” was arrested iq Boston in June after wounding a man with a machine-gun. He has been awaiting trial.