6 Escape from Scioto Jail

Article taken from The Mansfield News Journal, August 3, 1956

Portsmouth, O.,

Six prisoners pulled a daring escape from the supposedly escape-proof Scioto county jail sometime in the night by swinging out a fourth floor window to the unbarred third floor.

They broke up a wooden bench and used the pieces to pry apart the bars of a cell window, then slid down to the third floor level on a rope fashioned from a mattress cover.

A smashed third floor window showed where they swung back into the building and made their way unhindered down the stairs to the street. The break was discovered at breakfast time. A full scale manhunt was launched immediately but no trace of the missing six could be turned up in the first few hours of searching.

All but one of the escapees was in jail on charges of breaking and entering. They are Jack R. Shadd, 22, of Sciotoville; Vaughn Bowling, 20, of Haverhill; Emerson Giles, 25, of Ironton; John A. Skew, 18, of Slab Run; and James Donald Griggs 37, of Portsmouth. The sixth was Fred Shortridge, 30, held on a charge of the near fatal beating and robbery of an 83 year-old farmer.