HUNTED FOR 3000 MILES

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 June 1932, Page 10

HUNTED FOR 3000 MILES

BRIEF AND BREATHLESS CAREER. On a mountain-top in Arizona a woman and two men crouched among the recks, watching the early morning mists roll away from the valleys below. Overhead an aeroplane dived to loose a stream Gf machine-gun bullets which drew blood from the woman’s neck. Up the slope’s of the mountain Indian trackers and bloodhounds were eloping in upon the fugitives, followed by sheriffs, who had 'realised that the bunt was nearly over when they found a car abandoned on the trail the day before. Such was the setting for the arrest of .Irene Shrader and her lover, Glenn Dague, three thousand miles from the spot where, only three weeks before, they had decided to embark upon a criminal carper. The story of that career—a brief but breathless sequence of murder, robbery, and violence —as told by Joseph Gollomb, an American newspaper reporter, provides a psychological study of unusual interest. Prior to their meeting each other, neither had shown the least symptom of criminal tendencies. Glenn Dague, the son of a preacher, had led a humdrum life as an insurance agent, teaching at Sunday school and training Boy Scouts, until one day his car grazed a woman in the street and he pulled- up to apologise. That woman was Irene, whose life, like his, had hitherto been colourless. She had been brought up in a West Virginian squatter’s mountain shack with thirteen motherless brothers and sisters, and at fifteen had married a labourer because there was no room tor her at home.

Her husband failing to support her, she had earned a bare existence for herself and their child, Donnie, cleaning railway carriages, and later as a waitress, in a restaurant. Into this life, of drudgery she had impbrted a breath of romance by reading Dumas, Balzac, and other works borrowed from the public library; Then came Dague—and they fell in love. Leaving his wife, Dague set himself to making j. living for, Irene and her child. He tried salesmanship, tried factory work, tried even labouring, but ill-luck dogged him, and the climax came when an accident kept -him in bed for weeks, lost him his job, and left them without money or food in the house. “This is the end!” he cried. “God’s curse is on us! Ho will not help me get bread for you t and the boy honestly. Very well, I’ll go out and take it by force.” ■lrene .stepped up to him, seized his hand, and brought her face close to his. ' “I’ll go with you, Glenn,’ ’she said. From then on Irene assumed the roie of'leader. They pawned all the clothes they could spare; they bought two revolvers and thus armed held up a garage, from which they stole a car and some money. Taking the child with them, they set Off in the car on a career of crime. Whenever they needed food they held up a grocery store; when they wanted oil or petrol, they obtained it at revolver point; even sweets for the child were similarly commandeered. And from time to time, as the papers warned them of pursuit, they their car anfl stole a fresh one. Then came a day when police stopped them on the road. Irene opened fire, and when the fight was oVer they were wanted for murder as well as robbery.

PLAYING AT CRIME. The child’s presence not only made their identification easy; it was also a source of anxiety to the woman. Even under the tension of her twofold peril, hunted as she was and robbing as she went, Irene worried as to the effect on Donnie of what he was witnessing. He must have seen ever forty hold-ups. He was in seven automobile races; and learned to obey instantly . his mother’s “Duck, Donnie!” He was excited to the point of hysteria. That, of course, could not be helped. But what were his mother and Dague to him now? Heroes of each hold-up, victors in thrilling races? Or monstefs who had shot down two policemen? Irene settled the question by buying Donnie a small cap pistol. She said as she presented it to him: “Now, darling, you, too, can play.” Thereafter Donnie was in glee; it was all a game and nothing to be frightened at; his mother was doing it all to amuse him.

With the hunt in full cry, they left the child with a relative and fled West through Stgte after State, Irene now disguised as a man. In St. Louis another skirmish with police left Dague wounded and drove them into hiding in lodgings. And there, a human touch. Irene caught sight of herself in a mirror; grimy, unkempt, in ugly male garb. A sudden fear seized her lest Dague should tire of her; and she washed and changed into her own clothes. When Dague returned, he wept at the sight of her, and for two days they paused to enjoy a last brief spell of happiness. Then they fled thro'ugh Missouri and Texas into Arizona, with a tramp they had picked up after another fight with police. They dared not keep to main roads; finally they had to abandon their car on the plains and make for the hills, with Indian trackers at their heels. Their love continued to the end. From the condemned cells they managed to converse with each other through a pipe, and even on the eve of execution this strange woman poured forth her feelings in crude verse: “Water when I’m thirsty, Whisky when I’m dry. You, love from heaven-, For me till I die.”