American Outlaws: Danny Daniels and America's Deadliest Prison Riot

0:00 Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now.

0:18 Speaker 2: True Crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic, a podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Hey, everybody, welcome to Kind of Murdery. I'm your host, Zevan Odelberg. Thank you for choosing to spend your precious time with me today. I bring you a blow by blow, bullet by bullet, dynamite and plouring bomb by Chloring Bomb.

0:56 Speaker 2: True recounting of one of the bloodiest prison riots in American history, the October third, nineteen twenty nine uprising at the Colorado State Penitentiary at Danyon City. I found this story in the June nineteen thirty issue of True Detective Magazine, which means it was published just eight short months after the riot. It was written by Joseph McNeill of the Denver Post, who called it Crimson Knight The truth about the Canyon City jailbreak. This is not a story of the triumph of the human spirit or the surprising nobility of the incarcerated, but it is a testament to toughness and the horrors that can be committed by men who are tenacious, capable, and perhaps most importantly hopeless.

1:39 Speaker 2: You see, Colorado Governor Billy Adams, elected to three consecutive two year terms, the first in nineteen twenty seven, was ushered into office on the strength of his tough on crime platform. While running for governor, he promised that as long as he was governor, there would be no clemency. Beyond that, no parole under any circumstances Colorado's incarcerated class. This was a position that he not only stuck to once elected, but repeatedly and publicly reiterated. For resourceful and hardened criminals who felt their sentences were unjust over long, or who just wanted out, men who now could not even look forward to the possibility of parole.

2:19 Speaker 2: Adam's campaign promise of no parole and no clemency, a promise upon which he steadfastly delivered not only extinguished all hope of future freedom, but also stoked the fires of resolve, leaving Colorado's most desperate, strong willed, and capable prisoners, men who, without parole or clemency, expected to die, whether by old age, illness, or violence in prison, to conclude that escape or uprising were their only sane options. Let this be a lesson to all future chief executives, whether they be tyrannical strong men or benevolent rulers with not but the best intentions.

2:54 Speaker 2: Human beings thrive on hope. It is the singular gift unleashed by Pandora is boxed so powerful that it exists to on its own counterbalance the myriad curses and evils of this world. Extinguish hope at your own peril or without it when situations become desperate, and they always do, there is nothing to stem the bloody tide of humanity's worst inclinations. Take away all hope, and you expel the better angels from our shoulders, and leave behind only the red clad in blood, hungry devils to whisper sweet sweet violence in our ears.

3:33 Speaker 2: And with that dire warning, I bring you the action packed true crime tragedy Canyon City carnage. This is the real story of that crimson night of horror October third, nineteen twenty nine, at the Colorado State Penitentiary. We begin at the end of a gunfight after a long standoff following the robbery of a jewelry store. It's time to rock and roll, although I think that's the wrong genre, because this story is metal au flat footed SAPs. I've got a belly full, Give me a chance, and I'll come out, just to show you I'm a square guy.

4:21 Speaker 2: I'll give up my gats. The message Chief Hugh D. Harper and his Colorado Police Force had waited hours to hear at last, drifted through the shattered windows of Buckwald's Jewelry store on Colorado Avenue, just east of Cascade Avenue. It meant surrender and into this game of hounds and hair, assurance that a pitched battle between burglar and police would end without further casualties. Certainly, a desperado would be captured, a robbery thwarted, angry though it was, and still defiant. The voice drifting out of the darkened jewelry store meant all of these things to Chief Harper.

4:58 Speaker 2: And his embattled force victory. It was time. It came midnight to dawn. It had been a long, desperate fight, a costly one too, with patrol men Ben McMahon and Allen Burton wounded in facing weeks, if not months, of inactivity, a business block riddled with lead and uncounted property damage. Come on out, then, you blasted idiot, Chief Harper shouted back, but keep your hands up high and no tricks. Two German lugers sailed through the jewelry store window, or rather what was left of the windows, and fell in the street, almost at the chief's feet.

5:29 Speaker 2: The man inside meant business. He sealed his promise with his guns. The police waited, entrenched in Colorado Avenue, behind anything that appeared in the least bulletproof, and in the alley behind the jewelry store. Chief Harper and his men had waited, waited, and were disappointed. And with each disappointment they poured an almost ceaseless rain of rifle, shotgun and revolver lead into the darkened jewelry store from its one story roof, through a skylight that gave an unobstructed play. A Thompson machine gun raked the inn side of the store, but there were no results, none until now, somewhere inside.

6:05 Speaker 2: Amid the havoc wrought by incessant firing, a wreckage of shattered showcases and splintered fixtures, the wounding of two patrol men charged against him, the man who had just called out his surrenders, stood his ground, firing back when a hit seemed reasonably certain, cursing, sometimes taunting, always why don't you come in and get me a yellow bellied coppas if you think it tough enough, he shouted when the police first hemmed him in, and patrol men McMahon and Burton, displaying more courage than prudence, rushed his stronghold, only to learn there was a sting in his boasts.

6:39 Speaker 2: Shortly after midnight in late December nineteen twenty eight, this man was discovered in the jewelry store. And now, as the first rays of a new day's sun fell like the snow capped summit of Pike's Peak, lifting the massive granite pile from a field of shadows, the police began to feel reasonably certain that the long siege would soon be ended. Chlorine gas bring him out, Chief Harper predicted an hour before the message of surrender. He spoke to Deputy Chief Fred H. Springer, assisting in command of the police forces in Colorado Avenue at the time of this siege.

7:13 Speaker 2: Well, said Springer, repeating what he had told the Chief before. Denver's on the way with chlor eyed bombs. But it's a seventy five mile drive and they're coming by auto. They can't fly the Palmer Lake Divide at night. Ought to be here directly. We'll wait for the gas, So hold your fire, Chief Harper decided. Anyway, the town's got to get some sleep. Can't with all this racket. Look at the Antler Hotel's windows. A guest looking out of every one of them, say who stirred up this hornet? The Chief asked, taking advantage of the cessation of hostilities to get the facts on the introductory chapters of an episode that was to become a Department classic.

7:51 Speaker 2: Called from bed after the battle had started, Chief Harper had been too busy directing the attack to inquire about the cause. Now, he decided he'd like to know. Patrolman George Koltenberger stepped forward. I'm guilty, Chief, he said. I was rounding the corner a cascade in Colorado. When this guy's lookout fired at me, I dropped on my belly and fired back. Then from the roof of the National Cafe next door to Buckwald's, a couple of other gents opened up on me with automatics. Who's this mug inside?

8:20 Speaker 2: Anybody know? The chief interrupted. No one could answer the question, and Koltenberger continued. Finally, the guy in the street emptied his gun and ran. The birds on the roof took to cover, and I ran up to Buckwald's door, tripping over these on the sidewalk, said Koltenberger, Tripping over what? Chief Harper asked, curious, now these wires, the patrolman answered, handing the ends of two insulated copper strands to his superior. The Chief examined them, noted they stretched across Colorado Avenue and upwards over the corners of the jewelry store.

8:51 Speaker 2: He was puzzled. He touched the copper exposed ends of the strands, forming a contact. There was a spark, and in the distance of faint buzzing. The wires were a puzzle no longer to Chief Harper. Hmmm, scientific guys, he remarked. A signal from the lookout to the bird inside cracking the safe. A cracking is right, Deputy Chief Springer interposed, it might have been a fat haul. There's fifteen thousand dollars in gems in the safe, or there was when Buckwald closed up last night, fifteen thousand.

9:22 Speaker 2: Well, if the outside men didn't get them, this guy won't. When the chloride gets into his eyes and up his nose, he'll come out. If he don't, he'll choke. The distant roar of an automobile motor traveling with its muffler open ended further discussion sounds like company's coming, Deputy Chief Springer observed. Within a few minutes a machine came to a grinding stop in the street in front of the jewelry store, and detectives George Ed and O. V. Wingren saluted Chief Harper. The chlorine bombs had finally arrived from Denver.

9:53 Speaker 2: Got a leech A chief detective d ventured, Yeah, but he ain't gonna stick around much longer. Much obliged for these boys, Harper answered, thanking them for the bombs. In a matter of minutes, Chief Harper distributed the chlorine bombs, sending a consignment to Inspector Dad Bruce, in command of the machine gun detail on the roof. Tell Dad to drop a bomb through the skylight every time he hears the buzzer, was the message he sent to Bruce. Handy arrangement. This ah Springer, handy for burglars, handy for cops.

