Notorious criminal
The Red Hat Cellblock was built in 1933 in response to the bloodiest escape in Angola history, led by Charlie Frazier, an outlaw who ran with Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. When Frazier finally was apprehended and returned to Angola, he was put in the last cell of the Red Hat Cellblock, and the steel door to his cell was welded shut. He died seven years later.
Escaped with Earl Joiner from Angola Prison 1933 husband of Estelle Davis who participated as outside contact for the escape.
son of John Robertson Johnson and Laura Ada Howe of Calhoun Co. Mississippi
1940 West Feliciana, Louisiana, Angola, State Penal Farm, May 7, sheet no 20B
Charlie Frazier prisoner number 23409 male white age 42 single Texas 1935 same house
His family
1900 Justice Precinct 7, Red River, Texas 7 june pg 267a, hh 82
John R Johnson May 1857 43 marr 18 yrs Mississippi parents Alabama
Ada L wife Feb 1865 35 8 born 8 living Miss parents Miss
Roscoe son Sept 1884 15 Miss
Tannie dtr Nov 1886 14 Miss
Eula dtr Nov 1888 11 Miss
Earl son June 1890 9 Miss
Sallie dtr May 1892 8 Miss
indexed as Eddrige but is Eldridge son Jan 1894 6 Texas
Louise dtr Jan 1897 3 Texas
Rena dtr Aug 1899 9/12 Texas
1910 Justice Precinct 8, Red River, Texas household 191, page 296A, May 2 1910
Robertson J Johnson 52 marr 1x 27 yrs Miss fa Ala mo Ala farmer
Ada L wife 45 10 born 9 living Miss
Earl son 20 Tx
Sallie dtr 18 Tx
Eldrige son 15 Tx
Louise dtr 13 Tx
Rena dtr 10 Tx
Bailey son 8 Tx
In Rusk Prison
Singin' a Lonesome Song: Texas Prison Tales By Gary Brown "The Texas Prison Houdini"
Escape from Huntsville, Texas Death House
Date: Friday, July 27, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 5
Three Suspected of Aiding Texas Break Arrested
Two Women, Man Held at Monroe After Calls to Huntsville Prison
Monroe, La July 26
Three women and two men, three of whom are suspected of having participated in the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville, were arrested today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville were arrested by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
Two women and one man, the trio believed to have aided Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, pals of Clyde Barrow, and "Blackie" Thompson, Oklahoma killer, in their successful break from the prison, were arrested at a tourist camp near West Monroe. The other woman and man were placed under arrest at a local hotel.
The three who were arrested at the tourist camp are: J R CORBETT, 21 years old; Dorothy Davis, 23 and Estelle Davis 21, all of whom gave their address as Houston, Texas; E.M. Warner, a paroled convict from the Louisiana pentiteniary, and Beryl Ione Kerns about 26 years old, also of Houston, were arrested at the hotel. The three women are sisters.
The Davis women and Corbett were charged with violation of the Mann act and are being held for federal authorities. Mrs Kerns and Warner were turned over to Monroe authorities.
Sheriff Cloverdale said he communicated with the warden of the Huntsville penitentiary and the latter requested that the Davis women and Corbett be held until the investigation of the prison break is completed.
While at the tourist camp, Dorothy Davis put through several long distance telephone calls, officers said, to the Huntsville prison to inquire as to the condition of Charles Frazier, life-termer, credited with engineering the dash for liberty. Frazier was seriously wounded while endeavoring to go over the penitentiary wall with the three men who escaped. She pretended to be Frazier's sister, officers said.
*******
Date: Saturday, July 28, 1934
Paper: Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
Auto Convicts Used For Break Found in Texas
Bag of Tacks and Prison Uniform Found in Abandoned Machine in Pine Thicket
Huntsville, Tex July 27
One of the automobiles used by Raymond Hamilton, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson in their sensational escape from the state penitentiary here last Sunday was located today in a pine thicket 13 miles west of Huntsville.
John Ward, a cattleman, who first discovered the car Monday but failed to notify officers because of the belief that it belonged to some person working nearby, led officers to the spot.
The car, a Ford V8 sedan, bore license number 524-388 and was identified as one stolen from W. C. Allison of Houston last Sunday morning. The rear window of the car had been smashed, apparently to allow the fugitives a place for firing at pursuers. A five-pound sack of tacks, ready for use to disable pursuing cars, was found in the rear seat.
Three prison uniforms marked "D.C." (death cell), were in the car. The price tag off a new shirt indicated the trio had changed to new clothing.
Two 30-30 shells, ten .45 automatic shells and a shotgun shell
Page: 2
were found. The shotgun shell and two of the .45's had been discharged.
Officers, in tracing the convicts flight, said they went five miles north toward Dallas and then took the Bedias road west before abandoning the car.
Prison officials said tonight that Charlie Frazier, the man who engineered the daring "death house" break, will probably recover from wounds received in a gun fight with picket guards. Roy Johnson was slightly wounded, while Whitey Walker was shot to death as he attempted to scale a ladder over the wall.
Suspects Still Held
Monroe, La July 27
J R CORBETT, one of the three persons being held in jail here under suspicion of having aided in the bloody Huntsville, Tex., prison break last Sunday where Raymond Hamilton, pal of the late Clyde Barrow, and two other convicts escaped, admitted to Sheriff Milton Coverdale late today that his real name is McDonald and his home is in Dallas, Tex.
McDonald admitted using an alias after Sheriff Coverdale showed him a telegram from E. V. Bunch, captain of the Dallas, Tex detectives in which the latter suggested that McDonald and not Corbett probably is the man's name. Bunch said McDonald is a nephew of Mrs R D Gambrell of Dallas. (This is Roderick McDonald's aunt) Earlier today, McDonald, still calling himself Corbett, claimed that Mrs Gamble is his aunt and that he and Dorothy Davis, 21, and Estelle Davis, 23, the other two who are held here as suspects in the prison break, had visited Mrs Gambrell in Dallas several days ago. Dallas police checked on this, however, and Mrs Gambrell knew no one named Corbett, McDonald, alias Corbett, under grilling by the sheriff, said he is employed by the Primrose Oil Company of Dallas and that he is at present on a two weeks vacation. He was evasive, however, about when the vacation began. He claimed he was in Texarkana, Tex, with the Davis women last Sunday at about the time the jail delivery was staged. He said he had know the two women about eight months.
The sheriff said he is not satisfied with the man's latest statement and announced his intention of continuing his investigation into the recent movements of the trio.
F M Warner and Beryl Ione Kerns the latter a sister of the Davis women, were arrested shortly after the trio were apprehended. They are being held in the city jail pending completion of an investigation of their connection with the other three.
Warner, a paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, and the other four all came to Monroe in the same automobile, the sheriff said.
************
Date: Sunday, July 29, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 53
Pistol, Believed Frazier's Found
Monroe Police Suspect Woman Held Pawned Weapon
Monroe, La July 28
A pistol believed to belong to Charles Frazier, a life-termer, who was seriously wounded last Sunday when he attempted to escape from the Huntsville, Tex., penitentiary at the same time Raymond Hamilton, pal of Clyde Barrow, and two other condemned murderers escaped, was recovered at a local pawnshop today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale.
