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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 1959)
Prisoner Identified by Prints On Application for Relief Funds By ERIC WENTWORTH . Mail Tribune Staff wriier Glenn Landis has worked with his bands for most of his 64 years. Today he was fin a jail cell, betrayed by Mi is fingerprints. L a n d i s convicted mur derer and model citizen--has gone by the name of Jessie Glenn Sandoval since the Sat urday afternoon in 1935 when be walked away from an honor prison farm in Ohio and started west. He had been serving a life sentence. ; "I got sick of staying there and not having any hope," he recalled in the Jackson coun- ty jail Friday afternoon. After his escape from the prison farm, Landis said, he had many jobs cabinet ma ker, barber, garage mechanic, logger, woodcutter, farm hand, ranch hand, railroad section hand, trapper, shep herd. Town Marshal He laid he once was town marshal of tiny Juntura in eastern Oregon, and later was postmaster in Crane, another small Oregon town. - Since coming to the Rogue valley in 1948, he has worked for the city of Medford sev eral summers as custodian and night watchman at the . Hawthorne park swimming pool. It was poor health, hamper ing his chances for a job, which led to the discovery of Landis's double life. Several, years ago, he suf fered a stroke which- left him spechless for a 'fortnight.' Its marks are still apparent in his .weakened body and the slanted line of his mouth. Has Heart Attack After a severe heart attack early this summer, he applied for relief funds from both Jackson county and the vet erans' administration. He had to use his original as well as his assumed name in the appli- . cation for federal assistance, since it involved his military service record back in World War I. But the crucial factor on this application was the fin- ; gerprint requirement. The federal bureau of "nvestiga tion is most efficient when it comes to matching them. Landis is missing the tips : of his left thumb and left in dex finger. He says tliey were ; blown off by a blasting cap when he was four years old. The other fingers, however, were enough for the FBI. Ohio authorities were noti fied. -. Medford police received a telegram Thursday afternoon from 'the superintendent of the London, Ohio prison farm whence Landis had escaped ' 24 years ago. He was wanted as a fugitive, and believed to be living at 1006 Sunset ave. here. The telegram gave his name as "LANDIS GLENN," When the" patrolmen ar rived at 1006 Sunset ave. that 'evening, Ed Knapp met them at the door. No, he knew no one by the name of "Landis Glenn." Coach at Crater , To Knapp, coach and physi cal educator instructor at Crater High school and to his wife, Doris, and to their three daughters the man who had shared their board for over 11 years was Jessie Glenn Sanioval. Mrs.; Knapp, however, re called that he had mentioned the name "Landis" in con nection with his family. The Knapps notified the police station, , and . Landis went down valuntarily and told his story. "He's a model citizen as far as I'm concerned," Mrs. Knapp -said quite emphatical ly Friday.. "We still think of him as just like one of the family." . She recalled that they first met Landis in Crane while he was postmaster at the fourth class post office there in the mid-1940sl Landis him self, remembers having con structed the house the Knapps lived in. Fish, Hunt Together They became friends, and Knapp and Landu fished and hunted. together. On one trip they bagged an elk. In 1947 the Knapps moved to Gold Hill, where he be came athletics coach at' the high school then existing there. In Sept., 1948 Landis joined them. Since that time, according to Mrs. Knapp, "He has always been with us." In the summer of 1950, Knapp became superintend ent of Medford's new swim ming pool in Hawthorne park. The following summer, Landis was first employed there as custodian. Aside from this job and oc casional stints at Pinnacle Orchards and Ross Lumber company, Landis said, he was not regularly employed. How ever, the Knapps had a ranch Post Office Clerks Get Certificates Claude Allen and Boyd Kline, clerks in the finance section of the Medford post office, last week received cer tificates of merit, and cash awards for superior service to the public and to the post office department. Allen and Kline were as signed the task of getting all post office boxes at the Med ford office rented, as many were not in service due to lost keys and other reasons. Every box at the Medford of fice is, now rented," giving better service to the public and increasing revenue to the post office department. . The certificates of merit were signed by Samuel G. Schwartz, regional operations director for the post office department, and were accom panied by letters of commen dation. ' ' The Medford postmaster has received numerous com pliments from patrons of the office on the courteous and ef ficient manner in which both men perform, their duties.. Lake County Fire Covers 1,250 Acres Lakeview - flJPD - A Lake county forest and brush fire which broke out Friday morn ing covered some 1,250 acres by the time it was trailed shortly before noon Saturday, according to national forest service fire dispatcher C. A. Waterhouse. About 160 men with equip ment were still working on the fire early Saturday after noon, he said. Planes carrying borate so lution were reported still making bombing runs over the flames, although the fire was controlled: mostly in brush. " for several years, and as a handy man there and more, recently at their Medford home he has, earned his bed and board. 