RUNAWAY GIRL

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 April 1937, Page 8

RUNAWAY GIRL

TRYST WITH GUNMAN Romeo and Juliet in a new setting—that of a prison cell with all modern luxuries —is one of the latest and most romantic sensations to hold public interest in America. Principals in the drama are a convicted killer and a runaway girl, and the story of their strange love tryst brings an echo of a mysterious “Black Legion’’ that reigned by terror in many States. The amazing escapade which occurred at a Detroit (Michigan) gaol is now engaging the attention of the authorities. Romeo was played by Dayton Dean, official executioner of the “Black Legion,” a hooded order like the Ku-Klux-Klan, and Juliet, by Lucille Turner, a slim seventeeu-year-old girl, who was detained in the women’s quarter of the prison. The “Black Legion” was organised “to promote justice” when routine law failed, and it was in May last year that Dean, in the role of the Legion’s killer, shot a. man named Poole on a lonely country road. Poole was - accused by the “Black Legion” of beating him wife, an expectant mother. When he was brought to justice, Dean, with a smile on his face, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was just a few days previously that Lucille brought Dean again into the limelight. She crawled out of the eighth-floor window of the women’s detention room, climbed up a grating and entered the window of Dean’s cell on the ninth floor.

BEHIND SHOWER-BATH CURTAIN

When Lucille was found to be missing a search was made for her, and she was discovered hiding behind a shower-bath curtain in Dean’s cell. And this is what Lucille said:

“Our affair started a week ago. I was playing the piano in the girls’ workroom, when Dean called out, ‘Come up-and see me some time.’ Next day I opened the window, climbed up the grill to his room, and went in. We talked and ate together. I spent the night with him. “Oh, sure 1 kissed him many times, and he hugged me passionately.” Lucille was arrested as a. “frequenter of beer taverns.” She has blue eyes, brown hair, and a frank, open face. She was also a member of the “Black Legion.” Asked why Dean was so comfortably housed in his cell, the authorities declared that Doan’s disclosures of the “Black Legion” terrorism aided the States’ fight to stamp out. hooded night raiders. The necessity of his evidence in pending trials accounted for his occupancy of a. cell with such luxuries as a private bathroom.

It was also stated that there was no room for Dean in the county gaol because other “Black Legion” men imprisoned there might do him bodily harm. The cell in which Dean and Lucille met was without, barred windows, and there was about two feet of space between the grill and the wall through which the girl could crawl or the prisoner escape. Questioned about the escapade. Dean laughingly -remarked, “Love laughs at locksmiths.” He was subsequently removed to a plainer cell, where he has no chance of entertaining girl friends. As a “State witness” against. Black Legionaries, Dean will, however, bo permitted to buy his own food and listen to the radio.