10:24 Speaker 2: Within a few minutes, Detective Bob Raith, who carried the bombs and a message to Inspector Bruce, returned to report all was ready. Chief Harper ordered his men to hold fire, but to be prepared to fight. All ready, Now for results, he shouted. He brought the wire points together in the distance. There was a faint buzzing, and a moment afterwards, a bang. Nerves a tingle, muscles, taut eyes alert. The police waited, their guns trained on the jewelry store. Slow moving clouds of gas billowed through the shattered windows.

10:55 Speaker 2: Acrid, biting fumes swept out of the store and into the avenue, but there was no sign of a man coming out. The signal buzzed a second time, and then a third, and down the skylight. Inspector Bruce dropped two more bombs. Again, the police waited. The gas clouds rolled lazily through the windows, denser more pungent, a short weight, and the cry of surrender. Then two German lugers. Sailed through the air with his hands up, his eyes streaming tears, coughing convulsively as the gas fumes bit into tender throat tissues and penetrated equally tender nostrils.

11:28 Speaker 2: The man staggered into the street, fighting for breath. He approached Chief Harper. The name's Daniels, he managed to explain between fits of coughing, Danny, they call me My home's Oklahoma City. I'm out on seven five hundred dollars bond for assault at Bartlesville, five thousand dollars federal bond for auto theft a Tulsa, one thousand dollars assault bond at Nowada. Used to be a bookkeeper. Never killed a man in my life. On my way to Wyoming to rest. Maybe Danny was telling the truth and he'd never killed a man.

11:58 Speaker 2: But this is carnage, a Canon city, and that streak was about to come to an end. Oh no, said the chief, Not Wyoming, Daniels, Canyon City. That's where we send guys like you for vacations. Long ones too. Who are your pals? Pals Daniels replied, acting like he had no idea what the chief was talking about. Let's see, said the chief call one of them Red Taylor, and the other one Whitey Williams. I guess that's good enough, the man replied, indicating he would give no information about the men who had escaped.

12:34 Speaker 2: They got away, I got caught. That's my tough luck. Where'd you learn this racket? Chief Harper questioned, Oklahoma mostly trailed around with the cimes gang sum the man boasted, got jobbed and did a stretch. Been sore ever since he said this. Angrily got a wife and a kid in Oklahoma. Listen, Chief, they won't know anything about this, will they. Daniels stopped talking as Inspector Bruce approached. When the gas cleared from the jewelry store or, Inspector Bruce and his detail went inside to learn some things the police did not know.

13:04 Speaker 2: Coming back out, stumbling over debris, he stated, neat job, Chief. They got in through the National Cafe, dug a tunnel through the wall to get to Buckwald's safe. There's a slab of steel out of the safe, but the torchman didn't have time to complete the job. The jewels must be safe inside. Yeah, it's a dud for me, Daniels confirmed, ignoring the remark. Inspector Bruce continued, this mug worked inside a tent and in that way concealed the glow from the acettlene torch. There's two tanks of ascettling gas in the tent, twenty four rounds for an automatic, twenty five shells for a twenty gage shotgun, and an extra clip for a luger.

13:43 Speaker 2: No guns left everything just as we found it, and the boys are looking around for fingerprints, Bruce finished, secretly admiring Daniel's thoroughness. Hey, everybody, welcome back to kind of Murdery. I'm your host, Zevin Odelberg. Thank you for lending our sponsors just a moment of your time. I do appreciate it. A quick reminder that if you enjoy the show, please do tell people about it. It really helps. Also, I printed up some cool full color vinyl kind of Murdery stickers that maybe you saw on social media that I hand it out to listeners at Comic Con, and if you'd like one, just reach out to me Kindomurdery at gmail dot com or at kind of Murdery on social media and include your mailing address and I'd be more than happy to send you some stickers.

14:40 Speaker 2: Also, please leave a review that really helps to Kind of Murdery is hosted by the totally free podcasting app Spreaker. That's Spreaker s p R e a K E R, which you can download for free from the app store. And the cool thing is if you leave a review on the Speaker app, I'll be able to see it and respond to it, which would be a cool way for us to to know each other. I also want to give a shout out to my personal podcasting angel, the wonderful Darren Marler from Weird Darkness podcast, whose shirt I'm wearing right now, not his shirt actually, but a Weird Darkness shirt.

15:13 Speaker 2: Thank you for the awesome T shirt, Darren. If you're already a part of the Weirdo family, that's awesome me too. And if you haven't listened to Weird Darkness, please do. It's fantastic. If you like kind of Murdery, you'll love Weird Darkness, I promise. Also wanted to remind you that advocating for people with disabilities, physical or otherwise is important to me, and if you have a disability story you'd like to share, or a favorite true crime story you'd like to hear me tell. I'd love to do it.

15:41 Speaker 2: I'm here for your listening pleasure, So just reach out to the show Kindomurdery at gmail dot com or at kind of Murdery on social media. Tell me what you want and I will get right to it. And speaking of getting right to it, let's get back to Kenyon City Carnage. I'm going to rewind the story about twenty seconds to let you settle back into it. There's two tanks of a settling gas in the tent, twenty four rounds for an automatic, twenty five shells for a twenty gage shotgun, and an extra clip for a luger.

16:17 Speaker 2: No guns left everything just as we found it, and the boys are looking around for fingerprints. Bruce finished, secretly admiring Daniel's thoroughness. The first experience with Danny Daniels showed the kind of metal he was made of. Glorious sunlight of an Indian summer day flooded the Pike's Peak region as Chief Harper snapped a pair of handcuffs around Danny Daniel's wrists and ordered him taken under guard to the El Paso County Jail. The excitement over, Sleepy eyed guests of the Antler Hotel crawled back into bed to snatch a few hours of rest before golf engagements at the Broadmoor or motor trips up the peak compelled them to rise again.

16:52 Speaker 2: Haggard, ragged, nerved, police officers, glad the siege was ended, dragged themselves home and to bed until duty again forced them to their posts. In the meantime, the pals of Danny Daniels were racing southward towards Pueblo in a stolen automobile, leaving their pal behind to fight for freedom the best he could. October was drawing to a close when Daniels, desperate in the realization that within a month he would face a jury on a charge of burglary, again, struck at the law. Jailer Frank Bot was his target, delivering the noon meals to prisoners in the El Paso County Jail.

17:27 Speaker 2: Bought passed within arm's reach of Daniel's cell, the outlaw thrust an arm through the bars of his cage and in a downward sweep, slashed the jailer's throat with a razor missed the juggular but opened an ugly gash in the cell keeper's neck. Disarmed, he was thrown into a dungeon, and thereafter his keepers were more vigilant. And then in November a trial. The jury heard the story of the siege at Buckwald's jewelry store and the forceful injury of the National Cafe. The verdict was guilty on two counts.

18:00 Speaker 2: On the morning of November thirtieth, nineteen twenty eight, Daniels stood before the bar in District Judge Wilbur M Alter's court room for sentence. Have you anything to say, the court asked, putting the usual question forward, nothing, Daniels growled. Judge Alter began the pronouncement of sentence. It is the sentence of this court that you be confined in the penitentiary at Canyon City, at hard Labor for a term of twelve to fourteen years on the first count, and that Daniels breathed audibly, and the court paused.

18:32 Speaker 2: With his hand, the prisoner wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead, shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and stood ready to hear the remainder of the court's pronouncement. Judge Alter continued, and that you be confined in the penitentiary, not at hard labor, for twelve to fourteen years. On the second count, the sentences to run consecutively. Mister Sheriff take charge of the prisoner. Whew, Daniels exclaimed, exhaling through clench, and then twenty eight years. Huh. The works across the mountains by a road that winds down into the Green Valleys and up pine studded rocky slopes to the summit of the Secondary Range of the Rockies.

19:13 Speaker 2: The distance from Colorado Springs to the Canyon City Penitentiary is fifty two miles. Danny Daniels made that trip on the afternoon of November thirtieth, nineteen twenty eight, with the sentence so recently pronounced ringing in his ears, twenty eight years in the penitentiary meant a lifetime. At his age, he was thirty eight, handcuffed, an organ boot locked around his right leg at the ankle. He made the trip in silence, seated between two armed guards. Chief Harper sat in the front seat of the automobile beside the driver.

19:46 Speaker 2: Canyon City sits on a high plateau to the north and west. The town is hemmed in by the eminence of the Rockies, the last encountered before the approach to the heights of the Continental Divide. The prison where Colorado incarcerates her felons is built on the slope of the North Hills. Its back or north wall, abuts them. Red sandstone ramparts thirty feet high and four feet thick enclose the prison grounds and buildings in an irregular rectangle. Three cell houses, known as Tiers one, two, and three are grouped close together nearer the north and west walls.

