Dark prison-escape story

Press, 26 December 1985, Page 10

Dark prison-escape story

hens petrovic

In the summer of 1901, Ed and Jack Biddle, two smalltime criminals, were sentenced to hang for the murder of Thomas D. Kahney, a grocer killed during a burglary they committed on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.

Less than two months before their execution, on a cold and quiet winter night, the Biddle brothers escaped from their Death Row cells.

A minister described this incident as “the worst criminal act thus far in the twentieth century” — not based upon the Biddles’ stature in the history of violent acts, but upon the identity of the relatively obscure figure who assisted in their escape. She was Mrs Kate Soffel, the prison Warden’s wife..

this dark prison-escape story, “Mrs Soffel,” will start at the Midcity tomorrow, It stars Diane Keaton in the title role, with Mel Gibsoii and Matthew Modine as the fugitive brothers.

The film is by the Australian director, Gillian Armstrong, who first attained international acclaim with “My Brilliant Career.” “This film is a love story, above and beyond everything else,” said Armstrong. “What is that old saying? ‘lt’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. That’s the theme of ‘Mrs Soffel’.”

No one really knows what drew Kate Soffel and Ed Biddle together during her

visits to his Death Row cell in the Pittsburgh Jail, though some records (including legitimate interviews and love letters) have survived over the past 84 years. Accounts by journalists of

the period clearly indicate that a powerful bond developed between these two very different people. “While doing our own research,” Armstrong said, “we discovered that the Biddle brothers not only rescued Mrs Soffel from her home, but traveled with her instead of breaking up and planning to meet later. Surely that could have only slowed them down; what else besides love would have driven Ed to do that?” Kate Soffel was damned by public figures and newspaper editorials for cruelly abandoning her husband and family. Sensational journal-

ists reported that Ed Biddle possessed a mysterious power over women, which he exerted to gain Mrs Soffel’s assistance and affection. They remained headline news for weeks in the Pittsburgh area, and “created a sensation from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” in the words of one writer at the time. Armstrong describes Mrs Soffel as “a deeply religious woman and mother, who lived with a very conservative man. What attracts me to her story is that she throws over her entire life to take a-risk."