According to records at the pawnshop, the weapon was pawned July 7 by a woman who gave her name as Helen Corbett. Sheriff Coverdale believes the gun was pawned by one of three woman who, together with two men, were arrested here last Thursday on suspicion of connection with the Huntsville jail delivery.
The women are Estelle Davis, 23 years old, Dorothy Davis, 21, and Beryl Ion Kerns, 26, sisters. All three gave their address as Houston, Tex.
Estelle and Dorothy Davis were apprehended at a tourist camp near her together with Rodney McDonald alias J R Corbett, 21, who says he is from Dallas, Tex. In addition to being questioned about participating in the jail break, the three face charges of violating the Mann Act.
The Kerns woman and E. M. Warner, paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, were arrested the same day. They are being held by city authorities on charges of violating a local vice ordinance.
The sheriff said he believed the gun was pawned by the Kern woman, since she had a quanitity of .45 caliber ammunition in her possession when she and Warner were apprehended. The gun is said to be of the same type as the two found in Frazier's possession when he unsuccessfully attempted to escape.
**********
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
By John Neal Phillips
pg 226
The convicts outside contacts were an enigmatic pair of Texas sisters named DOT and STELLA HOUSTON. (NOTE: Dorothy and Estelle Davis, sisters from Houston)
The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde By John Treherne
engineered escape of convicts from Huntsville death house by bribing a guard to smuggle in .45 automatics.
Bullet Riddled Buddies
Accused of shooting Capt John Singleton in the 1933 Angola Prison break
Minutes of the Texas Prison Board
*******
Date: Thursday, March 13, 1958
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 29
appearing in behalf of Frazier was Richard E Walker, Pollock, La., who announced that he was not a lawyer, but a business man and that he became interested in Frazier's case several years ago. "He is confident that he is going to be released. In fact, he has written that he has asked a friend in New York to send him clothing, which he will wear when he is released," Walker said. Walker said that Frazier has many friends from New York to Texas, and that a businessman in New York has offered Frazier an excellent paying job upon his release.
*******
Tuesday, July 21, 1959
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 8
Angola Bad Man Dies of Cancer
Frazier, Leader of 1933 Break, Succumbs
Charlie Frazier, notorious gunman who led the bloody 1933 Angola prison break, died of cancer Monday at Charity Hospital.
Frazier, who spent 40 of his 68 years in prison, died in a hospital radium room as he received treatment for a malignancy.
The Texan, recognized as leader of Angola's vicious "red hat" gang, said his jail sentence came in 1917 for a burglary "I didn't commit." start of criminal career
Bullets 'Couldn't Kill' Him, Old Outlaw Dies of Cancer
Date: Sunday, July 26, 1959
Paper: Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
Section: 1
Page: 9
By Harry McCormick Reporter
An aged criminal who was wounded many times in gun battles in nearly a half century of crime was buried in Dallas Saturday. He died earlier this week in a charity hospital in New Orleans, not of bullet wounds but lung cancer.
Known as Charlie Frazier, an alias he preferred to shield his family, his real name was Elridge Johnson, a name that only his most intimate friends knew. He was 64 years old.
He had served 40 of these 64 years in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana prisons where probably he was the most feared prisoner by officials in any of these three penitentiaries.
Nobody knows how many officers and prison guards were killed in Charlie Frazier's many escapes from prisons nor in his bank robberies in the Twenties and Thirties, days when bankers offered $5,000 rewards for dead bank robbers and nothing for those captured alive.
Nobody knows how many times Charlie Frazier had been wounded. He once said 17, and at least two times the wounds were believed to be fatal ones, but somehow the man lived. He was shot again at least once after citing the 17 figure. It was at Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana where he was a member of the famed "Red Hat" gang. There, and in Texas where he wore stripes, these garments denoted incorrigible and dangerous men.
Charlie Frazier is reported to have engineered a death house break in Huntsville penitentiary in 1934/1935. He killed a guard captain named Singleton on Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana. Two persons were killed in his first bank robbery in Shreveport, La., in the twenties, although Frazier did not fire the fatal bullets. And a guard was killed when Frazier and others escaped from the Old Ferguson Prison Farm on the Trinity River north of Huntsville, in the late Twenties or early Thirties.
In the death house prison break at Huntsville, Frazier got his hands on a smuggled pistol during a hot Sunday afternoon baseball game at The Walls. He jammed it into the ribs of a guard taking dinner to inmates of Death Row, including (brother of Floyd Hamilton) Raymond Hamilton, partner of Clyde Barrow, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson, all under penalty of death.
Whitey Walker, a Texas bank robber also was in on the escape plot. Walker was killed running across the prison yard to a ladder which Frazier had leaned against the wall unnoticed.
"You three go first, you've got the chair to face," Frazier told his companions. They clammored up the ladder to freedom. Later all three were killed.
Frazier was shot through the lung while halfway up and ladder. It was believed to be a fatal wound but somehow Frazier lived. He was placed in the death house without clothes for safekeeping. His hair and beard grew long.
When Dave Nelson was named general manager of the prison system, he found Frazier nude and with a beard growing down his chest and hair hanging over his shoulders. Nelson was a reform manager who planned to do away with brutality in the prison system.
Nelson offered Frazier an opportunity to become his personal driver, provided Frazier would promise him that he would not try to escape.
"I don't want any special favors," Frazier told Nelson I just want to be treated like one of the other prisoners."
Later he was returned to the Angola prison farm in Louisiana where Captain Singleton was shot and killed during an escape. Several others also were killed in this prison break, including two convict guards. Frazier later was captured in a gun battle on the Mississippi River. He was critically wounded as he tried to make his escape in a motorboat he had contrived to have moored near the prison.
Prison officials then built a solid concrete block house for Frazier and for 12 years he was confined in it. It had no windows and Frazier told friends later that he spent most of the time on his face trying to breathe under a crack in the door. The house still stands as a symbol of the olden days at Angola, which now and for several years has been under a reform administration.
In his last days Frazier believed and told his doctors that cancer could not kill him, because he had been "fatally" shot too many times.
In the last several years Frazier had attempted to reclaim his life through parole. He did many charitable things and ardently felt that he should atone for the past. He had been promised a good position in New York and had made plans to make a new life for himself.
Ironically, he had been pardoned from Angola only a few weeks before his death.
He made a good deal of money in his last year at Angola, selling leather goods he made. The money, most of it was given to churches and benefits in that area and many people there pleaded for his pardon.
He apparently died penniless as prison officials and hospital people could find no property when a New York businessman and boyhood friend, Robert Barnard, came to claim Frazier's body to prevent burial in a pauper's grave.
Brief and private funeral services and cremation were held Saturday at Restland Funeral Home & Memorial Park, where his ashes were buried.