20:22 Speaker 2: The west wall overlooks the warden's residence and near its juncture with the north rampart, there is a steel barred gate through which railcars are admitted to the prison grounds with supplies and coal. Cell House number three is a little to the south and east of the gate, possibly fifty yards. Stone turrets, each a part of the stone walls, overlook the prison grounds and buildings from all sides. They are the lookout stations, occupied day and night by guards who patrol the walls at regular intervals, rifles resting in the crook of their arms.

20:56 Speaker 2: On a clear day, A panoramic view of Colorado's pentitate injury is visible from a promontory nineteen miles to the eastward. The November day that Danny Daniels came over the mountains from Colorado Springs was just such a day. As the automobile that carried him topped the last hill before the plateau. Daniels glimpsed the prison, backed up against the massive granite hillside. He winced, not for long. He muttered between clenched teeth, leaving his guards to speculate on what he meant. Half an hour later, he passed through the steel gates of the prison administration building, which faces the south with its back to the prison yard and cell houses.

21:34 Speaker 2: He was mugged, printed and classified, and turned over to a guard captain to be assigned to a cell house. Danny Daniels became convict number one four to two seven seven. As he disappeared into the prison yard, Chief Harper, who had watched his transformation from a man under sentence to a full fledged convict, turned to Warden Francis Eugene Crawford and said, Jeane, there goes a tough egg. You'll have to watch him. Daniels carried into the canyon city penitentiary, the same hatred of authority he had harbored on the outside.

22:06 Speaker 2: In the prison, there were many men like him, and he was not long in making the acquaintance of these convicts. James Pardue alias Walter J. Hollob was one of them. Pardu was the type that crime experts call a habitual criminal. When he met Daniels, he was completing the fourth year of a ten year to life sentence and posed for highway robbery in the West Side Criminal Court at Denver, and boasted a long and varied career in crime. As a boy, Pardu was an inmate at the Missouri Reform School in Boonville.

22:36 Speaker 2: He was committed for shoplifting, liberated on parole. He was back again in the Boonville School in nineteen nineteen under a five year sentence. This time it was burglary. He escaped in two months and was at liberty until nineteen twenty two. That year, he was back again at Boonville under sentence of five years in criminal accomplishment. He had progressed. This time the charge was armed robbery. Again he escaped, and again he was arrested, tried, and convicted. Now too old for Boonville. He was sent to the Missouri State Prison, which received him for armed robbery in nineteen twenty three.

23:11 Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty four, he again broke out, and in course of the search for a place to hide, he reached Colorado. Within a few months, the Denver police had him in custody for aggravated robbery a drug store stick up, and in time Pardu reached Canyon City. In a fit of anger, Pardu once told Deputy Warden William Green, I can't and I won't serve the sentence they gave me a Denver and that was the way Daniels felt about his sentence. So it was that Daniels and Pardu had much in common. It was natural that they should become prison pals.

23:42 Speaker 2: That their thoughts should turn spontaneously to liberty and to the day when it would come legally or otherwise, made no difference to them as they contemplated the future. Inaugural day in March nineteen twenty nine held the attention of the people of Colorado. Governor William H. Adams was to begin his set term. In a message to the people of the state, he promised, as he had promised two years before, that there would be no pardons, no paroles for convicts. Through unknown channels, the news penetrated the penitentiary and spread among the convicts.

24:15 Speaker 2: With hope of executive clemency gone for at least two years, the natural result of the news was unrest among the convicts. Daniels and Pardu, now more restless and more dissatisfied, did much to ferment it. By avenues to this day, undiscovered arms were smuggled into the prison. Luckily they were found and confiscated, and convicts suspected of possessing them were thrown into the prison coolers on a diet of bread and water. By Midsummer, discipline became harder to enforce and unrest was more pronounced.

24:46 Speaker 2: It was now late July, eight months since Daniels and Pardu, moved by mutual sympathy, had formed an alliance. They were assigned with other convicts to unload steam coal brought into the penitentiary through the west gate. At the same task were Alfred H. Davis thirty eight years old, and Melvin Read Majors alias Riley, thirty years old. As prison records go, Davis and Majors were rated bad ones by virtue of two attempts to break out of Canyon City. Davis had attained some local fame among the convicts and majors, with a record for a successful break from a California prison was rated a quote crafty guy with guts.

25:24 Speaker 2: Daniels and Pardu recognized men of particular qualifications in the pair who would prove useful members of their confederacy. They took them in. Like Pardus, Major's record was spotty. Good behavior which paroled him, was short lived, and Los Angeles sent him back to Iona. This time it was robbery. One day he was missing, and he was at liberty until sent to San Quentin. Again it was robbery. Next he was an inmate of fulsome and once more good behavior unlatched penitentiary doors. He was a clever man, but an incorrigible such was his record when he saw greener and less hazardous fields in Colorado.

26:02 Speaker 2: About the time of his arrival, there was a series of hold ups. Denver police were never able to prove these against Majors, but they ceased after he fled the city following the shooting of patrolman James Cass, who was wounded as he started investigation of a quartet of men suspected of a plan to rob the bank. The gang was seated in an automobile parked in front of the bank at the time. This job was never fastened definitely on Majors, but he was sentenced at Colorado Springs for aggravated robbery committed in that city.

26:32 Speaker 2: Denying the crime, he attempted to explain possession of a gun with this declaration, while I am an inexperienced young man from the East, and I expected to find Indians in Colorado, so I brought my gun along. The explanation gave courtroom spectators a laugh, and the court gave Majors twenty to thirty years a waiter when he followed legitimate employment. Davis had a record in New Mexico before he migrated to Colorado. In Denver, he was sentenced to a twenty to thirty year term for drug store hold up.

27:03 Speaker 2: He was suspected of other crimes, but police could never prove them, and Detective Captain Bert Clark was satisfied to let matters drop when Davis started for Canyon City. This then was the personnel of the quartet of single purposed men who labored through July and October unloading steam coal from railroad cars rolled into the penitentiary gate through the steel barred portals of the west Gate. As time passed, the attitude of Governor Adams with respect to convicts remained unchanged. No pardons and no paroles continued to be the administration's policy.

27:40 Speaker 2: Restless discontent agitated from sources unknown to prison officials, permeated every cell block. There were reports of guns smuggled into the prison by trustees who hid them under coal piled high in the yard. The coal was moved, there were no guns. About this time. Knives were missing mysteriously from the kitchen. Search was made for themself. The cell blocks returned topsy turvy. Every nook and cranny probed, but there were no knives and no weapons of any kind. Suddenly, a calm, a strange calm, settled over the prison.

28:11 Speaker 2: There was less of discontent, and improved discipline was noticeable. Warden Crawford breathed easier. I don't know, Warden, sounds like the calm before the storm. To me, if I was him, I would be more nervous than ever. Guards and keepers who had been nervous and jumpy became calm and composed there was not a man among them who did not feel that the crisis had passed. And then October third, nineteen twenty nine, dawned clear and calm. Summer lingered in the hills around Canyon City. Although autumn was well advanced, colourings particular to the fall of the year had only just begun to tinge the foliage on the mountain slopes.

28:48 Speaker 2: There was that about the weather which lures won to the open road, and Warden Crawford, with business demanding attention, drove over the hills to Colorado Springs. Within the prison, Daniels and Pardu and Davison, Majors labored with their fellow prisoners unloading coal. Noon was approaching when Elmer g Irwin, a guard, climbed a steel rung ladder to the crow's nest, overlooking the convict mess hall, to watch the convicts as they gulped their prison fare. Was one of his daily duties. Near at hand in the crow's nest was a rifle loaded and ready for any emergency.

29:24 Speaker 2: This particular day, Irwin followed his customary routine. After climbing the ladder with the rifle stock under his arm, he closed and locked the door from a compartment. He produced a rifle barrel, which he fitted to the stock. He broke the weapon, saw it was loaded, and as he finished, a blast from the whistle in the prison boiler house announced the noon hour. Convicts laid down their tools, formed lines, and began a march for the mess hall. From a turret overlooking the grounds and the mess hall, Myron H. Goodwin, another guard, watched the lines advance and in usual order file into the mess hall.

