A sprained ankle, a high school boy and the prompt action of penitentiary authorities yesterday spelled the doom of Wade Ballew’s hopes of freedom and last night Ballew, who early Friday morning made his third attempt to escape from the state prison, was again behind penitentiary bars.
Ballew, after sawing off his shackles and cutting off the steel door of his cell in the old building at the penitentiary, made his getaway early Friday morning, sealing the penitentiary early Friday morning, scaling the penitentiary wall with with a ladder and then letting himself donw on the outside by means of a blanket. The blanket, taken from his abandoned cell, broke during his descent and Ballew’s ankle was sprained by the fall.
This was Ballew’s third fruitless effort at escape singe June 16, 1921, when he first began the serving of his six-year sentence for manslaughter. Last May he was caught after he had sawed all the bars from his cell window and in October he was discovered in the act of trying to leave through a window of the chair factory, the bars of which had been cut.
He was convicted of manslaughter in the killing of the chief of police of Easley and since his incarceration in the penitentiary, has spent nearly a third of his time in shackles or stripes for misbehavior.
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