The Red Hat Cellblock was built in 1933 in response to the bloodiest escape in Angola history, led by Charlie Frazier, an outlaw who ran with Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. When Frazier finally was apprehended and returned to Angola, he was put in the last cell of the Red Hat Cellblock, and the steel door to his cell was welded shut. He died seven years later.
Escaped with Earl Joiner from Angola Prison 1933 husband of Estelle Davis who participated as outside contact for the escape.
son of John Robertson Johnson and Laura Ada Howe of Calhoun Co. Mississippi
1940 West Feliciana, Louisiana, Angola, State Penal Farm, May 7, sheet no 20B
Charlie Frazier prisoner number 23409 male white age 42 single Texas 1935 same house
His family
1900 Justice Precinct 7, Red River, Texas 7 june pg 267a, hh 82
John R Johnson May 1857 43 marr 18 yrs Mississippi parents Alabama
Ada L wife Feb 1865 35 8 born 8 living Miss parents Miss
Roscoe son Sept 1884 15 Miss
Tannie dtr Nov 1886 14 Miss
Eula dtr Nov 1888 11 Miss
Earl son June 1890 9 Miss
Sallie dtr May 1892 8 Miss
indexed as Eddrige but is Eldridge son Jan 1894 6 Texas
Louise dtr Jan 1897 3 Texas
Rena dtr Aug 1899 9/12 Texas
1910 Justice Precinct 8, Red River, Texas household 191, page 296A, May 2 1910
Robertson J Johnson 52 marr 1x 27 yrs Miss fa Ala mo Ala farmer
Ada L wife 45 10 born 9 living Miss
Earl son 20 Tx
Sallie dtr 18 Tx
Eldrige son 15 Tx
Louise dtr 13 Tx
Rena dtr 10 Tx
Bailey son 8 Tx
In Rusk Prison
Singin' a Lonesome Song: Texas Prison Tales By Gary Brown "The Texas Prison Houdini"
Escape from Huntsville, Texas Death House
Date: Friday, July 27, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 5
Three Suspected of Aiding Texas Break Arrested
Two Women, Man Held at Monroe After Calls to Huntsville Prison
Monroe, La July 26
Three women and two men, three of whom are suspected of having participated in the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville, were arrested today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville were arrested by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
Two women and one man, the trio believed to have aided Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, pals of Clyde Barrow, and "Blackie" Thompson, Oklahoma killer, in their successful break from the prison, were arrested at a tourist camp near West Monroe. The other woman and man were placed under arrest at a local hotel.
The three who were arrested at the tourist camp are: J R CORBETT, 21 years old; Dorothy Davis, 23 and Estelle Davis 21, all of whom gave their address as Houston, Texas; E.M. Warner, a paroled convict from the Louisiana pentiteniary, and Beryl Ione Kerns about 26 years old, also of Houston, were arrested at the hotel. The three women are sisters.
The Davis women and Corbett were charged with violation of the Mann act and are being held for federal authorities. Mrs Kerns and Warner were turned over to Monroe authorities.
Sheriff Cloverdale said he communicated with the warden of the Huntsville penitentiary and the latter requested that the Davis women and Corbett be held until the investigation of the prison break is completed.
While at the tourist camp, Dorothy Davis put through several long distance telephone calls, officers said, to the Huntsville prison to inquire as to the condition of Charles Frazier, life-termer, credited with engineering the dash for liberty. Frazier was seriously wounded while endeavoring to go over the penitentiary wall with the three men who escaped. She pretended to be Frazier's sister, officers said.
*******
Date: Saturday, July 28, 1934
Paper: Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
Auto Convicts Used For Break Found in Texas
Bag of Tacks and Prison Uniform Found in Abandoned Machine in Pine Thicket
Huntsville, Tex July 27
One of the automobiles used by Raymond Hamilton, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson in their sensational escape from the state penitentiary here last Sunday was located today in a pine thicket 13 miles west of Huntsville.
John Ward, a cattleman, who first discovered the car Monday but failed to notify officers because of the belief that it belonged to some person working nearby, led officers to the spot.
The car, a Ford V8 sedan, bore license number 524-388 and was identified as one stolen from W. C. Allison of Houston last Sunday morning. The rear window of the car had been smashed, apparently to allow the fugitives a place for firing at pursuers. A five-pound sack of tacks, ready for use to disable pursuing cars, was found in the rear seat.
Three prison uniforms marked "D.C." (death cell), were in the car. The price tag off a new shirt indicated the trio had changed to new clothing.
Two 30-30 shells, ten .45 automatic shells and a shotgun shell
Page: 2
were found. The shotgun shell and two of the .45's had been discharged.
Officers, in tracing the convicts flight, said they went five miles north toward Dallas and then took the Bedias road west before abandoning the car.
Prison officials said tonight that Charlie Frazier, the man who engineered the daring "death house" break, will probably recover from wounds received in a gun fight with picket guards. Roy Johnson was slightly wounded, while Whitey Walker was shot to death as he attempted to scale a ladder over the wall.
Suspects Still Held
Monroe, La July 27
J R CORBETT, one of the three persons being held in jail here under suspicion of having aided in the bloody Huntsville, Tex., prison break last Sunday where Raymond Hamilton, pal of the late Clyde Barrow, and two other convicts escaped, admitted to Sheriff Milton Coverdale late today that his real name is McDonald and his home is in Dallas, Tex.
McDonald admitted using an alias after Sheriff Coverdale showed him a telegram from E. V. Bunch, captain of the Dallas, Tex detectives in which the latter suggested that McDonald and not Corbett probably is the man's name. Bunch said McDonald is a nephew of Mrs R D Gambrell of Dallas. (This is Roderick McDonald's aunt) Earlier today, McDonald, still calling himself Corbett, claimed that Mrs Gamble is his aunt and that he and Dorothy Davis, 21, and Estelle Davis, 23, the other two who are held here as suspects in the prison break, had visited Mrs Gambrell in Dallas several days ago. Dallas police checked on this, however, and Mrs Gambrell knew no one named Corbett, McDonald, alias Corbett, under grilling by the sheriff, said he is employed by the Primrose Oil Company of Dallas and that he is at present on a two weeks vacation. He was evasive, however, about when the vacation began. He claimed he was in Texarkana, Tex, with the Davis women last Sunday at about the time the jail delivery was staged. He said he had know the two women about eight months.
The sheriff said he is not satisfied with the man's latest statement and announced his intention of continuing his investigation into the recent movements of the trio.
F M Warner and Beryl Ione Kerns the latter a sister of the Davis women, were arrested shortly after the trio were apprehended. They are being held in the city jail pending completion of an investigation of their connection with the other three.
Warner, a paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, and the other four all came to Monroe in the same automobile, the sheriff said.
************
Date: Sunday, July 29, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 53
Pistol, Believed Frazier's Found
Monroe Police Suspect Woman Held Pawned Weapon
Monroe, La July 28
A pistol believed to belong to Charles Frazier, a life-termer, who was seriously wounded last Sunday when he attempted to escape from the Huntsville, Tex., penitentiary at the same time Raymond Hamilton, pal of Clyde Barrow, and two other condemned murderers escaped, was recovered at a local pawnshop today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale.