29:58 Speaker 2: Twelve hundred convicts sat down to lunch. Apparently all was well. As they ate, Irwin watched from the crow's nest. Other guards passed from table to table to check every man in his accustomed place. Two were missing, Daniels and Pardu. The captain of the guards was advised and a hurried search was made in their cell tiars. They were not there. At twelve thirty, with the search for Daniels and Pardue still in progress, the convicts rose from their meal, formed another line, and marched out. Unaware that Daniels and Pardu were missing.

30:31 Speaker 2: Guard Irwin broke his rifle as the last of the convicts disappeared through the mess hall door. By the way, when we say broke the rifle. He doesn't mean broke it, as in it doesn't work anymore. He means broke it in half by opening the barrel. When someone refers to breaking a shotgun, they're talking about separating the stock and the barrel, usually on a hinge, which allows you to look down the barrel and into the chamber to see if the gun is loaded or not, or to load the gun or unload it. In this particular case, it sounds like Irwin breaks the barrel and actually completely physically separates the barrel of the gun from the stock of the gun, which I imagine is a safety measure.

31:11 Speaker 2: Anyway, back to the story. Unaware that Daniels and Pardy were missing, Irwin broke his rifle. As the last of the convicts disappeared through the mess hall. He put the barrel of the weapon back into its compartment, tucked the stock under his arm, shut and locked the crow's nest door, and started down the ladder. A shuffling of feet beneath the ladder warned him of the presence of others in the room. A gruff voice directly beneath spoke to him, shorty, your time has come. We return now to guard Irwin.

31:46 Speaker 2: Overseeing the prison mess hall. A gruff voice directly beneath spoke to him, shorty, your time has come. There was a shot. It echoed faintly in the turret, where Goodwin focused watchful eyes on the retreating convict line. Aroused by the sound, the guard peered down into the yard, trying to account for it. As his eyes scanned the yard, his hand held a rifle. He discerned some evidence of unrest in the convict line, and as he watched, two men darted for the mess hall. Goodwin raised his rifle, drew sight on the foremost of the running figures, and then out of the corner of his eye, Goodwin discerned another unusual movement in the prison yard below him, on the threshold of the mess hall, he glimpsed another figure with rifle leveled.

32:31 Speaker 2: Instantly Goodwin realized he was the target on which the weapon was trained. He swept his own rifle to the side until the sight drew a bead on the figure in the mess hall doorway. He fired. Simultaneously, another rifle roared. Goodwin toppled backward into the penthouse atop the prison wall, fatally wounded the figure in the doorway, plunged forward into the yard and lay still. A rifle lay beside it. As the shots sounded, twelve hundred convicts broke rank and raced for their cell blocks. The Canyon City Prison was a reality.

33:01 Speaker 2: Within a few minutes, the prison yard was a bedlam. The siren in the boiler house screamed in alarm. Convicts fresh from forays on the prison bakery, the kitchen, and their own cell houses dodged from shelter to shelter as they scurried towards Cell House number three. Guards running towards the mess hall to investigate the shots shouted orders. These were ignored. Lacking arms to enforce their commands. The guards were helpless. Other guards in the turrets of the West and North halls, who had seen Goodwin fall backwards into his penthouse a moment after his rifle blazed, telephoned the news to the administration building, and just about this time, eight men dressed in the regulation uniforms of the prison guards hurried across the penitentiary yard towards Cell House three.

33:42 Speaker 2: They were bearing what appeared to be two bodies, dead or wounded men. No one knew which. A hurried survey of the situation told Deputy Warden Green it was serious. Such meager details as he possessed, he hastened to telephone to Warden Crawford, who was reached in Chief Harper's office at Colorado Springs. We've got some trouble here, Warden, he told his superior over the long distance telephone. He tried to appear calm. Goodwin's been shot and he's dying. There's been three shots fired, two inside somewhere around the mess hall, and a third one that Goodwin fired, He continued, apparently ignoring some pointed question asked by his chief, who was listening eagerly.

34:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, we think there's two wounded men inside, and a bunch of guards are captives. No, we don't know if the wounded or guards are cons. The cons seemed to be armed, and they carried the dead or wounded men into cell House three. Did you say who carried them? Well, we don't know. Men in guard uniforms. At this point, a guard rushed into the administration building where the Deputy Warren had his chief on the telephone, and interrupted the conversation. Breathless, he whispered a message in Green's ear, A troubled expression overspread Green's face, and he placed his lips against the mouthpiece and shouted this message.

34:50 Speaker 2: The chapel and the mess hall are burning. Hell's broke loose. The convicts are running like hell for cell House three. Then he hung up the receiver, and Warden Crawford, turning to Chief Harper, made this speculation, Chief, I wonder if you're right about Daniels. Someone's turned the pen into a hellhole. He's a tough nut. Gene was all Chief Harper said. Racing back to Canyon City on that October afternoon over a mountain road that is more like a trail of a serpent than a highway for motor travel, Warden Crawford established a record for speed and reckless daring that will stand until a like emergency compels another to sacrifice safety for haste.

35:26 Speaker 2: Less than two hours after he received his deputy's message, Warden Crawford's automobile topped the rise nineteen miles east of the penitentiary from which Danny Daniels first glimpsed the prison almost a year before. He looked off across the expanse of mountain meadow and in the distance above the tops of a forest of pine. In the middle of the background, he saw great clouds of black smoke obliterating the contour of the hills. He knew the penitentiary was still burning, and from that he judged the riot to be serious.

35:55 Speaker 2: After his conversation with his superior deputy, Warden Green, made another hurried survey of the situation in the prison, and then proceeded to carry out the one order he remembered receiving from Warden Crawford. He called Governor Adams, the chief executive, received the news calmly, but a few minutes after he hung up the telephone, the executive offices in the capitol at Denver were swarming with subordinate state officers. Colonel Paul P. Neulan of the Colorado National Guard was ordered to get militia men under arms to combat the convict revolt.

36:28 Speaker 2: He followed instructions by ordering out forty men of a howitzer company at Canyon City. Within an hour, they had encompassed the prison walls, and shortly afterwards were joined by hundreds of townfolk men who responded to the sirens call for help and armed themselves at the prison. Arsenal battery b at Pueblo was also ordered to Canyon City, and shortly afterwards the forty men of the battery and trained from their armory in trucks for a forty two mile run to the prison up the valley of the Arkansas.

36:56 Speaker 2: They took with them a large field piece and two machine guns. As the guardsmen from Pueblo swung into the valley road leading to Canyon City, six pieces of fire apparatus swept by them in a cloud of dust, and the guardsman's commanding officer, Captain Aubrey Keef, roared across the mountains in an airplane in the direction of the penitentiary town. Meanwhile, Governor Adams had dispatched Chief Lewis and Scherf of the State Police and Lieutenant Roy Best to the penitentiary. The governor's private secretary, Judge B. T. Poxon, accompanied them as special representative of the Chief Executive.

37:31 Speaker 2: When Warden Crawford reached Canyon City after his record run from Colorado Springs, he found the streets crowded. Armed men were everywhere. Military lines had been established, and uniformed guardsmen patrolled them, holding back the curious. When still some blocks from the prison grounds, Warden Crawford heard the roar of flames that were consuming the chapel in the mess hall. When he reached the prison, he sought out Assistant Warden Green for a more detailed story of what had taken place. All we know is what we've seen and heard.

38:00 Speaker 2: Green informed him, and that isn't very much. No one's come out to tell us what's going on inside. We got Goodwin out of the tower, but we had to drill through the steel bars of that wicket in the south wall to get him. We carried him down a narrow passageway leading from the tower to the street. He's hit bad. Goodwin says he'd drilled a convict before he was shot. They fired together. Goodwin in the Khan. We don't know who he is. How about the guards inside, The anxious warden asked, Oh, yes, I guess they're prisoners.

38:29 Speaker 2: Fifteen of them at least. They haven't come out, and we haven't seen any of them, none except Joe Shillo. Someone saw Shillo standing at a window and sell House three. We're pretty sure there's another wounded man inside besides the Khan. And we know they've got one rifle, and we think they've got several gats, how many? We don't know. The man Goodwind dropped in front of the mess hall had a rifle. That's either the rifle from the crow's nest or one that's been smuggled in. The warden said, and if it's the crow's nest rifle, it means Erwin's been shot.

38:57 Speaker 2: Well, maybe, Green agreed, reluctant to admit what he felt must be a fact. We saw the two men lugged into cell House three. That was just before the fire started. Guards are convicts, dressed in uniforms carried them in. What about the revolt leaders? Who are they? Crawford asked. Green shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know, adding Daniels and Pardue would be in a mess like this. Warden Crawford nodded affirmatively and started to ask another question. A shout from a corridor of the administration building just outside his office stopped him.

