Wilmington, July 22—Marsden Coleman and Austin Garrison, young women men of the city and claimed as prisoners by Pender county, were jailed at the stockade yesterday after they were alleged to have stolen a state highway commission automobile and wrecked it, jimmied a gas tank several miles from the city, attempted to burglarize a store and escaped handcuffed from Burgaw’s temporary mail following their arrest in that town upon the request of the man whose store they are alleged to have tried to enter. The boys were brought here during the day and locked up for safe keeping to the fact that Pender is without a jail.
According to information available at headquarters yesterday, a new Dodge touring car, owned by the state highway commission and being used by Engineer Morson, was stolen from the spot where it had been parked near his apartment either late Sunday night or early Monday morning. He reported the theft of the car at headquarters early in the day only to return later and advise that one of his men had located it in a ditch a short distance this side of Burgaw. Police requested that he report back after investigating in order that they might close their records, and this is the story the highway worker who located the car later gave Lieut. Jimmy Moore.
Coleman and Garrison were first seen by the storekeeper between this city and Burgaw, after he had been awakened by the noise of an attempted break in at his place. He was sleeping in the store and said the boys were using a crow bar in their efforts to open a window. He came to the door and asked what was wanted. They said they wanted to buy gas.
“But you don’t have to break in to buy guess,” he was quoted as saying. “Wait a minute and I will wait on you.”
When he turned back, supposedly to get his keys, he heard the noise of the car departing hurriedly. A few minutes later he learned that his gas tank had been jimmied.
Shortly afterwards he hailed a passing car and after explaining the situation to the driver entered the car and started in pursuit of the speeding Dodge. Up the road a distance he found the car ditched, the top torn off, wind-shield smashed and the frame bent and twisted and two of the doors gone. They continued on to Burgaw and he says he recognized Coleman and Garrison. Their arrest followed.
After being given a preliminary hearing, they were handcuffed together and placed in an empty house, the county being without a jail at present. Shortly afterwards the boys, still handcuffed together, escaped from the building and made off. A posse was formed and search instituted. They were found asleep in the woods with the handcuffs still on. Shortly afterward they were brought here and lodged in jail at the stockade.
The mistreated Dodge was later pulled out of the ditch and limped gamely into the city on her own power.
From the front page of the Goldsboro News, Wednesday, July 23, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064755/1924-07-23/ed-1/seq-1/#words=JULY+23.+1924
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