According to records at the pawnshop, the weapon was pawned July 7 by a woman who gave her name as Helen Corbett. Sheriff Coverdale believes the gun was pawned by one of three woman who, together with two men, were arrested here last Thursday on suspicion of connection with the Huntsville jail delivery.
The women are Estelle Davis, 23 years old, Dorothy Davis, 21, and Beryl Ion Kerns, 26, sisters. All three gave their address as Houston, Tex.
Estelle and Dorothy Davis were apprehended at a tourist camp near her together with Rodney McDonald alias J R Corbett, 21, who says he is from Dallas, Tex. In addition to being questioned about participating in the jail break, the three face charges of violating the Mann Act.
The Kerns woman and E. M. Warner, paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, were arrested the same day. They are being held by city authorities on charges of violating a local vice ordinance.
The sheriff said he believed the gun was pawned by the Kern woman, since she had a quanitity of .45 caliber ammunition in her possession when she and Warner were apprehended. The gun is said to be of the same type as the two found in Frazier's possession when he unsuccessfully attempted to escape.
**********
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
By John Neal Phillips
pg 226
The convicts outside contacts were an enigmatic pair of Texas sisters named DOT and STELLA HOUSTON. (NOTE: Dorothy and Estelle Davis, sisters from Houston)
The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde By John Treherne
engineered escape of convicts from Huntsville death house by bribing a guard to smuggle in .45 automatics.
Bullet Riddled Buddies
Accused of shooting Capt John Singleton in the 1933 Angola Prison break
Minutes of the Texas Prison Board
*******
Date: Thursday, March 13, 1958
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 29
appearing in behalf of Frazier was Richard E Walker, Pollock, La., who announced that he was not a lawyer, but a business man and that he became interested in Frazier's case several years ago. "He is confident that he is going to be released. In fact, he has written that he has asked a friend in New York to send him clothing, which he will wear when he is released," Walker said. Walker said that Frazier has many friends from New York to Texas, and that a businessman in New York has offered Frazier an excellent paying job upon his release.
*******
Tuesday, July 21, 1959
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 8
Angola Bad Man Dies of Cancer
Frazier, Leader of 1933 Break, Succumbs
Charlie Frazier, notorious gunman who led the bloody 1933 Angola prison break, died of cancer Monday at Charity Hospital.
Frazier, who spent 40 of his 68 years in prison, died in a hospital radium room as he received treatment for a malignancy.
The Texan, recognized as leader of Angola's vicious "red hat" gang, said his jail sentence came in 1917 for a burglary "I didn't commit." start of criminal career
Bullets 'Couldn't Kill' Him, Old Outlaw Dies of Cancer
Date: Sunday, July 26, 1959
Paper: Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
Section: 1
Page: 9
By Harry McCormick Reporter
An aged criminal who was wounded many times in gun battles in nearly a half century of crime was buried in Dallas Saturday. He died earlier this week in a charity hospital in New Orleans, not of bullet wounds but lung cancer.
Known as Charlie Frazier, an alias he preferred to shield his family, his real name was Elridge Johnson, a name that only his most intimate friends knew. He was 64 years old.
He had served 40 of these 64 years in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana prisons where probably he was the most feared prisoner by officials in any of these three penitentiaries.
Nobody knows how many officers and prison guards were killed in Charlie Frazier's many escapes from prisons nor in his bank robberies in the Twenties and Thirties, days when bankers offered $5,000 rewards for dead bank robbers and nothing for those captured alive.
Nobody knows how many times Charlie Frazier had been wounded. He once said 17, and at least two times the wounds were believed to be fatal ones, but somehow the man lived. He was shot again at least once after citing the 17 figure. It was at Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana where he was a member of the famed "Red Hat" gang. There, and in Texas where he wore stripes, these garments denoted incorrigible and dangerous men.
Charlie Frazier is reported to have engineered a death house break in Huntsville penitentiary in 1934/1935. He killed a guard captain named Singleton on Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana. Two persons were killed in his first bank robbery in Shreveport, La., in the twenties, although Frazier did not fire the fatal bullets. And a guard was killed when Frazier and others escaped from the Old Ferguson Prison Farm on the Trinity River north of Huntsville, in the late Twenties or early Thirties.
In the death house prison break at Huntsville, Frazier got his hands on a smuggled pistol during a hot Sunday afternoon baseball game at The Walls. He jammed it into the ribs of a guard taking dinner to inmates of Death Row, including (brother of Floyd Hamilton) Raymond Hamilton, partner of Clyde Barrow, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson, all under penalty of death.
Whitey Walker, a Texas bank robber also was in on the escape plot. Walker was killed running across the prison yard to a ladder which Frazier had leaned against the wall unnoticed.
"You three go first, you've got the chair to face," Frazier told his companions. They clammored up the ladder to freedom. Later all three were killed.
Frazier was shot through the lung while halfway up and ladder. It was believed to be a fatal wound but somehow Frazier lived. He was placed in the death house without clothes for safekeeping. His hair and beard grew long.
When Dave Nelson was named general manager of the prison system, he found Frazier nude and with a beard growing down his chest and hair hanging over his shoulders. Nelson was a reform manager who planned to do away with brutality in the prison system.
Nelson offered Frazier an opportunity to become his personal driver, provided Frazier would promise him that he would not try to escape.
"I don't want any special favors," Frazier told Nelson I just want to be treated like one of the other prisoners."
Later he was returned to the Angola prison farm in Louisiana where Captain Singleton was shot and killed during an escape. Several others also were killed in this prison break, including two convict guards. Frazier later was captured in a gun battle on the Mississippi River. He was critically wounded as he tried to make his escape in a motorboat he had contrived to have moored near the prison.
Prison officials then built a solid concrete block house for Frazier and for 12 years he was confined in it. It had no windows and Frazier told friends later that he spent most of the time on his face trying to breathe under a crack in the door. The house still stands as a symbol of the olden days at Angola, which now and for several years has been under a reform administration.
In his last days Frazier believed and told his doctors that cancer could not kill him, because he had been "fatally" shot too many times.
In the last several years Frazier had attempted to reclaim his life through parole. He did many charitable things and ardently felt that he should atone for the past. He had been promised a good position in New York and had made plans to make a new life for himself.
Ironically, he had been pardoned from Angola only a few weeks before his death.
He made a good deal of money in his last year at Angola, selling leather goods he made. The money, most of it was given to churches and benefits in that area and many people there pleaded for his pardon.
He apparently died penniless as prison officials and hospital people could find no property when a New York businessman and boyhood friend, Robert Barnard, came to claim Frazier's body to prevent burial in a pauper's grave.
Brief and private funeral services and cremation were held Saturday at Restland Funeral Home & Memorial Park, where his ashes were buried.
