'Young riot' erupts in Umatilla County Jail

A penitentiary inmate returned to Pendleton in January 1971 to testify against a fellow prison escapee slashed his wrist and touched off a three-hour riot at the Umatilla County Jail. While damages ran to four figures, no other inmates or jail personnel were injured.

The trouble began Jan. 3, 1971, at about 9 p.m. when Danny Wayne Wilcox Clark, 20, broke out of his cell. Clark somehow obtained a razor blade and used it to slash his wrist. He then barricaded himself inside his cell, armed with a sharp piece of steel torn from a ceiling light fixture to keep help away. By the time deputies subdued Clark with tear gas, his cell was spattered on the floor, walls and ceiling with blood. The man was taken to the hospital to have his cut dressed, then was returned to the jail where he lay, gray-faced and quiet, in another cell.

Clark had been returned from the Oregon State Penitentiary to Pendleton to testify against Albert Leo Palmer, who with Clark escaped from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Clark was convicted of grand larceny after stealing a car in Stanfield during the escape attempt. Both men were arrested in Umatilla County, and Clark was sentenced to an eight-year term.

About 15 other prisoners were lodged at the jail when Clark was subdued, and six to 10 of them started an uproar. The "young riot," as it was called by Umatilla County Sheriff Roy Johnson, raged for almost three hours. Toilets were torn from the floor and broken into pieces. The chunks were hurled through barred windows on the south side of the jail.

Prisoners rolled up magazines, tipped with aluminum foil, and shorted out ceiling light fixtures, breaking bulbs and sending the cells into darkness. Some fixtures were torn from the ceiling, and piles of magazines, books and other items were set afire, filling the jail with smoke. Some of the burning material was thrown through the broken windows, deputies said, in an attempt to set the roof of the courthouse on fire.

"They slammed doors, banged on the bars, shouted," a gray-haired prisoner said. "Then they started the fires." He and two trustees covered their heads with wet towels and retreated to a corner bunk to wait out the trouble. Chief Deputy Bill McPherson took charge of putting down the disturbance, and fellow deputies praised his "cool judgment" for the fact that no one was injured or killed.

By 12:30 a.m., the rioters had worn out and the trouble fizzled, but it wasn't until almost 6 a.m. before total control was finally reestablished. More than seven garbage cans full of broken glass, charred paper and other debris were removed from the jail, with deputies standing guard with shotguns during the cleanup.

Sheriff Johnson pointed to the need for a jail redesign to handle troublesome prisoners. Corners were cut to save money when the jail was built in 1956, he said. "We get men here as tough as any in the penitentiary."

But the Jan. 3 unrest was not the first of the year for the jail. Just two days prior, on New Year's Day 1971, troublemakers in the juvenile section of the jail shredded a blanket and flushed it down a toilet, plugging up the plumbing.

Divorce drama becomes firearm fracas

Divorces can be ugly. A Pendleton woman in January of 1954 discovered divorces can also be dangerous, after she was shot by the jealous wife of a neighbor.

Juanita Julia Harris, 34, of Pendleton, filed divorce papers against her husband, Willie Harris, in December 1953. But three weeks later she changed her mind and decided she wanted her husband back. The Harrises and a neighbor, Daisy Crawford, 23, were playing cards together on Jan. 4, 1954, in the Harris apartment for about two hours. Juanita left the game briefly to visit the bathroom outside the apartment, and when she returned she was met by Daisy at the front door. Juanita said it appeared Daisy was going to strike her.

Juanita pulled a .38 short revolver out of her clothing and fired through the narrow opening between the door and the jamb, hitting the coffee pot dead center. She then reached around the nearly closed door and fired again, hitting Daisy in the shoulder. Juanita also fired two more shots through the door, neither of which hit anyone. The shot that hit Daisy clipped her collar bone, nipping off the end of the bone, and lodged in her neck.

