LION LOOSE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21184, 3 November 1938, Page 9

LION LOOSE

JAPANESE KILLED In Wildwood, New Jersey, a manslaughter charge was lodged against a side show operator whose circus lion broke out of a cage, tore a man to death, and for nearly three hours terrorised the resort city until slain by a policeman’s bullet. Recorder Lynn Burns held Joseph Dobish, 50, in £lOOO bail in connection with the death of Thomas Saito, 37, of Philadelphia, a Japanese auction room employee, whose mangled body was found in a maze of pilings under the ocean front boardwalk, nearly deserted In the off-season month. Until five weeks previously the 3001 b killer, known as “Tuffy,” was one of two Hons strapped to a motor cycle side-car while the driver roared around a steep-walled bowl called the “Wall of Death.” Since then “Tuffy" had been inactive, but late at night, in a manner undetermined, “Tuffy" escaped from the cage and roamed the adjoining boardwalk. Salto was about to enter his parked automobile when the lion pounced from the elevated boardwalk upon the man's back and dragged him into the darkened recesses under the walk. There Saito’s body was found, clad only in a ripped shirt. Police, informed by Dobish of the lion’s escape, hurriedly formed a posse of officers, firemen and volunteers. An armed cordon was thrown around a four-block area along the Atlantic Ocean. Only a few blocks away in the heart of the city terrified citizens barricaded homes and shops while an alarm spread the tale of a man-killing lion on the loose and warned all to keep off the streets. As hours passed horror in the city Increased, and even distant streets became desolate. Police searchlights pierced the frightening darkness as the posse combed the labyrinth of piling. Then Patrolman John Gares, crossing the boardwalk, saw the lion bounding toward him. He waited with his pistol ready and when the animal arrived within 10 feet he fired. “Tuffy” fell - dead at his feet with a bullet through his right eye.