39:27 Speaker 2: Someone's coming out of Cellhouse three, a guard exclaimed, coming across the yard through the smoke. He's got his hands up. Must be a messenger. Crawford hurried to a window overlooking the prison yard. Someone was approaching, but whether convict or guard, he could not tell. He watched the man advancing slowly through the smoke, ten feet away from the window where the warden stood. The man stopped. Crawford recognized slippery Dell Hanlan, a stick up man sent from Denver for life. What's on your mind, Dell, Crawford asked, I've been sent out with a message, and there's a rifle trained on my back right now.

39:59 Speaker 2: I'm not party to this, Warden. All right, let's have the message. What's wanted? I'm instructed to tell you, sir, the leaders want two automobiles put at Westgate for their use at sundown. They must be good machines and their tanks must be full of gasoline. And they want to guarantee that the men who get into the machines will not be molested. And if I refuse, the warden asked, noting that it was three point thirty pm, the guards who were prisoners will be killed one at a time and their bodies sent out to Westgate.

40:27 Speaker 2: Come clean, now, doll and tell me who sent this message. Well, Warden, I'd like to tell you that, but I can't. I've got to go back with your answer. If they suspect that I told you anything. They'll kill me and Warden if I don't go back with an answer. They won't wait until sundown to kill the captive guards. So you see, I can't answer your question. How many guns have they got, Crawford asked, deciding not to press the convict further. I don't know exactly The men who sent me out of a revolver each and they've got a rifle.

40:55 Speaker 2: You know about that, don't you? The rifle, the one from the crow's nest. They got it when they killed Irwin shot him as they came down the ladder. Joe Schillo saw Irwin lying at the foot of the ladder. Where's his body? And when Hanlan said he didn't know Warden, Crawford asked, who's the wounded man? I didn't see him, and they're not telling me much. They figure I'm a friend of yours. But I heard the wounded man groaning and sell House three. They've got him in a bunk. Crawford was silent as he seemed to be preparing a reply to send back to the convict leaders.

41:24 Speaker 2: Presently, he spoke, well, dealt go back and tell him I cannot compromise with criminals, but they'll kill the guards, Handlan warned. The warden gritted his teeth and turned away, indicating that the interview was at an end and that his decision had been made. Hanlan walked back through the smoke to sell House three. He disappeared through the door. In a few minutes. A shot echoed through the prison enclosure. Warden Crawford, on his way back to his office, stopped when he heard it. Handlin her.

41:52 Speaker 2: He gasped, and before he finished his speculation on the meaning of the shot, another one rang out. The message convict Hanlon had brought out of Cellhouse three was disturbing. Speculating on the import of the shots he had heard. As Hamlin passed into Sellhouse three, Warden Crawford sank down on his swivel chair to try to formulate a plan or campaign. How far would the convict revolters go? Would they make good on their threat to kill the fifteen guards if their demand for automobiles in which to escape was not met, had they already started on their slaughter?

42:22 Speaker 2: And did the shots that echoed through the prison enclosure after Hamlon had gone back with the warden's message mean that other guards had been slain? These questions coursed through the warden's mind, and as he tried to find the answers for them, his office filled up with men willing and anxious to assist him in solving his problem. Among them was Father Patrick O'Neill, a monk from the Benedictine Abbey, the prison chaplain. Two problems confronted the warden. He must deal with the convicts and suppress their rebellion.

42:52 Speaker 2: And he must fight the fire that was reducing the mess hall and chapel to a pile of smoldering embers and spreading rapidly to sell House's won and two. The warden reason that the tasks must be performed simultaneously, one crew to fight the convicts while another fought the flames. As matters stood at the moment, it was extremely dangerous to send unarmed men into the prison enclosure with fire lines. They would be shot down. The fire evidently was part of the convict revolt plot, and the desperate men entrenched in Cellhouse three, armed and apparently prepared to withstand a long siege, would not permit it to be extinguished without making it costly.

43:28 Speaker 2: The warden reasoned it would mean more lives, and so when the fire companies from Pueblo reported for duty. Warden Crawford directed them to stand by and wait. Meanwhile, the fire would have to burn, regardless of consequences. With his advisors, Warden Crawford concentrated on a plan of attack against the convict stronghold. Various projects were suggested and as quickly rejected. Possible effectiveness of a concerted attack by an armed force converging on Cellhouse three from Westgate was discussed.

43:58 Speaker 2: Chief lou Suref of the State Police volunteered to lead an attacking party, but the possibilities for slaughter were too overwhelming if we only knew their strength and weapons. Warden Crawford's side, We're gonna pause here briefly for some quick messages from our sponsors. But hang in there because Part two of Canyon City Carnage will be right back. Practical advice was given to the conference by an old time campaigner after Captain Keith, commanding officer of Battery B, set his plane down at the Canyon City airport and hurried by automobile to the Warden's office.

44:45 Speaker 2: He suggested a triple plan of action. An attack from the air, a bombardment of Cellhouse three with tear bombs and a barrage of lead laid down from machine guns mounted on the west wall. Good suggestions, agreed the warden, but with their elements of danger, dropping bombs from a plane on cell House three unquestionably would be effective, too effective. In fact, it would defeat our purpose. Bombs are no respectors of individuals. They would kill guards as well as convicts and revolters. We can't have a slaughter of convicts, many of whom are like Handlin, out of sympathy with the mutiny, but compelled by circumstances to remain in cell House three and appear to give their sanction to the thing.

45:27 Speaker 2: Further, the clouds of smoke rising from the burning buildings would make a campaign from the clouds extremely hazardous for a flyer, And besides, we haven't any bombs. Tear bombs would be effective if we get near enough to the cell house to get them inside, but to do that we'd have to face fire from an unknown number of guns. That would mean more lives. But we might mount the machine guns on the west wall and rake the corridors of the cell house. Locked in the cells, the guards would be out of range, but the bullets might find marks and the worthless carcasses of the ringleaders.

45:58 Speaker 2: A steady stream of lead from a machine guns might break the morale of the revolters. We'll try it. As the Warden finished, the trucks bearing the guardsmen of Battery b rumbled over the cobblestones outside his office, and Captain Keef hurried from the conference room with Chief Shurf and gave orders for mounting the machine guns. Tear out that west wall with a charge of dynamite. Someone remaining in the conference room suggested a great idea. Warden Crawford agreed, But who'll carry the dynamite?

46:25 Speaker 2: It'll take one hundred pounds to tear out the wall. Who will cross the fifty yards of no man's land between Westgate and Cell House three with one hundred pounds of dynamite in his arms? No, men, it can't be done. A fall, a carefully aimed convict bullet, the slightest friction might set the dynamite off. And then the Warden covered his eyes as if to shut out a ghastly sight. Terrible, horrible, a man blown to bits, the warden exclaimed, and dismissed the idea. His advisers were silent, and after a few minutes, someone of the group disputed the warren.

46:57 Speaker 2: Not so terrible, Jeane, A voice said, not so horrible for a man prepared to meet his God, a man without family. I'll take it in and God grant that I may succeed. But if I don't, may a merciful Savior have mercy on me. The speaker Rose Warden Crawford, recognized the voice the minute the man spoke, but he could not believe his ears, And then in an instant he knew his gravest fears were confirmed. There before him were the moving lips, the smiling, good natured Irish face, the Roman collar showing white around the speaker's neck.

47:31 Speaker 2: Father Patrick O'Neill, it was, who volunteered to carry the dynamite into the prison yard and plant it beneath the sturdy stone wall of Cell House three, Father Pat, Why you can't do that, the warden exclaimed, in horror. And why not? I'm able bodied, The weight of it'd be nothing, and the bullets I won't be touched. I'm single and the only man qualified for the mission. I'll go. The door to the Warden's office swung open, and a guard rushed in. He was excited, out of breath, some one else's he stuttered again.

48:01 Speaker 2: Warden Crawford hurried to the window from which he had watched Hamlin advance from Cellhouse three. The sun was gradually slipping down behind the hills, and he was conscious that it would soon be sundown, the hour of the threatened slaughter of the fourteen guards remaining in the convict's clutches, he saw a man stumble through the smoke clouds, and he noted that Selhouse's one and two were now burning, the flames already consuming the roofs. Joe Shillow, the warden exclaimed, as he recognized the advancing figure.