Willie Harris decided at this point it was time to disarm his wife. He opened the door — and was met by the muzzle of the gun. Willie claims Juanita pulled the trigger and it snapped on an empty chamber. Convinced all the bullets had been fired, Willie wrestled the gun away from Juanita, then hit her over the head with it three times to subdue her.

By this time, a neighbor had called police. When officers arrived, Willie was trying to get Daisy into the car to take her to the hospital. Pendleton police arrested Juanita Harris, then followed Willie and Daisy to the hospital. After Juanita was checked out by doctors, and Daisy was admitted for treatment, both Harrises were taken to the police station for questioning.

Juanita admitted shooting Daisy. She claimed she was carrying the gun because she thought Willie and Daisy might try to assault her. She also claimed she did not try to fire at her husband. When the gun was examined, officers found one bullet unexploded in the chamber, with no evidence of a misfire.

The following day, Juanita was charged with assault while armed with a dangerous weapon. Willie was questioned but turned loose. And Daisy was mending nicely at St. Anthony Hospital.

Jack the Snipper strikes close to home

Most people are familiar with the infamous Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. But another dastardly character, who showed up in 1891 in Brooklyn and Manhattan, N.Y., was known by a similar moniker: Jack the Snipper. His penchant was for following schoolgirls and lopping off their braids, then running away. He haunted the streets for three years, surfacing periodically and disappearing again. Two men were arrested, but police could never make any charges stick, so the case went unsolved.

In 1911, the Jack the Snipper story resurfaced in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Police arrested Frank Rickeri, who had for months been cutting off women's hair in theaters and amusement parks. Eighteen locks of hair, each tied with a blue ribbon, were found in a trunk in Rickeri's lodgings.

But the story wasn't confined to the East Coast. On March 9, 1912, Mildred Finnel of Pendleton, a popular high school girl, decided to take in a moving picture show with a friend. As they sat in the theater, she felt someone behind her take hold of one of her long braids. Finnel gave her head a quick jerk, and a man got up from the seat behind her and hurriedly left the building. Finnel and her companion followed the man, and though he was able to disappear they did get a good look at his face. It wasn't until she returned home that she realized that a small portion of her braid had been shorn off. The man was never caught.

"Jack the Snipper" was a familiar annoyance to police departments across the country in the early 1900s. It was unknown whether the attacks were for the purpose of selling the hair to wigmakers, or if their intent was simply malicious or obsessive. In some cases, like the original Snipper in New York, an incident of hair theft was followed by a rash of copycat cases, some of which were perpetrated by the girls themselves in order to see their names in the paper.

Lifeguard helicopter crash claims three

The crash of a Lifeguard medical transport helicopter in December of 1986 near the Pendleton airport after the chopper was placed in a holding pattern for 20 minutes took the lives of three local crew members.

The nearly new Bell 206 L-3 helicopter was purchased by Lifeguard Medical Transport in June of 1986 at a cost of $500,000. The aircraft had more horsepower, and several other features adding convenience for crew and patients, than the rented helicopter it replaced. Its crew, including pilot Freddie Marshal Davis, 37, of Pendleton, James Borgman, 50, registered nurse, of Walla Walla, and Nancy Neerenberg, 37, paramedic, of Hermiston, were returning from a flight to Portland and had been waiting for clearance to land at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton for 20 minutes the afternoon of December 3, 1986, when Davis contacted the FAA's Seattle Center, which handled air dispatch for the area, saying he was encountering adverse weather conditions and needed to land. When the tower responded for more information to determine the helicopter's exact position, they lost contact with the craft.

At the time, the Pendleton airport did not have an operational air traffic control tower; it was shut down during the summer due to liability insurance issues. The FAA's spokesman said that having an operational tower in Pendleton would not have averted the crash, however.

Air traffic controllers said their last contact with the helicopter, reportedly a mayday call, was received at 5:32 p.m. A short time later, a Umatilla resident monitoring a CB radio reportedly overheard a statement about a helicopter running out of fuel. Several planes were called to make an aerial search, but the low cloud ceiling prevented the pilots from getting into the air. Farmers in the Despain Gulch area began their own unofficial searches along the farm roads in the area around 8 p.m.