'Perfect Baby Sitter' i F.?r their three daughters, Mrs. Knapp stated, Landis was always "a perfect baby sitter and a perfect com panion." At their Sunset ave. ad dress, Landis lived in a small room formed 'by plasterboard partitions in the Knapps' ga rage. He read Westerns and watched television. He had been working on a wooden canopy for their pickup truck, in anticipation of the fall hunting season, when his past caught up witli him. "I felt I was far enough away from them that nothing would ever come here to find me," he remarked in the jail Friday. According to police rec ords, Landis was born April 3, 1895 in Copley, Ohio. He himself gave this account of his life: Makes Wooden Gears His father made wooden gears for wagons. His mother died when he was one year old, and his father remarried, he had one sister and two brothers, none of whom so far as he knows are still alive He remembers receiving a lot of whippings" from ' his father or stepmother,,, some times with a maple r tree switch and others with a pony whip Landis went to school until the eighth grade, and then ran away from home. "One time my dad started to whip me for something I hadn't done," he recalled. "I tore the. whip, out of his hands. He backed off and just looked at me. He didn't know what to do." Then Lan dis left home. Unloads Corn . .He talked a man he saw unloading corn into giving him work in exchange for a bed and meals, and stayed with the man and his family for about four years. After that he went to live with his sister for a while. Landis has a tattoo on his left forearm the insignia of Company F of the 146th In fantry regiment. He said his .' :- . : ' ' - ' GLENN LANDIS Murderer, Model Citizen Little Rock Bombing Appea rs Cleaned U p WINS CHAMPION Salem - Zoe Bauerfeind of the Silver Star Pony ranch, Williams, showed the junior champion stallion in the Welsh ponies class at the Oregon State Fair last week. Little Rock (UPD-Police Chief Gene Smith said Saturday that the Little Rock bombing case appears to be cleaned "up with the arrests of five men. But be vowed that if further investigation involved more suspects he'd "make 50 ar rests" if necessary. 1 Charges against the five men arrested in the' case were filed late Friday by Pulaski Coun ty Prosecuting Attorney J. Frank Holt. He-said he would ask for arraignment of the five early this week and trial as soon as possible. One of the five, J. D. Sims, 35, confessed to police he was involved in the planting of the explosives. He said he did not want his 11-year-old daughter "to go to school with niggers." Free on Bond .. . -j Another. of the five, E. 'A. Lauderdale Sr., was free on $50,000 bond from a munici pal court charge when the cir cuit court charges were filed. Five hours later the sheriff's office said he still had not been picked up under a bench warrant issued by Holt. 1 The municipal court bond is not valid before the circuit court. . Lauderdale, 49, a building supply dealer; Jesse R. Perry, 24, a truck driver, land Sipis, also a truck d r i v'e r, .were charged twice. They were ac cused of dynamiting the Little Rock school board building and a city-owned station wag on used by . Fire Chief Gann Nalley. ' Sent Firemen Nalley sent firemen to help police break up a demonstra tion near integrated Central High school Aug. 12. Samuel G. Beavers, 48, a car salesman, and John T. Cog gins, 39, a carpenter at the state hospital, were charged with setting off a blast at the private office of Mayor Wer ner Knoop. . .Holt said Beavers and Cog gins were also involved in a plan to set off a fourth explo sion, at tne private office of Letcher Langord, a member of the city manager board. SIP NOT York, Maine-flJPD-The Maine Department of Health and Welmare, says Maud Muller's spring, made famous by John Greenleaf Whittier"s poem, is no longer fit to drink from. miltary service during World The man's appendix had rup- irtM&aasjW'toiwetofiatoeV ' the formation of a new heme owned Oregon Icjjcl reserve insurance cocipcay INSURANCE CO lenjb fohfc Hmitec -uihfcef a f t riJiT1- II . I OF AMERICA offers OWN STOCK mm ' 1 IN Oregon Underwriters, Inc. P. 0. Box 15L "Salem, Oregon Gentlemen: Please send me a copy- of the Insurance Company of America prospectus. I understand I am under no obligation. NAME i ADDRESS. CITY ". , . STATE. OREGON'S NEW COMPANY War I consisted of recruiting duties in his native Ohio. It was about a year and a halafter his discharge from the Army that Landis had what he . calls his "trouble." But before that, there was a lawsuit.- This, as he de scribed it, occurred while he was working on a farm. He shot a neighbor's dog that had repeatedly trespassed on the farm and had killed chickens. The neighbor sued, and lost. Receives Threats After the: abortive suit, however, Landis received threats from the neighbor, whom he described as a "Vir ginian." He took to carrying a six-shooter for self-defense. One moonlit night he was walking home - from town when a wagon approached. In it were five or six "Vir ginians." They saw him, and the wagon stopped; . "When they got out of the wagon," Landis related, "I pulled my gun. They got back in and took off." The "trouble" -itself : in volved a woman. He was about 18 years old at the time. She was several years older, married and had v two children. ' - She and her husband had invited Landis to visit them. He had enly seen her once, two or