Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
D14021-1
Date(s)
- 1943-01-28 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
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Charles Washington Clark, center, a fugitive from an Oklahoma Penitentiary since 1916, walked out of the Tacoma Courthouse a free man on January 28, 1943. Earlier he had been taken from his cell at the city jail, his home for the past 12 days, and escorted to the Courthouse by Police Chief Tom Ross, right, to be present for a writ of habeas corpus. When Mr. Clark went to work at the Seattle-Tacoma Shipyard, fingerprints taken showed him to be a fugitive. Twenty eight years prior, while employed on a farm, he drank too much one evening and rode home on his employer's horse without his permission. He was sentenced to 6 years for horse stealing. While incarcerated on a prison farm, he was made a trustee. After two years, overcome with homesickness for his wife and two babies, he just walked away. The 54 year old Clark had lived with his family in Tacoma for 23 years and raised 6 children. Presiding Judge E.F. Freeman decided Clark was being held with due process, no warrant had ever appeared from Oklahoma, and ordered him released from custody. The man on the left is believed to be Public Safety Commissioner Einar Langseth, who would be up against impeachment charges for misconduct in a few months. (T.Times 1/29/1943, pg. 1)
Clark, Charles W.; Ross, Tom; Tacoma Police Department (Tacoma); Fugitives from justice;