It was hours later when search parties headed up by the Umatilla County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police were dropped along Interstate 84 west of Pendleton to begin searching on foot for the wreckage of the aircraft. Among the party stationed furthest west from the airport, some five miles away, were East Oregonian reporters Wil Phinney and Chuck Westlund, who climbed a barbed wire fence near milepost 201 and started trudging through wispy fog along the muddy furrows of a newly seeded wheat field in search of anything that could lead them to the crash site. "Wouldn't it be weird if we did find it?" Phinney asked as he shone his weak flashlight beam along the ground.

Not five minutes into their search, at 12:25 a.m. on Dec. 4, Westlund saw the first piece of twisted metal. "I glanced at it, hoping it was a stick," Westlund wrote in his story. Seconds later, a second piece of wreckage containing part of the craft's electronic circuitry came into view, and Westlund knew they had found the crash site. Yelling to the rest of their group, and signaling to the next closest search party, Westlund and Phinney ran for the top of a short rise, following the line of debris, and saw more in the darkness below them. 

The searchers sprinted down the slope, searching desperately for survivors. But there was nothing anyone could do for the crew.

Wreckage at the scene indicated the helicopter was moving southwest when it hit the rise in the field with its landing skids, leaving them partially buried, and tearing the cabin away as it rolled down the hill. Debris was scattered in a circle about 100 yards across, with papers, maps, an oxygen bottle, blankets, medical narcotics, and even a package of "Wheel of Fortune" play money scattered along the hill in the wake of the crash. The bodies of the three crew members were found in and around the wreckage.

A scenario was later suggested by Lifeguard administrator Craig Manley that Davis had probably landed the helicopter for about 25 minutes while waiting for planes to land at the Pendleton airport. When he lifted off about 5:25 p.m., he rose into very low clouds. The accident appeared to have happened when he turned away from the airport searching for a clear area. Manley said his scenario was based on his own experience, his knowledge of the crew and Lifeguard's flying standards.

A public memorial service for Davis, Neerenberg and Borgman was held Dec. 6 at Blue Mountain Community College's Pioneer Theater.

Lifeguard's board of directors unanimously decided to keep the program flying, and an identical helicopter with some additional safety features was to be obtained from the manufacturer in Louisiana. Until the local program could be brought back on line, emergency calls were routed to other medical transport services in La Grande, Bend, Portland and Spokane.

Lifeguard Medical Transport went out of service in June of 1987 after voters rejected a $198,500 one-year operating levy for the service.

Emu walkabout causes dust-up in Pendleton

A flightless bird related to ostriches and rheas ruffled feathers in Pendleton after one of the birds escaped a pen twice in one day in August 1997, prompting calls from neighbors and a legal scuffle for the owner.

Pendleton police logged nine calls on Aug. 2, 1997, from neighbors of Budd Wolchik on Pendleton’s South Hill, after one of his flock of 20 emus flew the coop and wandered about the neighborhood. Dan Beaver and his wife, residents of Southwest Nye Avenue, could look from their backyard over Interstate 84 and see the emus bouncing around in their pens at the top of Southwest Seventh Street. And sometimes, Beaver said, they bounced off them too — nothing unusual about that. But that day, one of the emus hit the five-foot-high fence and bounced out of the pen, then proceeded to explore its surroundings as far as Southwest Isaac and 13th Street.

Wolchik chased down the errant bird and herded it back into its pen by 9:30 a.m. — not an easy task, as emus weigh 100 to 120 pounds, stand 6 to 10 feet tall and can run 40 mph. Since he’d worked a 16-hour shift the night before, Wolchik then went back to bed. Just three hours later, he was pulled from his slumber a second time for the same bird, who had again managed to escape. Sightings were called in from the 800 block of Southwest Eighth Street to the 1000 block of Southwest Hailey Avenue, and almost every street in between. Wolchik said it took less time to retrieve his bird the second time, as it was “probably hot and tired by that time,” and the emu was returned home again by 1 p.m.