three years before. He eventually accepted the invitation, and went to their home in Rittman, Ohio. He stayed about two months, and during that time while the husband worked every night at a mill, Landis said, he and the woman became intimate. "The longer it went the worse it got," he recalled." Her Idea to Kill It was her idea, he asserted, that they kill her husband be fore he found them out. But, he admitted, ' he himself "pulled the trigger." "She just wrapped me around her-little finger," he said. "Anything she said I did." . Both were arrested, and tried. She was acquitted, Lan dis commented, because she had "good lawyers who made out I was lying." He himself was ,". found guilty of first degree murder, and received a life sentence. He said he occasionally heard news of her through prison guards,, but did not try to communicate. Nor did he try to find' her, he added, after his escape. . , After more than two dec ades i in the ancient prison in Columbus, Ohio, Landis was transferred to the honor farm at London. Unable to Get Hearing He said he was never able to gain a hearing before the parole board. "Then one Sat urday afternoon I just walked off the farm." -Landis' story of his escape is a saga in itself. He reached the Ohio river by hitch-hiking and train, and there bought a "river skiff, called a "John boat." With no river experience at all, and with homemade oars and a homemade sail, he set out downstream. The current swept him, along at a brisk 8 miles per hour. After a while, he saw a large building on a hill, where men began waving and shouting to him. As the men ran down the hill to the riv ers' edge, . he saw that - his boat was heading for a low dam. He jerked the sail down, sat grimly in the stern and steered his boat right for it. The bow of the boat shot out into space as the rushing wat er fell away four feet below, butane more heavily-weighted, stern lodged on the lip of the dam. There he remained until the men from shore could rescue him in another vessel. . Continued Down River He continued down the ri ver toward Cincinnati and then sold the boat. In the freight yards in Cincinnati, he made friends with another man who said he knew the way West. ... And so Landis' long chain of odd jobs began, as the pair working as farm hands and later laying railroad track made their way across country. '"We had a rule, to always have money in our pockets while traveling," he recalled. He explained this was to pre vent being picked up for vag rancy and also "so we didn't feel like bums." Except when he was traveling, he added, he had jobs "all the time." With his friend and with others, he worked in Mon tana, Washington and eventu ally Oregon. One time in Ore gon, he said, . he . saved a man's life. About 10 pjn. one night, a companion was stricken with acute appendicitis. Local doc tors : took no interest, and said ihey would see him at 10 the next morning. In desperation, although, he said, he had never jdriven a car before, Landis got be hind the wheel and drove at speeds up to 55 miles per hour to the nearest veterans' hospital at Boise, Idaho. turea - oy tne time tney ar rived, but he lived through it. Becomes . Shepherd .' Landis went to" . Nyssa, where he became a shepherd responsible for a band of 2,000 sheep. After the sheep were eventually taken to market, however, he . came down with a case of spotted fever. He recuperated on a ranch where he cooked for the hands and later hunted, and then worked as a railroad ses- tion hand ti or two years. One winter, he trapped muskrat and mink. . " It was in Juntura that he became a barber, after pass ing the . barber examination in Portland. And it was here, Landis said, that he was ap pointed town marshal and served in that capacity for a year and a half. Later, a woman with a ranch near Crane sold him about 20 acres rf bottom land and he worked for her. On a hunting trip, a friend who owned, a garage in Crane ac cidently shot and 'killed him self when he ' used his rifle to keep from sliding down a sand hill, Landis recalled. From ' this man's widow, he acquired the garage, which he ran until urged to be post master in 1944. Distinguishes Himself He also distinguished him self in Crane by his cabinet work, including several knotty-pine desks which he sold. And here he met the Knapps. "I've tried to make up for my mistake," Landis said Friday in reviewing his past, "I've always paid my debts." He wept occasionally in the course of the interview, espe cially when told that he had friends who would be stick ing up for. him. Express Pity r Several persons at the Medford police station and in the courthouse expressed pity for him, and commented that they thought little if anything would be gained if he were to be imprisoned anew this late in his life. v A law official from Ohio was expected to arrive here this week end to assume cus tody of him-and to t-ansport him back to that state for le gal action. The future of Glenn Lan dis at this moment, .then, rests on the scales of justice. But- one thing is certain. Thanks to a set of finger prints, Jessie Glenn Sandoval (the name of a fellow prisoner in Ohio, which he assumed after escaping because, as he MAIL TRIBUNE. Merffor, Or. Sunday, Sept. 13, 19S9 said, it vas more. "handy") is no W Give GREEN STAMPS ELLIS MARKET 20 Crater Lake Aveatie e e e If v J3 ; v ii an with the 55fh anniversary GOLD STAR Supreme achievement of more than half a century of fine British Craftsmanship. 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