48:31 Speaker 2: Now we'll get some real information. Guards opened a double set of barred doors to admit Shillo to the administration building, and he hurried into the Warden's office. As he closed the door, two shots sounded in the direction of Cellhouse three. God, he groaned, he did it. There's two more dead, Old Jack Eels, the hangman and Bob Wiggins. What do you mean, Shillo, Explain yourself, the warden demanded, and the liberated guard proceeded with his story. They told me, if I didn't come back with an answer.

48:59 Speaker 2: They'd kill Eels and Wiggins. They saw me come inside and they figured I wouldn't come back. Warden. There's four dead men in there now. They want those autos. Four dead. The warden questioned, yes, four Eels and Wiggins, if they just killed him and Irwin and RP. Brown. He shot Brown after Hanlan came back with your answer of no compromise. Maybe you heard the shot. He called Brown out of the cell and shot him through the head. That's for Pardu, he said, who said? Crawford interrupted, Oh, I thought you knew.

49:30 Speaker 2: I mean Daniels. He's the leader with Pardu. But Pardu is wounded. He's lying there on a bunk in his cell. Hit pretty bad. Daniels killed Shorty Irwin as he came down the ladder from the crow's nest, and Pardue snatched up his gunstock and keys, climbed up the crow's nest and got the rifle barrel. Then he had a rifle, but Pardue didn't use it long. Someone shot him from one of the towers. Goodwin, I suppose, Daniels says, Pardue got Goodwin. Is that so? The warden nodded and urged Shillo to continue what happened in the mess hall.

49:58 Speaker 2: He asked, I was alone in Warden Green's office next to the mess hall at lunch time. I heard a shot. That was after the cons had marched out. I went to investigate, and Daniels and Pardu were standing over Shorty. They covered me. I begged him not to let Shorty die like a dog and to allow me to get to him. Go ahead, Daniels said, but no tricks. He pressed his revolver against me. Don't you believe I'd kill you, Joey asked. I nodded, and he said there may be some yellow guys in this, but I'm not I'll kill you in a minute.

50:25 Speaker 2: And I said I believed him, and he let me go to Shorty. He was dying. Joey said, it's all off with me. Tell my wife I'd died fighting, and put something under my head and take off my shoes. Then he gasped he was dead. The guard paused in his recital to urge the warden to immediate concerted action to quell the riot and rescue the guards, emphasizing that the convicts were desperate and the slaughter of their prisoners was imminent unless their release was effected before sundown. We got to know what we're up against.

50:52 Speaker 2: Joe, tell us what you saw and heard, and try to remember how many weapons you saw on what talk you heard about him, the warden informed him. Then we can hand the situation intelligently. So far, we're groping in the dark. Well, Jollo continued, As I was leaning over Shorty just before he died, Pardue ran into the mess hall door. I heard two shots, one near and one far off. They seemed to come together. Pardue fell out into the yard and Daniels said he had been hit. He told me to get his body and carry it to sell House three.

51:20 Speaker 2: But when I got to the door, four convicts and guard uniforms were carrying him away. Daniels made four more cons also rigged out in guard uniforms, Carrie Shorty's body into cell house three. All the captive guards were herded into number three cell block and locked down in the cells. Daniels was sore at brown. Now, Joe, how many guns? Who has them? And who are the ones assisting Daniels? The warden prompted, hmm, let me see red majors and ah Davis had guns and they were doing what Daniels told him.

51:48 Speaker 2: Majors also had a butcher knife, and Leo mcghenty had a gun. Daniels gave it to him. That was before he accused mcghenty of spoiling his play by starting the fire. Daniels didn't want the fire, had others. Then there was the rifle, and I heard someone talk of other guns. But I don't know who has them. Any idea where they got the guns? No, but I think they had them hidden in Pardue's cell. There are two holes drilled through the cement veneer over a ventilator shaft. The holes are near the bottom of the shaft.

52:15 Speaker 2: Guns could have been dropped into the ventilator through an opening at the top. They could also hide ammunition there. How about ammunition? How much have they got? Their pockets are bulging with it. Daniels bragged about the amount they have, but didn't specify what it is. As Shiloh concluded his narrative in the Warden's office, same messenger raced towards it from the West Gate, three city blocks distant. Out of breath, he burst into the office, his eyes dancing with excitement, his lips quivering two bodies, the messenger managed to blurt out as the surprise group leaped to their feet and gathered around him.

52:49 Speaker 2: Westgate, two bodies. Convicts just threw them into the yard. Two bodies see them from the west gate, the messenger exclaimed, jumbling his words in his eagerness to get the story. Told, Oh, yeah, yes, I forgot Schiloh interposed. Daniels said he'd kill Eccles and Wiggins and throw their bodies out of Cellhouse three if I didn't come back with an answer. These bodies explained the two shots we heard when I came here. They've killed Eccles and Wiggins. The devils, exclaimed Father O'Neil, and Warden Crawford, pacing the floor in thought, pressed an electric switch, flooding his office with light.

53:20 Speaker 2: The sudden brightness seemed to arouse him from his reverie. He turned and looked out of his office window, noting the long shadows cast by the sun as it dropped lower behind the hills. Turning to Father O'Neil, he said, it's sundown. Father Pat, I guess you'll have to go inside the walls with dynamite. I am ready. Warden was the priest's reply as he touched a match to his half smoked cigar. The next two hours was a period of intense activity. Captain Keith and the men of Battery B labored cautiously but speedily mounting the machine guns on the west wall.

53:52 Speaker 2: This work was undertaken with due consideration of possible sniping by the convicts and cellhouse three. Chief of Police are f Reed of Denver and Captain Frank Campbell, an ex gunner of the United States Navy, and the pistol marksmen of the Denver Police Department ordered an armored car rushed to the penitentiary from Denver. The field piece, already aboard a truck an en route from the Pueblo Armory of the National Guard, would arrive soon. A tank was being hurried by truck from the National Guard rifle range at Golden near Denver.

54:22 Speaker 2: Deputy Warden Billy Green had procured the dynamite which Father O'Neil was to carry inside from the prison. Arsenal electricians were hurrying to complete battery connections to explode the powder. An attacking crew under the leadership of Chief Sherry was organized and supplied with tear bombs. On the hillsides back of the north wall. Search lights were installed to illuminate the prison grounds when the flames of the burning buildings died down. The convicts had put the electric lighting system in the cellhouses out of commission.

54:50 Speaker 2: By eight o'clock, the preparations for the attack were almost complete. No messenger had come out of Cellhouse three since Shillo carried Daniel's ultimatum to the warden just before sundown, and no more shots had been heard inside the prison enclosures since Echoes and Wiggins were killed. The bodies of the two guards still lay where the convicts had tossed them. They could be seen dimly from West Gate in the light reflected by the flames shooting skyward from the burning cell houses. The chapel and the mess hall were in ruins.

55:18 Speaker 2: Nothing remained of them but glowing embers and blackened walls. Smoke clouds hung over the prison like a fog. Nine o'clock struck in a nearby church tower. When Captain Keith reported he was ready to lay down his first barrage on the convicts stronghold, he received his orders to rake the corridors with lead firing through the only openings. The steel barred windows. Battery bee gunners maneuvered their weapons into position and were about to open fire when a sharp eyed watcher saw a figure moving about near the west wall of Cell House three.

55:48 Speaker 2: The fire was withheld as the figure groped about in the semi darkness, stooped over one of the bodies, lifted it from the ground, and with the burden in his arms, staggered across the fifty yards of no man's Land toward West Gate. Warden Crawford waited at the gate to receive what he knew would be another demand from the convicts, a repetition of their previous ultimatums. Ten feet from Westgate, to figure with the gruesome burdens stopped. I'm Joe Pease a guard, The man said, I've come out with a message for the Warden, and I hold in my arms the body of Bob Wiggins.

56:21 Speaker 2: He's dead, all right. Pease come up to the gate and we'll take poor Wiggins off your hands. This is the warden speaking. Peas advanced, handed the body of his comrade to a group gathered around Crawford and turned to his superior warden. They want those automobiles, Daniels says, if you don't do what he says pretty damn quick, he's just gonna kill every guard that's left. You just called John McClelland and Charlie Sheppard out of the cells. He told me he'd kill him if I didn't come back quick with an answer.

56:47 Speaker 2: You two screws better start praying, you told him, And to the other guys, he said, the rest of you guys go one at a time. If we don't get what we want, peas said the warden, that'll be enough for now. You go back and tell Daniels. I'll go give him my final answer in five minutes. Tell him to send you back for it, and pease. There'll be some firing from the west wall after you get out of range. The minute it starts, race for the gate, we'll have it open, remember five minutes. Cheered by the thought that he and possibly the other guards might soon be liberated from the terror tier in which he had been held captive for nearly nine hours, the guards started back to sell House three.

