Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1901 — BREAK FOR LIBERTY [ARTICLE]

BREAK FOR LIBERTY

Murderer About To Be Executed Makes Desperate Effort to Escape. Mount Holly, N. J., Dec. 4.—A sensational scene was enacted in the county prison here when Charles Brown, rendered desperate for fear of the gallows, on which he later paid the extreme penalty for complicity in the murder of Washington Hunter, attacked his spiritual adviser and attempted to escape. At 8:30 a. m. the death warrant was read to Brown, and he was left alone in his cell with Rev. Mr. Delsisger. While the minister was reading the scriptures. Brown assaulted him with an iron bar, which he had concealed In his cell. The clergyman was made unconscious and Brown'walked out of his cell into the corridor. He made his way to the jail yard and attempted to scale the wall. Sheriff Fenton and Chief Clerk Joseph Fleetwood, procuring revolvers, cornered the murderer, who, waving the iron bar, defied the officials. The sheriff threatened to shoot him, and Brown, seeing the impossibility of escape, finally surrendered and was led back to his cell. He was hanged at 10.1)5 o’clock.