But neighbors had had enough of the emu antics. In March of that year, a neighbor had filed a complaint with the Pendleton Police Department, citing problems with feathers and flies, and also called into question the zoning of Wolchik’s emu pens. Only one of Pendleton’s residential zones allowed raising livestock, bees, fowl and rabbits for non-commercial use, and Wolchik’s property was not in that zone. A “non-conforming use” exemption on the books only applied if other animals had been raised on the property within the prior year. And while horses had been raised on the property before Wolchik bought it in January of 1997, the question of whether emus could be exchanged with horses within the exemption was a sticking point.

The matter was scheduled to go before a judge, but the case was shipped to the Pendleton Planning Commission instead for an April 21 hearing. The commission heard arguments from Wolchik and his supporters, who said that emus are livestock and as such should be allowed the exemption. Two of Wolchik’s neighbors also weighed in, claiming they did not want the emus living in the neighborhood.

“We’re still getting his emus’ feathers in the swimming pool,” said neighbor Donna Schweigart.

The commission eventually voted 4-0 to oust the emus from the city limits. Wolchik explained that originally he had established his emu flock as an investment in 1993, but the market had gone south and he had changed his emphasis to raising brood stock, hoping to sell the offspring. “This is no real money-making proposition,” Wolchik said during the meeting.

Wolchik said he wouldn’t challenge the commission’s decision to the city council, and planned a “big barbecue” for the following weekend.

Hitchhiker catches ride straight to jail

A deputy sheriff for Umatilla County gave a courtesy ride to a stranger in November 1928 — straight to the Umatilla County Jail.

Deputy Sheriff Herman DeHart was returning to Pendleton from Freewater on Nov. 10, 1928, and stopped at an eating house between Milton and Freewater for lunch. He stepped inside and asked the proprietress if the lunch was ready. When she said it was not, DeHart told her he would drive on to Pendleton and eat there.

As DeHart was leaving the establishment, a well-dressed man who was sitting in the eating room spoke up and said, "Never mind fixing anything for me, I'll go to Pendleton with this man too." Surprised at the man's audacity of inviting himself along for the ride, DeHart nonetheless decided to give him a lift.

"I have to make one stop," DeHart said, "and then I'll go on to Pendleton." This was agreeable to his passenger, so the deputy stopped to see Charles Elliott, deputy sheriff for the Milton-Freewater district. In the course of their conversation, Elliott told DeHart that a garage had been burglarized the previous night, and gave his fellow deputy a description of the possible perpetrator.

After studying the description for a moment, DeHart said, "Why, I have that man in my car." 

Elliott and DeHart went to the car and questioned the man, J.C. Kitchener, who finally admitted to the burglary. He even took the deputies to the garage to show them how he entered the building.

Deputy DeHart and his passenger finally arrived in Pendleton later that evening, and Kitchener was taken straight to the Umatilla County Jail. It was discovered that the bold hitchhiker was wanted in Yakima for forgery, and for other crimes in Spokane.

Wayward card becomes holiday mystery

On Dec. 28, 1939,  a card was delivered to Pendleton resident Lorin Hecker by Andy Dalrymple, a railroad conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. Dalrymple said he found the card on the Portland Rose, an upscale passenger train established by the UP in September of 1930 that made the run from Chicago to Portland. He said the card had not been found in a mail bag.

But here’s the mystery: Hecker’s grandmother, Mrs. M.E. Calbreath of The Dalles, mailed the Washington’s birthday card to him on Feb. 19, 1914, when Hecker was just a young man. It mysteriously vanished en route to his home in Biggs, just 21 miles from his grandmother’s house. The front of the card was fairly well worn, and no other postmarks were on the envelope to show where the card had been during its 28-year hiatus.

Hecker treasured the card, because his grandmother had passed away some years after mailing it to him. He planned to investigate the card’s strange journey, if possible, in order to submit a story to “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”