Murderess, denied jail entry, flees
One hundred years plus five days ago, a curious incident occurred at the prison known as The Walls in Little Rock: A convicted murderer walked free, because she was a woman.
As reported a few times over ensuing decades by the Arkansas Gazette, about noon Sept. 13, 1923, a taxicab pulled up to the prison to drop off Cross County Sheriff E.L. Cooper and 45-year-old Mrs. Blanche Palmer, murderess. Judge W.W. Bandy of Paragould had sentenced Palmer to 21 years for shooting one Charlie Turain, 50, at Wynne. She dropped him with two shots.
The taxi waited while Cooper attempted to leave Palmer with the prison gatekeeper. But that gatekeeper — a trusty serving his own 21-year term — would not admit her. Cooper insisted; the trusty refused.
I have laughed over the various ways this stalemate was later described in newspaper and magazine articles and at least one book. From what I’ve read, the 5-foot-6, 200-pound Blanche Palmer became better and better looking with successive retellings. But at the time, this incident caused considerable outcry. Arkansans were up in arms about punishment in 1923.
The case involved the possibly comely murderess, the impatient sheriff, the adamant trusty named L.E.A. Yeager, Judge Bandy, state penitentiary Warden Hamp Martin and … drumroll, please … the Gazette’s Joe Bernard Wirges (1897-1972).
Wirges was Johnny on the spot, seeing the whole thing. Also, participating in an escape.
JOE GAZETTE
Wirges was a police beat reporter once so well known that everybody knew him. It is quite possible to be well known and yet unknown by most people; but people knew Joe Gazette; especially cops and criminals knew him. All the politically active people knew him because he was a politically active Democrat and also had a fairly professional jug band that entertained at political events and for the Elks Lodge. Catholics knew him, because he played the marimba in church.
Old News got excited about Wirges in summer 2022 and wrote at least five columns about him.
(Read more than you ever wanted to know about his campaign for the office of Big Rock constable beginning with arkansasonline. com/718joe.) He was a bangup reporter. Among the reasons he was so good at his job were the many contacts he cultivated within the prisons, including L.E.A. Yeager.
Decades later, in the 1950s, Wirges wrote columns for the Gazette recounting various grand Arkansas infamies. On April 5, 1953, one of these columns explained about Blanche Palmer.
Roads were not good in the 1920s, he noted, and so most of Arkansas’ county sheriffs rode the rails to deliver convicts to The Walls to be photographed and fingerprinted before they were transferred to a prison farm.
A relatively new prison farm for women had opened near Jacksonville. That women’s farm was a good 15 miles from The Walls at Little Rock, and sheriffs would have to hire a taxi in Little Rock to take their female prisoners to the farm. That meant time and money. So, sheriffs who had a load of male convicts to deliver to The Walls got into the habit of dropping lady convicts there, too. Then they booked themselves a hotel for the night and enjoyed the big city.
But the warden was stuck with getting the women to Jacksonville. He decided to break the sheriffs of their habit.
Knowing that Palmer was on her way from Cross County, he ordered trusty guards not to admit any woman should one arrive when he was not at The Walls. And he was not at The Walls when Cooper arrived with Palmer.
The trusty at the gate happened to be Wirges’ informant Yeager (an interesting fellow, as we will review some other time). Sensing news was about to unfold,
Yeager called up his buddy Joe Gazette.
When the reporter arrived, he found Yeager, Cooper and Palmer in the gate office. The sheriff was insisting he was required to hand Palmer over to The Walls, had done so and that she was now the gatekeeper’s problem. The gatekeeper said nope. They argued for about 15 minutes, while Palmer and Wirges sat and listened.
Wirges wrote in 1953, “The argument finally ended when Cooper tucked the papers back into his coat pocket and walked out, climbed into the waiting taxi cab and rode off. There followed several minutes of silence. Yeager, the woman and I just stared at each other.”
At this point, what Joe wrote in 1953 veers away from what he reported the day after the incident in 1923. In 1923, he described Cooper’s shaking Palmer’s hand and saying, “Well, Miss Blanche, you are at liberty as far as I am concerned. These people have you in their custody. I wish you good luck and goodbye.” And then he described Cooper striding off toward the streetcar line.
Back to the 1953 column: “Up until this time, Mrs. Palmer had not uttered a word. Perhaps she was left spellbound over the events. It was she who finally broke the silence:
“‘What am I to do?’ she asked. Yeager told her he was in a position where he could offer no suggestions. ‘Can’t tell you what to do,’ he said, ‘but I know if it were me, I’d shut out of here in a hurry. I’m doing 21 years myself and I can tell you that’s a long time.’”
Palmer absorbed that she was free to go, but she didn’t know her way around Little Rock. Yeager asked Wirges to give her a ride. And Joe did.
In 1923, he wrote that he dropped her off at a restaurant, and he quoted their conversation on the way. But he didn’t confess — as he does in the 1953 account — that he drove her around town until 8 p.m. He even drove her to meet his city editor on a street corner to give him an update.
In 1923, he had her saying this in the car:
“I don’t think I’m running away, do you? If I thought the officials would consider me as making an escape, I think I should go back. However, the sheriff told me I could go, and the keeper told me the same thing. I was greatly worried this morning while on my way to Little Rock, but I feel lots better now. I hope they don’t try to find me.”
She didn’t deny killing Charlie Turain but said it was self-defense. During her trial she testified he came at her in a timberyard with an iron bar; but the trial judge, Bandy, said Turain was inside his house and Palmer was outside, 100 yards away, and that she shot him through a screened door.
In 1923, Wirges also reported that she was from Bowling Green, Ky., but had lived in Wynne more than a year, formerly operating a hotel. She was employed at various hotels. A widow, she had a son in Texas: “I don’t know exactly where he is, and I don’t want him to know of my trouble,” she said.
She would not talk about a brother who formerly lived in Van Buren. After describing her height and weight, Wirges ended his 1923 report:
“‘I’m going off to a distant and strange city, where no one will know me,’ she said as she disappeared.”
The conversation ends differently in his 1953 account. He writes:
“She insisted we ride around until eight o’clock that night when she could catch a train. I was unable to leave her so we drove aimlessly around the city until the train for Fort Smith was due to leave. I saw her on the train (she had enough money to ride to Fort Smith) and always have remembered her last words.
“‘Thanks a lot. I’ll drop you a card or letter as soon as I settle down.’ I’m still waiting for that card or letter.
“However, I don’t blame her for not writing.”
Bandy fined the warden $500 for not accepting Palmer, but Gov. Thomas McRae promptly pardoned him. A $100 reward for her rearrest brought no result. Blanche Palmer was long gone.
And no other female prisoners were delivered to The Walls.