Notorious criminal
The Red Hat Cellblock was built in 1933 in response to the bloodiest escape in Angola history, led by Charlie Frazier, an outlaw who ran with Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. When Frazier finally was apprehended and returned to Angola, he was put in the last cell of the Red Hat Cellblock, and the steel door to his cell was welded shut. He died seven years later.
Escaped with Earl Joiner from Angola Prison 1933 husband of Estelle Davis who participated as outside contact for the escape.
son of John Robertson Johnson and Laura Ada Howe of Calhoun Co. Mississippi
1940 West Feliciana, Louisiana, Angola, State Penal Farm, May 7, sheet no 20B
Charlie Frazier prisoner number 23409 male white age 42 single Texas 1935 same house
His family
1900 Justice Precinct 7, Red River, Texas 7 june pg 267a, hh 82
John R Johnson May 1857 43 marr 18 yrs Mississippi parents Alabama
Ada L wife Feb 1865 35 8 born 8 living Miss parents Miss
Roscoe son Sept 1884 15 Miss
Tannie dtr Nov 1886 14 Miss
Eula dtr Nov 1888 11 Miss
Earl son June 1890 9 Miss
Sallie dtr May 1892 8 Miss
indexed as Eddrige but is Eldridge son Jan 1894 6 Texas
Louise dtr Jan 1897 3 Texas
Rena dtr Aug 1899 9/12 Texas
1910 Justice Precinct 8, Red River, Texas household 191, page 296A, May 2 1910
Robertson J Johnson 52 marr 1x 27 yrs Miss fa Ala mo Ala farmer
Ada L wife 45 10 born 9 living Miss
Earl son 20 Tx
Sallie dtr 18 Tx
Eldrige son 15 Tx
Louise dtr 13 Tx
Rena dtr 10 Tx
Bailey son 8 Tx
In Rusk Prison
Singin' a Lonesome Song: Texas Prison Tales By Gary Brown "The Texas Prison Houdini"
Escape from Huntsville, Texas Death House
Date: Friday, July 27, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 5
Three Suspected of Aiding Texas Break Arrested
Two Women, Man Held at Monroe After Calls to Huntsville Prison
Monroe, La July 26
Three women and two men, three of whom are suspected of having participated in the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville, were arrested today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville were arrested by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
Two women and one man, the trio believed to have aided Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, pals of Clyde Barrow, and "Blackie" Thompson, Oklahoma killer, in their successful break from the prison, were arrested at a tourist camp near West Monroe. The other woman and man were placed under arrest at a local hotel.
The three who were arrested at the tourist camp are: J R CORBETT, 21 years old; Dorothy Davis, 23 and Estelle Davis 21, all of whom gave their address as Houston, Texas; E.M. Warner, a paroled convict from the Louisiana pentiteniary, and Beryl Ione Kerns about 26 years old, also of Houston, were arrested at the hotel. The three women are sisters.
The Davis women and Corbett were charged with violation of the Mann act and are being held for federal authorities. Mrs Kerns and Warner were turned over to Monroe authorities.
Sheriff Cloverdale said he communicated with the warden of the Huntsville penitentiary and the latter requested that the Davis women and Corbett be held until the investigation of the prison break is completed.
While at the tourist camp, Dorothy Davis put through several long distance telephone calls, officers said, to the Huntsville prison to inquire as to the condition of Charles Frazier, life-termer, credited with engineering the dash for liberty. Frazier was seriously wounded while endeavoring to go over the penitentiary wall with the three men who escaped. She pretended to be Frazier's sister, officers said.
*******
Date: Saturday, July 28, 1934
Paper: Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
Auto Convicts Used For Break Found in Texas
Bag of Tacks and Prison Uniform Found in Abandoned Machine in Pine Thicket
Huntsville, Tex July 27
One of the automobiles used by Raymond Hamilton, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson in their sensational escape from the state penitentiary here last Sunday was located today in a pine thicket 13 miles west of Huntsville.
John Ward, a cattleman, who first discovered the car Monday but failed to notify officers because of the belief that it belonged to some person working nearby, led officers to the spot.
The car, a Ford V8 sedan, bore license number 524-388 and was identified as one stolen from W. C. Allison of Houston last Sunday morning. The rear window of the car had been smashed, apparently to allow the fugitives a place for firing at pursuers. A five-pound sack of tacks, ready for use to disable pursuing cars, was found in the rear seat.
Three prison uniforms marked "D.C." (death cell), were in the car. The price tag off a new shirt indicated the trio had changed to new clothing.
Two 30-30 shells, ten .45 automatic shells and a shotgun shell
Page: 2
were found. The shotgun shell and two of the .45's had been discharged.
Officers, in tracing the convicts flight, said they went five miles north toward Dallas and then took the Bedias road west before abandoning the car.
Prison officials said tonight that Charlie Frazier, the man who engineered the daring "death house" break, will probably recover from wounds received in a gun fight with picket guards. Roy Johnson was slightly wounded, while Whitey Walker was shot to death as he attempted to scale a ladder over the wall.
Suspects Still Held
Monroe, La July 27
J R CORBETT, one of the three persons being held in jail here under suspicion of having aided in the bloody Huntsville, Tex., prison break last Sunday where Raymond Hamilton, pal of the late Clyde Barrow, and two other convicts escaped, admitted to Sheriff Milton Coverdale late today that his real name is McDonald and his home is in Dallas, Tex.
McDonald admitted using an alias after Sheriff Coverdale showed him a telegram from E. V. Bunch, captain of the Dallas, Tex detectives in which the latter suggested that McDonald and not Corbett probably is the man's name. Bunch said McDonald is a nephew of Mrs R D Gambrell of Dallas. (This is Roderick McDonald's aunt) Earlier today, McDonald, still calling himself Corbett, claimed that Mrs Gamble is his aunt and that he and Dorothy Davis, 21, and Estelle Davis, 23, the other two who are held here as suspects in the prison break, had visited Mrs Gambrell in Dallas several days ago. Dallas police checked on this, however, and Mrs Gambrell knew no one named Corbett, McDonald, alias Corbett, under grilling by the sheriff, said he is employed by the Primrose Oil Company of Dallas and that he is at present on a two weeks vacation. He was evasive, however, about when the vacation began. He claimed he was in Texarkana, Tex, with the Davis women last Sunday at about the time the jail delivery was staged. He said he had know the two women about eight months.
The sheriff said he is not satisfied with the man's latest statement and announced his intention of continuing his investigation into the recent movements of the trio.
F M Warner and Beryl Ione Kerns the latter a sister of the Davis women, were arrested shortly after the trio were apprehended. They are being held in the city jail pending completion of an investigation of their connection with the other three.
Warner, a paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, and the other four all came to Monroe in the same automobile, the sheriff said.
************
Date: Sunday, July 29, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 53
Pistol, Believed Frazier's Found
Monroe Police Suspect Woman Held Pawned Weapon
Monroe, La July 28
A pistol believed to belong to Charles Frazier, a life-termer, who was seriously wounded last Sunday when he attempted to escape from the Huntsville, Tex., penitentiary at the same time Raymond Hamilton, pal of Clyde Barrow, and two other condemned murderers escaped, was recovered at a local pawnshop today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale.