57:23 Speaker 2: With a smile on his face. He disappeared inside. In five minutes, he was advancing toward West Gate. Fifteen feet away. He stopped Warden Crawford in an undertone, urged him to come forward. Pease gave no sign that he heard, and the warden, guessing the convicts, suspected a plan to liberate the guard, and had ordered him to receive the message on the spot where he now stood, sent instructions to the machine gunners on the west wall to start firing, but to aim high. He reasoned the attack would divert convict attention from Peas and drive the ringleaders to cover.

57:53 Speaker 2: He guessed correctly. As the first crack of the machine gun fire rent the night air and bullets struck stone wall and steel bars with a peculiar sounding pin, Peas stood as if in a daze. Then suddenly he seemed to remember the instructions the warden had given him. He dashed toward the west gate. As he neared the portal, bullets from Cell House three kicked up the dust at his feet or spent themselves harmlessly against the prison ramparts. Peas gave them no heed. In a matter of minutes which seemed like hours to the agonized watchers, the gate swung open and Peas was out.

58:26 Speaker 2: I'm the luckiest man in the world, but I can't smile, he told the warden. They've killed five, he continued, in response to a question by the warden. Brown's lying in there near the cell house dead. You know about Wiggins. He's dead, isn't he. They called Jack Ecchoes out of a cell where they held him captive with some of the other boys, and told him to say his prayers. Then they shot him a bullet through the head. Shorty, Irwin's in there dead, so is Walter Rinker. Rinker dead, the warden exclaimed, and Peas nodded.

58:55 Speaker 2: Then he went on. Daniels told me when I went back just now that you better show some speed with those autos or he'd pump off every guard that's left and there. The warden made no comment, but he asked what guards were alive when you came out the last time. Shephard McClellan, E. J. Hollister, F. F. Osborne, Marvin Duncan, Lawrence Roke O a Earl, and Jack Shay Pease replied, pausing after naming each man to recollect another. Is Pardue alive? Just alive? He's suffering the tortures a hell and Daniels's promise to'll kill him, but only as a last resort.

59:29 Speaker 2: They figure, you'll supply those autos. Never the warden shouted, and at his signal, the machine guns, which were silent during the interview with Peas, resumed their attack. The hilltops echoed with the whine of bullets. The effect of the machine gun fire on the convict morale was disappointing. It was expected to drive them into the open, but when none showed themselves in the yard back of the cellhouse, Captain Keef again gave an order to cease firing. There was a short conference with the warden.

59:57 Speaker 2: The machine gunners scaled the ladder to the top of the west wall to again man their guns, and presently, out of the darkness, two men appeared and hurried towards Westgate. One of them was carrying a burden, a heavy one. In a moment, west gates swung open. The two men passed inside the prison enclosure, and the machine guns poured a leaden stream toward the convicts. Stronghold and Father O'Neill advanced toward the west wall of Cell House three, hugging a burden of one hundred pounds of dynamite to his breast.

1:00:24 Speaker 2: Beside him dragging two strands of wire attached to the percussion. Caps was an old miner. The machine guns kept up an incessant fire. Particles of lead shattering on the stone walls and bars of the cell house showered the priest and his escort, and with only half the distance to go before planting the dynamite against the cell house wall and attaching the electrical connections which would set it off, the convict leaders, safely concealed from the machine gun led, caught sight of the advancing figures.

1:00:51 Speaker 2: They opened fire. Their bullets whined above the heads of the priest and his companion were struck harmlessly in the dust at their feet. Never flinching, they advanced until nearing the wall. They were protected from the convict's bullets, but exposed to the machine gun barrage. Their danger was greater. Now would they complete the task they had appointed for themselves. Those who watch doubted that they could succeed. They saw Father O'Neill place the burden against the wall, saw him attach the wires.

1:01:18 Speaker 2: They saw all this dimly in the faint illumination that came down from the hillside where the searchlights were playing. And then, after what seemed like an age, they saw the figures of the priest and the old miner racing back towards Westgate, again under fire of the convicts. The deed was done. Now to set off the dynamite. In a moment they would know the outcome. Would the blast tear out the entire facade, Would it expose the cell house and its corridors to the machine gun fire as they thought it would.

1:01:44 Speaker 2: A man at a plunger switch put all of his power into the effort. There was a roar. It echoed from one mountain top and then another. The earth quivered glass fell in showers. The blackened walls of the burning and burned buildings rocked on their foundations. Frightened convy screamed in terror. The machine guns kept up their incessant rat tat tete tete tete, adding to the din and the confusion, and the dancing figure of militia Man Maurice Keating appeared on the north wall, hurling chlorine bombs, but the west wall of Cell House three stood solid and unharmed.

1:02:17 Speaker 2: The only visible result from the explosion of one hundred pounds of dynamite was an immense hole in the earthen floor of the prison enclosure. The chlorine bombs exploding in and near the cell house sent half a dozen convicts, one of them wounded, scurrying toward the administration building, their hands raised in token of surrender. Warden Crawford was chagrined at the failure of the dynamite charged to open a hole in the cell house. He conferred with his advisers. The armored car had arrived from Denver.

1:02:45 Speaker 2: It was sent into the prison yard with six armed men behind its armor plated walls. It toppled into the hole, gouged by the dynamite, and rolled over on its side, holding its occupant's temporary prisoners. Geez so. The only effect of the dynamite blast was to crippled the armored car they'd ordered. As soon as it arrived. Dang, a large field piece that's an army artillery gun, was rolled into position at Westgate when guardsmen decided shells would open a pathway for bullets into the cell house interior.

1:03:14 Speaker 2: As these preparations were being made, the revolt was stretching into its thirteenth hour. The machine guns, which had poured eight thousand rounds into the cell house without result, now we're silent. As their crews awaited additional ammunition, and as they waited, a sharp eyed guardsman discerned a figure slipping through the cell house door another messenger. As the man approached west gate, two shots rang out in the cell house. The man was near enough now for those outside to see he was a guard.

1:03:42 Speaker 2: I'm Jack Shay, he announced, with a message for the warden. The west gate was opened and the guard came out face to face with the warden. He said those two shots were the end of Shepherd and McClelland Daniels said. If you don't do something, he's going to kill all the guards that's left. There's five of them, Osborne, Hollister, broke or Earl and Duncan. I think Daniels shot Duncan during that bombardment, but the bullet didn't kill him. He was alive when I left. He won't kill Earl because of a favor Earl once did for one of the leaders, but the others are doomed.

1:04:12 Speaker 2: Daniels used me to take out what he said was his last warning. Watches showed four o'clock when Shay finished his story. In a little more than an hour, it would be daylight. Preparations for a renewal of the attack on Cell House three moved apace. A silence broken only by the shuffling of feet settled over the prison. All of a sudden a shot rang out inside a pause, and then another, followed, after an interval by a third, then two more. Men outside, busy with the task of preparing engines of destruction for what all believed would be the final bombardment, at daylight stopped, they found themselves naming names and counting them off on their fingers as each report sounded hollister, They counted and waited, and then Osbourne Duncan broke four guards slaughtered, four more added to the list of dead.

1:05:00 Speaker 2: So Daniels had kept his word to Earl, but he had sent another bullet into the body of the wounded Duncan. Thus, men speculated, and then a fifth shot. That was Earl Daniels hadn't kept his word after all. A sixth shot and a seventh crashed inside. What did they mean? They were easily explained, at least to the satisfaction of the men who milled about Westgate. One had sent Pardu through the gates of eternity, hadn't Daniels promised to kill him? Well? He'd kept his word to his pal, and the seventh shot well for himself.

1:05:30 Speaker 2: Of course, the revolt was over, and at what a cost. Someone remembered Majors and Davis. Suppose the sixth and seventh shot had not dispatched Daniels and Pardu, but Majors and Davis Instean, or perhaps two other convicts, Albert Morgaridge, for instance, who had defied Daniels, and Leo mcgenty, who fired the chapel and mess hall against Daniel's wishes. If this surmise was correct, the revolt was not over. Men resumed their preparations for the daylight attack, now a half an hour off. Thus engaged, none noticed two figures steal cautiously from Sellhouse three and stagger across the prison yard to West Gate.

