Raleigh, Aug. 25—Tomato wine, made by convicts in the Polk farm prison camp near Raleigh, evidently brought good luck to two convicted murders who made their escape from the farm following their incarceration for making the wine and getting “high” in the ensuing celebration. Their whereabouts have not yet been discovered. This swells the number of convicts now enjoying “vacations” to five, four of them convicted murderers.
After having stolen a quantity of tomatoes from which they made some extremely potent tomato wine, George Jackson, negro, serving from 20 to 30 years from Swain County for murder, with a reputation for being a “bad n-----,” and Ikey McMillan, also colored, serving from 20 to 30 years for murder from Guilford County, proceeded to stage a “party” at which they got rather highly “lit.” Their fuel was confiscated by Captain Jesse Hilliar, in charge of the farm, and Jackson and McMillan were incarcerated in two dark cells and supplied only with bread and water, the customary punishment for those who break the prison rules.
But there evidently were others in the tomato wine plot who sympathized with the two miscreants, including the prison blacksmith. So while the others were at supper, the blacksmith shop was entered and a pair of heavy nippers secured, with which the locks were clipped from the two solitary cells. In a few minutes the cells were empty and Jackson and McMillan had taken to the woods before their disappearance had been discovered.
Their escape had been kept quiet until this morning, in the hope that they would be recaptured, but it is now believed it may be some time before they are found.
This is the second escape in a little mor than a week, as last week three negro convicts, all long termers, escaped from the prison camp at a quarry near Durham. None has been recaptured as yet.
From the front page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-08-25/ed-1/seq-1/
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