According to records at the pawnshop, the weapon was pawned July 7 by a woman who gave her name as Helen Corbett. Sheriff Coverdale believes the gun was pawned by one of three woman who, together with two men, were arrested here last Thursday on suspicion of connection with the Huntsville jail delivery.
The women are Estelle Davis, 23 years old, Dorothy Davis, 21, and Beryl Ion Kerns, 26, sisters. All three gave their address as Houston, Tex.
Estelle and Dorothy Davis were apprehended at a tourist camp near her together with Rodney McDonald alias J R Corbett, 21, who says he is from Dallas, Tex. In addition to being questioned about participating in the jail break, the three face charges of violating the Mann Act.
The Kerns woman and E. M. Warner, paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, were arrested the same day. They are being held by city authorities on charges of violating a local vice ordinance.
The sheriff said he believed the gun was pawned by the Kern woman, since she had a quanitity of .45 caliber ammunition in her possession when she and Warner were apprehended. The gun is said to be of the same type as the two found in Frazier's possession when he unsuccessfully attempted to escape.
**********
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
By John Neal Phillips
pg 226
The convicts outside contacts were an enigmatic pair of Texas sisters named DOT and STELLA HOUSTON. (NOTE: Dorothy and Estelle Davis, sisters from Houston)
The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde By John Treherne
engineered escape of convicts from Huntsville death house by bribing a guard to smuggle in .45 automatics.
Bullet Riddled Buddies
Accused of shooting Capt John Singleton in the 1933 Angola Prison break
Minutes of the Texas Prison Board
*******
Date: Thursday, March 13, 1958
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 29
appearing in behalf of Frazier was Richard E Walker, Pollock, La., who announced that he was not a lawyer, but a business man and that he became interested in Frazier's case several years ago. "He is confident that he is going to be released. In fact, he has written that he has asked a friend in New York to send him clothing, which he will wear when he is released," Walker said. Walker said that Frazier has many friends from New York to Texas, and that a businessman in New York has offered Frazier an excellent paying job upon his release.
*******
Tuesday, July 21, 1959
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 8
Angola Bad Man Dies of Cancer
Frazier, Leader of 1933 Break, Succumbs
Charlie Frazier, notorious gunman who led the bloody 1933 Angola prison break, died of cancer Monday at Charity Hospital.
Frazier, who spent 40 of his 68 years in prison, died in a hospital radium room as he received treatment for a malignancy.
The Texan, recognized as leader of Angola's vicious "red hat" gang, said his jail sentence came in 1917 for a burglary "I didn't commit." start of criminal career
Bullets 'Couldn't Kill' Him, Old Outlaw Dies of Cancer
Date: Sunday, July 26, 1959
Paper: Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
Section: 1
Page: 9
By Harry McCormick Reporter
An aged criminal who was wounded many times in gun battles in nearly a half century of crime was buried in Dallas Saturday. He died earlier this week in a charity hospital in New Orleans, not of bullet wounds but lung cancer.
Known as Charlie Frazier, an alias he preferred to shield his family, his real name was Elridge Johnson, a name that only his most intimate friends knew. He was 64 years old.
He had served 40 of these 64 years in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana prisons where probably he was the most feared prisoner by officials in any of these three penitentiaries.
Nobody knows how many officers and prison guards were killed in Charlie Frazier's many escapes from prisons nor in his bank robberies in the Twenties and Thirties, days when bankers offered $5,000 rewards for dead bank robbers and nothing for those captured alive.
Nobody knows how many times Charlie Frazier had been wounded. He once said 17, and at least two times the wounds were believed to be fatal ones, but somehow the man lived. He was shot again at least once after citing the 17 figure. It was at Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana where he was a member of the famed "Red Hat" gang. There, and in Texas where he wore stripes, these garments denoted incorrigible and dangerous men.
Charlie Frazier is reported to have engineered a death house break in Huntsville penitentiary in 1934/1935. He killed a guard captain named Singleton on Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana. Two persons were killed in his first bank robbery in Shreveport, La., in the twenties, although Frazier did not fire the fatal bullets. And a guard was killed when Frazier and others escaped from the Old Ferguson Prison Farm on the Trinity River north of Huntsville, in the late Twenties or early Thirties.
In the death house prison break at Huntsville, Frazier got his hands on a smuggled pistol during a hot Sunday afternoon baseball game at The Walls. He jammed it into the ribs of a guard taking dinner to inmates of Death Row, including (brother of Floyd Hamilton) Raymond Hamilton, partner of Clyde Barrow, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson, all under penalty of death.
Whitey Walker, a Texas bank robber also was in on the escape plot. Walker was killed running across the prison yard to a ladder which Frazier had leaned against the wall unnoticed.
"You three go first, you've got the chair to face," Frazier told his companions. They clammored up the ladder to freedom. Later all three were killed.
Frazier was shot through the lung while halfway up and ladder. It was believed to be a fatal wound but somehow Frazier lived. He was placed in the death house without clothes for safekeeping. His hair and beard grew long.
When Dave Nelson was named general manager of the prison system, he found Frazier nude and with a beard growing down his chest and hair hanging over his shoulders. Nelson was a reform manager who planned to do away with brutality in the prison system.
Nelson offered Frazier an opportunity to become his personal driver, provided Frazier would promise him that he would not try to escape.
"I don't want any special favors," Frazier told Nelson I just want to be treated like one of the other prisoners."
Later he was returned to the Angola prison farm in Louisiana where Captain Singleton was shot and killed during an escape. Several others also were killed in this prison break, including two convict guards. Frazier later was captured in a gun battle on the Mississippi River. He was critically wounded as he tried to make his escape in a motorboat he had contrived to have moored near the prison.
Prison officials then built a solid concrete block house for Frazier and for 12 years he was confined in it. It had no windows and Frazier told friends later that he spent most of the time on his face trying to breathe under a crack in the door. The house still stands as a symbol of the olden days at Angola, which now and for several years has been under a reform administration.
In his last days Frazier believed and told his doctors that cancer could not kill him, because he had been "fatally" shot too many times.
In the last several years Frazier had attempted to reclaim his life through parole. He did many charitable things and ardently felt that he should atone for the past. He had been promised a good position in New York and had made plans to make a new life for himself.
Ironically, he had been pardoned from Angola only a few weeks before his death.
He made a good deal of money in his last year at Angola, selling leather goods he made. The money, most of it was given to churches and benefits in that area and many people there pleaded for his pardon.
He apparently died penniless as prison officials and hospital people could find no property when a New York businessman and boyhood friend, Robert Barnard, came to claim Frazier's body to prevent burial in a pauper's grave.
Brief and private funeral services and cremation were held Saturday at Restland Funeral Home & Memorial Park, where his ashes were buried.