1:06:06 Speaker 2: A weak voice crying for help and medical assistance was the first warning of their presence at the barred portal. For God's sake, let us out get a doctor, one man pleaded. Guardsmen patrolling the area whirled on their heels, leveled their rifles and advanced cautiously against the rays of the spotlight. They saw two figures clinging to the bars of the west gate who are you A militia man, challenged Hollister. Came the weak reply, Osborne said, the other sinking to his knees. Warden Crawford elbowed through the group now congregated at Westgate.

1:06:38 Speaker 2: He looked closely at the two men, turning a flashlight on their faces, but he could tell nothing. They were smeared with blood. Someone wiped the blood away with a damp cloth, and the warden recognized the guards. Let him out, he ordered. Osborne was unconscious when they carried him out, but Hollister managed to gasp out a message before he sank into a coma. All inside, he said. Soon there was another summons to Westgate. Two more men stood there. Open them up, boys, and let us out. One demanded again, the challenge of the guardsmen, who are you?

1:07:12 Speaker 2: Roke and Earl? Came the cheery reply. Warden Crawford stepped up to the gate. He peered at the men's faces, now fairly visible in the first streaks of dawn. You're alive, he gasped, very much, Warden. But there's plenty of dead men inside, Earl said. Then Roke spoke, and we'd have been among them, but we fooled Daniels played dead ourselves for hours an eternity, it seemed. We lay in the cells where Daniels put us, dead men all around us, the place sloppy with blood. Whow dead men in blood? A nightmare?

1:07:41 Speaker 2: Well, I ever forget it. It hurt to breathe. I lay there so long, scarcely breathing at all, afraid to And the cramps in my legs, God, I heard all over, hurt from lying there on that cold cement floor, never daring to move. Daylight was coming fast as Rogue finished the scene on which the sun rose was in any respects a duplication of that scene in Colorado Avenue at Colorado Springs two years before, when Chief of Police Harper snapped the bracelets on Danny Daniels and sent him away under guard to the El Paso County Jail and eventually here to the prison.

1:08:14 Speaker 2: Surveying it in the early morning light, one saw again a scene of devastation chargeable to Danny Daniels. Blackened walls, smoking imbers, shattered windows, bulletscarred buildings, and the great hole gouged in the earth by the dynamite Father O'Neil had carried in the armored car still lay on its side in the hole, and Captain Frank Campbell, Detective Arthur Walker of Denver, and four other men forgotten almost since they toppled into the chasm, crawled from their prison, just as a line of convicts, hands above their heads, filed out of Cellhouse three.

1:08:46 Speaker 2: The riot was indeed over now to count the cost Warden Crawford led the way inside. What a sight, the floors slicked with blood and dead cons and guards everywhere, dead men in bloody piles, and singly off. There Morgaridge a bullet in his back, lying alone where Daniels had dropped him. He gave his life in defiance of Daniel's reign of terror. And there the body of Daniels, a pistol clutched in his hand, and beneath him Major's and Davis shot through the head. The story was plain enough. They were the last to go.

1:09:17 Speaker 2: Daniels dispatched them, Davis first, perhaps, then Major's and his last bullet for himself, had he kept his word to Pardue. They found him in his bunk, a shot through the groin, and that was Goodwin's bullet. Another in his head that was Daniels again, Daniels had kept his word, and the guards. They were there too. Ecchels, the veteran hangman dead inside a cell. The door was ajar. Duncan's body was inside a locked cell. The key was gone, and the detail of the rescue corps labored with a blow torch to reach him.

1:09:48 Speaker 2: Shorty Irwin was there too, lying close to Duncan, and so was Rinker and Shepherd and mc clellan, all dead. Brown's body was inside where it had been tossed with wiggins corpse. The blowtorch cut through the last bar of steel. The cell door was flung back, and the rescue squad filed in their flashlights playing on the ashen faces of the dead. Duncan blinked a slight movement of the eyelid. There's life in him, someone shouted, noting the quiver of the eyelid. Down on their knees and the blood and the litter men examined him.

1:10:20 Speaker 2: He was whole, not a bullet in his body, but scared almost to death. A stretcher was hastily summoned the cons He screamed, almost insane with terror as they lifted him to the stretcher, and then he fell back limp fighting convicts figments of his imagination. They hurried him to the hospital, but the other guards they were dead, every man shot through the head. The rescuers counted them. There were six. With Wiggins, whose body was carried out, there was seven, and later, though they didn't know it, there would be eight.

1:10:51 Speaker 2: Goodwin was doomed. Eight guards and five convicts. Damn it. Warden Crawford groaned as he turned again to look the corpse of the man responsible. A big black cat laughed at the blood congealed on the ashen face of Danny Daniels, and his bony fist still clutched a cheap six shooter. There he lay on the cold prison floor, dead in a charnel house of his own creation. Hold on, A big black cat was licking the blood off of Danny Daniel's face. Where did the cat come from? I'm reminded of season four of Stranger Things no spoilers here, when Jason says, how do you expect to stop the devil if you don't believe he's real?

1:11:33 Speaker 2: Feel like, that's a supernatural black cat, don't you? I mean, what's a cat doing calmly hanging out with all that gunfire and bombs going off. My goodness, So there Daniels lay, providing a congealed blood meal for a giant black cat, there on the cold prison floor, dead in a charnel house of his own creation. He had died fighting, as indicated by the prison cell tear, drenched in blood, scarred by bullets, shaken by fire and dynamite, and blackened by smoke. Someone collected the weapons used to hold off one thousand men.

1:12:07 Speaker 2: There were only four, the rifle from the crow's nest, and three six shooters. Two of them were rusty, one tough bird. Warden Crawford remarked and stepped across the threshold into the prison yard. Smoke still rose in curling wisps from the ruin of the adjoining cellhouses, the chapel and the mess hall, in which also lay the ashes of the cremated hopes of rebel Danny and his pals. So can I just say really quickly that it seems as though the warden handled this terribly. They had four guns, four so if he'd had the courage to rush the cell block, a lot of lives could have been saved.

1:12:46 Speaker 2: Now, granted, hindsight is twenty twenty. But also remember that they had to smuggle all the weapons into prison. So if you think about it logically, how many guns could the convicts possibly have? Four seems like a pretty good yes, And for it was the only one with the courage to be truly proactive was the Irish priest. And somehow his hundred pounds of dynamite had very little effect except to cripple the armored car. But the dynamiting was a good idea, and the warden almost didn't want anyone to do that either.

1:13:19 Speaker 2: It was only at the priest's insistence that he allowed it. If only he had taken the advice of the experts and proactively rushed the compound, who knows, but it seems like a lot of lives could have been saved, all right enough, editorializing back to the story, it remained for one of the convicts to solve the mystery of the rebel's death. At about four o'clock in the morning, said a terror numbed convict who stood next to the cell in which Danny Daniels had snuffed out the lives of his compatriots and his own.

1:13:48 Speaker 2: Danny, who had been walking up and down the corridor in cell House number three, called Red Riley and A. H. Davis to him in the cell where Jimmy Pardu lay wounded boys. He told him we're fight in a losing battle. What'll we do? Pardue spoke up and said, Danny, end it with me before the screws get me. Davis and Riley agreed. The two stood up. Daniels went into the cell, shot Purdue in the head, then shot Davis and Riley in succession. They fell upon each other and lay in a bloody pile. Then Daniels went outside the cell and walked up and down for a minute and then said, well, my pals are gone, the screws are all dead.

1:14:27 Speaker 2: I'll end it. He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. And that is the terrible ending to the epic and horrible true story Carnage at Canyon City. This story ends in suicide, which is always tragic. No matter who takes their own life, all life is precious. Even a hardened murderer like Danny Daniels had people who loved him. He had a wife and a child in Oklahoma. Anyone who goes, and especially those who take their own lives, will always be mourned and by those who love them, and so I wanted to use these tragic events as an opportunity to remind you of the relatively new three digit number that's available.

1:15:11 Speaker 2: It's nine to eight eight and you can call it to receive suicidal, substance use or mental health crisis related support twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Never forget that people care about you. If you need somebody to talk to, acutely call the number. If you'd just like to share, feel free to reach out to the show. I'm here for you too again. That's Kindamurdery at gmail dot com or at kind of Murdery on social media. That was an action packed story, but boy a tragic one. Huh. Time to sign off.

1:15:42 Speaker 2: I guess look forward to seeing you next week. We'll be dropping a new episode on Thursday. Thank you so much for being here and choosing to spend your time with me. I'm Zevan Odelberg and this has been kind of Murdery.

1:15:59 Speaker 1: You like the show, please subscribe, review and tell your friends. You can find us on social media at Kinamurdery or email at Kinomurdery at gmail dot com