Prisons are designed to keep the unlawful
detained. They are built to hold the most cunning criminals, offering them no
chance of freedom. But in every cell designed to constrain, is an opportunity for escape.
This week, the Vancouver Escape Blog is
travelling back to the Eighteenth Century for a look at one of England's most
famous escape artists: Jack Sheppard. Shepard was a small-time criminal who
hated confinement. He escaped from prison a total of four times, five if you
count the time he broke into a low security facility to free his wife.
Shepard's first breakout was from a temporary
holding cell at St. Gile's Roundhouse. It took the young criminal just three
hours to free himself after being confined. His first escape went without a
hitch and utilized two methods that would become his MO for future flights.
First, instead of looking to the heavens in
defeat, Shepard gazed at the ceiling for inspiration. He realized that the
timber ceiling was far weaker than the iron bars on the windows. After making a
considerable amount of noise, Sheppard smashed his way skyward, finding himself
on the roof of the building. He then used his bed sheets to repel down the side
of the Roundhouse, a technique that he would use for a number of descents in
future escapes.
Once on the ground, Sheppard joined the crowd
of onlookers who had come to investigate the sounds of demolition. He pointed
at the roof to distract their gaze from the obvious chains around his ankles.
Once their eyes were diverted, he made his way through the gawkers and
hightailed it out of there.
Freedom lasted less than a month, before
authorities again captured the unlucky criminal. This time he was with his
lady, who was also taken in for aiding and abetting. The couple was detained
together in the same cell, a romantic gesture, but one the guards would soon
regret. Within days, the couple had filed through their hand constraints. They
removed a bar from a window and used their bed sheet to climb down to the
ground floor. Once in the yard, they were faced with a 22 foot-tall gate. No
one knows how, but Sheppard managed to get himself and his rather large wife
over the wall before the authorities were alerted. And a legend was born.
With notoriety, came a few haters from the
underworld. A competing crime baron sold him out and Sheppard was once again
arrested and sent back to prison. He was sentenced to death, but before his
hanging, his cunning wife came to visit one last time. Even before her arrival,
Sheppard had loosened the bar to the visiting window. Once his lady was in the
adjacent room, she distracted the guards while Sheppard squeezed himself out of
the viewing window. With women's clothes, brought by his wife, Sheppard dressed
in drag to escape.
Again, freedom was short-lived and within a
week Sheppard was arrested and sent back to prison. After his captors twice
recovered filing objects from his cell, Sheppard was transferred to the
'Castle' room, considered the most secure cell in Britain. He was strapped with
leg irons and chained to metal staples in the floor. He bragged to his jailers
that his locks could be easily picked and the guards doubled his constraints.
A prison riot provided a distraction for his
fourth and final escape. After picking the locks on his chains, Sheppard crawled
up the chimney, removing a steel bar that blocked his way. Arriving in the room
above, he then broke through six steel doors, finally reaching the prison
chapel. From here he climbed to the roof, but was met with a 60-foot drop. With
few alternatives, Sheppard retreated back the way he came, down the chimney and
back to his cell, where he retrieved his bed sheets. With his repel gear in
hand, Sheppard returned to the prison roof and made his way to the roof of an
adjacent house. Without waking the occupants, Sheppard broke into the building
and slipped down the stairs and out into the night.
But once a criminal, always a criminal and
within a week he was again back to his plundering ways. He robbed a pawnshop
and made off with all the accoutrements of a man-about-town. With a wig, a
black silk suit, multiple rings and a silver sword, Sheppard lived his last few
days of freedom drinking and womanizing, before being captured, yet again.
Taking no chances, the courts quickly sentenced
him to death. He was chained to 300 pounds of weights and left under permanent
watch. Two weeks after his final capture, Sheppard was escorted to the gallows.
Before leaving the cell, a prison guard discovered a pen-knife; Sheppard's
final escape was thwarted. He died after a 15-minute dangle from the hangman's
noose. His body was crushed by on-lookers as the mob surged forward after his
limp corpse was cut free.
Sheppard became a hero to the people, inciting art, songs and dramas
that recounted his daring escapes. A poor criminal, but a master of flight,
Jack Sheppard is the first escape artist to be honoured in the Krakit Breakout
Vault of Fame.