The Red Hat Cellblock was built in 1933 in response to the bloodiest escape in Angola history, led by Charlie Frazier, an outlaw who ran with Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. When Frazier finally was apprehended and returned to Angola, he was put in the last cell of the Red Hat Cellblock, and the steel door to his cell was welded shut. He died seven years later.
Escaped with Earl Joiner from Angola Prison 1933 husband of Estelle Davis who participated as outside contact for the escape.
son of John Robertson Johnson and Laura Ada Howe of Calhoun Co. Mississippi
1940 West Feliciana, Louisiana, Angola, State Penal Farm, May 7, sheet no 20B
Charlie Frazier prisoner number 23409 male white age 42 single Texas 1935 same house
His family
1900 Justice Precinct 7, Red River, Texas 7 june pg 267a, hh 82
John R Johnson May 1857 43 marr 18 yrs Mississippi parents Alabama
Ada L wife Feb 1865 35 8 born 8 living Miss parents Miss
Roscoe son Sept 1884 15 Miss
Tannie dtr Nov 1886 14 Miss
Eula dtr Nov 1888 11 Miss
Earl son June 1890 9 Miss
Sallie dtr May 1892 8 Miss
indexed as Eddrige but is Eldridge son Jan 1894 6 Texas
Louise dtr Jan 1897 3 Texas
Rena dtr Aug 1899 9/12 Texas
1910 Justice Precinct 8, Red River, Texas household 191, page 296A, May 2 1910
Robertson J Johnson 52 marr 1x 27 yrs Miss fa Ala mo Ala farmer
Ada L wife 45 10 born 9 living Miss
Earl son 20 Tx
Sallie dtr 18 Tx
Eldrige son 15 Tx
Louise dtr 13 Tx
Rena dtr 10 Tx
Bailey son 8 Tx
In Rusk Prison
Singin' a Lonesome Song: Texas Prison Tales By Gary Brown "The Texas Prison Houdini"
Escape from Huntsville, Texas Death House
Date: Friday, July 27, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 5
Three Suspected of Aiding Texas Break Arrested
Two Women, Man Held at Monroe After Calls to Huntsville Prison
Monroe, La July 26
Three women and two men, three of whom are suspected of having participated in the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville, were arrested today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
the delivery Sunday of three condemned murderers from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville were arrested by Sheriff Milton Coverdale and deputies.
Two women and one man, the trio believed to have aided Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, pals of Clyde Barrow, and "Blackie" Thompson, Oklahoma killer, in their successful break from the prison, were arrested at a tourist camp near West Monroe. The other woman and man were placed under arrest at a local hotel.
The three who were arrested at the tourist camp are: J R CORBETT, 21 years old; Dorothy Davis, 23 and Estelle Davis 21, all of whom gave their address as Houston, Texas; E.M. Warner, a paroled convict from the Louisiana pentiteniary, and Beryl Ione Kerns about 26 years old, also of Houston, were arrested at the hotel. The three women are sisters.
The Davis women and Corbett were charged with violation of the Mann act and are being held for federal authorities. Mrs Kerns and Warner were turned over to Monroe authorities.
Sheriff Cloverdale said he communicated with the warden of the Huntsville penitentiary and the latter requested that the Davis women and Corbett be held until the investigation of the prison break is completed.
While at the tourist camp, Dorothy Davis put through several long distance telephone calls, officers said, to the Huntsville prison to inquire as to the condition of Charles Frazier, life-termer, credited with engineering the dash for liberty. Frazier was seriously wounded while endeavoring to go over the penitentiary wall with the three men who escaped. She pretended to be Frazier's sister, officers said.
*******
Date: Saturday, July 28, 1934
Paper: Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
Auto Convicts Used For Break Found in Texas
Bag of Tacks and Prison Uniform Found in Abandoned Machine in Pine Thicket
Huntsville, Tex July 27
One of the automobiles used by Raymond Hamilton, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson in their sensational escape from the state penitentiary here last Sunday was located today in a pine thicket 13 miles west of Huntsville.
John Ward, a cattleman, who first discovered the car Monday but failed to notify officers because of the belief that it belonged to some person working nearby, led officers to the spot.
The car, a Ford V8 sedan, bore license number 524-388 and was identified as one stolen from W. C. Allison of Houston last Sunday morning. The rear window of the car had been smashed, apparently to allow the fugitives a place for firing at pursuers. A five-pound sack of tacks, ready for use to disable pursuing cars, was found in the rear seat.
Three prison uniforms marked "D.C." (death cell), were in the car. The price tag off a new shirt indicated the trio had changed to new clothing.
Two 30-30 shells, ten .45 automatic shells and a shotgun shell
Page: 2
were found. The shotgun shell and two of the .45's had been discharged.
Officers, in tracing the convicts flight, said they went five miles north toward Dallas and then took the Bedias road west before abandoning the car.
Prison officials said tonight that Charlie Frazier, the man who engineered the daring "death house" break, will probably recover from wounds received in a gun fight with picket guards. Roy Johnson was slightly wounded, while Whitey Walker was shot to death as he attempted to scale a ladder over the wall.
Suspects Still Held
Monroe, La July 27
J R CORBETT, one of the three persons being held in jail here under suspicion of having aided in the bloody Huntsville, Tex., prison break last Sunday where Raymond Hamilton, pal of the late Clyde Barrow, and two other convicts escaped, admitted to Sheriff Milton Coverdale late today that his real name is McDonald and his home is in Dallas, Tex.
McDonald admitted using an alias after Sheriff Coverdale showed him a telegram from E. V. Bunch, captain of the Dallas, Tex detectives in which the latter suggested that McDonald and not Corbett probably is the man's name. Bunch said McDonald is a nephew of Mrs R D Gambrell of Dallas. (This is Roderick McDonald's aunt) Earlier today, McDonald, still calling himself Corbett, claimed that Mrs Gamble is his aunt and that he and Dorothy Davis, 21, and Estelle Davis, 23, the other two who are held here as suspects in the prison break, had visited Mrs Gambrell in Dallas several days ago. Dallas police checked on this, however, and Mrs Gambrell knew no one named Corbett, McDonald, alias Corbett, under grilling by the sheriff, said he is employed by the Primrose Oil Company of Dallas and that he is at present on a two weeks vacation. He was evasive, however, about when the vacation began. He claimed he was in Texarkana, Tex, with the Davis women last Sunday at about the time the jail delivery was staged. He said he had know the two women about eight months.
The sheriff said he is not satisfied with the man's latest statement and announced his intention of continuing his investigation into the recent movements of the trio.
F M Warner and Beryl Ione Kerns the latter a sister of the Davis women, were arrested shortly after the trio were apprehended. They are being held in the city jail pending completion of an investigation of their connection with the other three.
Warner, a paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, and the other four all came to Monroe in the same automobile, the sheriff said.
************
Date: Sunday, July 29, 1934
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 53
Pistol, Believed Frazier's Found
Monroe Police Suspect Woman Held Pawned Weapon
Monroe, La July 28
A pistol believed to belong to Charles Frazier, a life-termer, who was seriously wounded last Sunday when he attempted to escape from the Huntsville, Tex., penitentiary at the same time Raymond Hamilton, pal of Clyde Barrow, and two other condemned murderers escaped, was recovered at a local pawnshop today by Sheriff Milton Coverdale.
According to records at the pawnshop, the weapon was pawned July 7 by a woman who gave her name as Helen Corbett. Sheriff Coverdale believes the gun was pawned by one of three woman who, together with two men, were arrested here last Thursday on suspicion of connection with the Huntsville jail delivery.
The women are Estelle Davis, 23 years old, Dorothy Davis, 21, and Beryl Ion Kerns, 26, sisters. All three gave their address as Houston, Tex.
Estelle and Dorothy Davis were apprehended at a tourist camp near her together with Rodney McDonald alias J R Corbett, 21, who says he is from Dallas, Tex. In addition to being questioned about participating in the jail break, the three face charges of violating the Mann Act.
The Kerns woman and E. M. Warner, paroled Louisiana state penitentiary convict, were arrested the same day. They are being held by city authorities on charges of violating a local vice ordinance.
The sheriff said he believed the gun was pawned by the Kern woman, since she had a quanitity of .45 caliber ammunition in her possession when she and Warner were apprehended. The gun is said to be of the same type as the two found in Frazier's possession when he unsuccessfully attempted to escape.
**********
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
By John Neal Phillips
pg 226
The convicts outside contacts were an enigmatic pair of Texas sisters named DOT and STELLA HOUSTON. (NOTE: Dorothy and Estelle Davis, sisters from Houston)
The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde By John Treherne
engineered escape of convicts from Huntsville death house by bribing a guard to smuggle in .45 automatics.
Bullet Riddled Buddies
Accused of shooting Capt John Singleton in the 1933 Angola Prison break
Minutes of the Texas Prison Board
*******
Date: Thursday, March 13, 1958
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 29
appearing in behalf of Frazier was Richard E Walker, Pollock, La., who announced that he was not a lawyer, but a business man and that he became interested in Frazier's case several years ago. "He is confident that he is going to be released. In fact, he has written that he has asked a friend in New York to send him clothing, which he will wear when he is released," Walker said. Walker said that Frazier has many friends from New York to Texas, and that a businessman in New York has offered Frazier an excellent paying job upon his release.
*******
Tuesday, July 21, 1959
Paper: Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Page: 8
Angola Bad Man Dies of Cancer
Frazier, Leader of 1933 Break, Succumbs
Charlie Frazier, notorious gunman who led the bloody 1933 Angola prison break, died of cancer Monday at Charity Hospital.
Frazier, who spent 40 of his 68 years in prison, died in a hospital radium room as he received treatment for a malignancy.
The Texan, recognized as leader of Angola's vicious "red hat" gang, said his jail sentence came in 1917 for a burglary "I didn't commit." start of criminal career
Bullets 'Couldn't Kill' Him, Old Outlaw Dies of Cancer
Date: Sunday, July 26, 1959
Paper: Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
Section: 1
Page: 9
By Harry McCormick Reporter
An aged criminal who was wounded many times in gun battles in nearly a half century of crime was buried in Dallas Saturday. He died earlier this week in a charity hospital in New Orleans, not of bullet wounds but lung cancer.
Known as Charlie Frazier, an alias he preferred to shield his family, his real name was Elridge Johnson, a name that only his most intimate friends knew. He was 64 years old.
He had served 40 of these 64 years in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana prisons where probably he was the most feared prisoner by officials in any of these three penitentiaries.
Nobody knows how many officers and prison guards were killed in Charlie Frazier's many escapes from prisons nor in his bank robberies in the Twenties and Thirties, days when bankers offered $5,000 rewards for dead bank robbers and nothing for those captured alive.
Nobody knows how many times Charlie Frazier had been wounded. He once said 17, and at least two times the wounds were believed to be fatal ones, but somehow the man lived. He was shot again at least once after citing the 17 figure. It was at Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana where he was a member of the famed "Red Hat" gang. There, and in Texas where he wore stripes, these garments denoted incorrigible and dangerous men.
Charlie Frazier is reported to have engineered a death house break in Huntsville penitentiary in 1934/1935. He killed a guard captain named Singleton on Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana. Two persons were killed in his first bank robbery in Shreveport, La., in the twenties, although Frazier did not fire the fatal bullets. And a guard was killed when Frazier and others escaped from the Old Ferguson Prison Farm on the Trinity River north of Huntsville, in the late Twenties or early Thirties.
In the death house prison break at Huntsville, Frazier got his hands on a smuggled pistol during a hot Sunday afternoon baseball game at The Walls. He jammed it into the ribs of a guard taking dinner to inmates of Death Row, including (brother of Floyd Hamilton) Raymond Hamilton, partner of Clyde Barrow, Joe Palmer, and Blackie Thompson, all under penalty of death.
Whitey Walker, a Texas bank robber also was in on the escape plot. Walker was killed running across the prison yard to a ladder which Frazier had leaned against the wall unnoticed.
"You three go first, you've got the chair to face," Frazier told his companions. They clammored up the ladder to freedom. Later all three were killed.
Frazier was shot through the lung while halfway up and ladder. It was believed to be a fatal wound but somehow Frazier lived. He was placed in the death house without clothes for safekeeping. His hair and beard grew long.
When Dave Nelson was named general manager of the prison system, he found Frazier nude and with a beard growing down his chest and hair hanging over his shoulders. Nelson was a reform manager who planned to do away with brutality in the prison system.
Nelson offered Frazier an opportunity to become his personal driver, provided Frazier would promise him that he would not try to escape.
"I don't want any special favors," Frazier told Nelson I just want to be treated like one of the other prisoners."
Later he was returned to the Angola prison farm in Louisiana where Captain Singleton was shot and killed during an escape. Several others also were killed in this prison break, including two convict guards. Frazier later was captured in a gun battle on the Mississippi River. He was critically wounded as he tried to make his escape in a motorboat he had contrived to have moored near the prison.
Prison officials then built a solid concrete block house for Frazier and for 12 years he was confined in it. It had no windows and Frazier told friends later that he spent most of the time on his face trying to breathe under a crack in the door. The house still stands as a symbol of the olden days at Angola, which now and for several years has been under a reform administration.
In his last days Frazier believed and told his doctors that cancer could not kill him, because he had been "fatally" shot too many times.
In the last several years Frazier had attempted to reclaim his life through parole. He did many charitable things and ardently felt that he should atone for the past. He had been promised a good position in New York and had made plans to make a new life for himself.
Ironically, he had been pardoned from Angola only a few weeks before his death.
He made a good deal of money in his last year at Angola, selling leather goods he made. The money, most of it was given to churches and benefits in that area and many people there pleaded for his pardon.
He apparently died penniless as prison officials and hospital people could find no property when a New York businessman and boyhood friend, Robert Barnard, came to claim Frazier's body to prevent burial in a pauper's grave.
Brief and private funeral services and cremation were held Saturday at Restland Funeral Home & Memorial Park, where his ashes were buried.
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