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The Disappearance Of Fred Finnegan Eleven days in the Thomaston hole
The Disappearance Of Fred Finnegan
Eleven days in the Thomaston hole
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by Brian Swartz
Authorities wondered if Fred Finnegan had pulled a disappearing act at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston when he vanished on Saturday, July 13, 1946.
Finnegan was a down-on-his-luck, small-time Portland hood when he arrived at Thomaston in 1944. Other men had gone to battle the Axis Powers while Finnegan had lingered in Maine, causing minor trouble and making himself known to law enforcement officials before he was arrested and convicted for robbery. A judge threw Finnegan into the Maine State Prison for fiveto-ten years. If Finnegan behaved, he would likely leave on parole earlier than later.
Perhaps he realized that he should have behaved instead of playing Harry Houdini on that July Saturday.
While conducting an inmate headcount on July 13th, prison guards came up one finger short. They rechecked their charges, compared numbers, and agreed that someone was missing. That someone was Fred Finnegan, who although not quartered near an outside wall, had missed the enforced roll call.
Maine prison authorities do not treat escaped prisoners lightly. A case in point is the furor in Bangor when a parole violator bolted from court in early June of 1998. Hounded by relentless pursuers, he stayed on the lam for only a few days before calling his attorney and surrendering to the police.
Fred Finnegan had called no one. Even if they could not account for the missing inmate, the Thomaston guards could vouch for the use of every phone
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in the sprawling prison that borders Route 1. Warden Francis J. McCabe ordered extra guards to the prison walls — perhaps Finnegan was only hiding while planning to escape in the confusion surrounding his disappearance — and sent teams to turn over every loose brick within the prison.
“Finnegan’s got to be here somewhere,” McCabe told his men.
The guards thoroughly searched the prison. They interrogated some prisoners, especially those known by Finnegan, but learned nothing about the Portland con or his whereabouts. Sunday dawned, and then Monday. By midweek, even McCabe wondered how Finnegan, not known as an escape artist, had given prison officials the slip.
Another Saturday passed at Thomaston. Still suspicious that Finnegan lingered in the area, McCabe slightly relaxed the complemented wall guard and resumed his normal administrative duties inside the prison. (cont. on page 26) Mr. TIRE & Company
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(cont. from page 25)
Those duties included hiring new guards. McCabe had already offered a guard’s position to Walter Curtis Jr., a former Rockland firefighter seeking steady employment with the state. Curtis started working at Thomaston a few days after Finnegan had exited his cell. Imagine Curtis’ thoughts when, after hearing the traditional spiel about a guard’s responsibility to keep inmates confined within the prison, he heard theories as to how Finnegan had fled the prison.
Rather like closing the proverbial barn door…
Curtis quickly adjusted to his new work routine. As a new guy on the prison block, he expected to work weekends, holidays, and nights. He was assigned the shift stretching from Monday night, July 22, into Tuesday morning. July 23.
Making his rounds early Tuesday, Curtis detected a tap-tap-tapping near the prison plate shop. Sure, someone might be in there making noise during daylight, but not at night (actually the wee hours of Tuesday, when all good inmates were supposed to be asleep). Intrigued, Curtis quietly tracked the noise.
His ears led him into a dead-end corridor measuring twenty-five feet long and four feet high that ran between the prison plate-shop walls. Faint cries for help buttressed the tapping, indicating the noise was not someone creating mayhem within the Thomaston walls, but rather someone signaling for help. Curtis followed the weak voice to a corner stacked with debris (crushed rock, a wooden frame, and sheet metal). He nervously announced himself to the individual concealed by the debris. After all, a voice speaking from the bowels of prison earth was not routine — not in any prison guard’s manual.
To Curtis’ surprise, the voice introduced itself as belonging to Fred Finnegan, long thought to be AWOL! Cur-
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tis summoned other guards who helped him remove the debris to uncover a tiny hole occupied by a gaunt Finnegan. The hole, apparently excavated in the past, abutted a drain pipe.
The guards pulled Finnegan from where he lay stuck in the hole. He attempted to stand, almost collapsed, and asked for water. Guards commented on his haggard condition, sporting an eleven-day beard. Starved except for the ginger cookies and candy bars he had secreted in the hole, Finnegan had shed more than ten pounds during his voluntary imprisonment within the prison.
Guards had not searched for the hole because the debris had not appeared disturbed during prior searches. Learning about Finnegan’s apprehension, McCabe assumed another prisoner had covered the hole after Finnegan had crawled into it. The warden ordered the hole filled, the debris removed, and Finnegan’s accomplice found.
In fact, Finnegan had never left the hole, which might have become his impromptu grave if the sharp-eared Walter Curtis Jr had not heard his desperate taps for help. Guards found Finnegan wedged so tightly in the hole that he could not crawl out. Covered by heavy debris, his only air supply drawn from the partly clogged drain pipe. Finnegan was suffering from dehydration and malnutrition. A visit with the prison doctor set him back on the road to health.
So the Harry Houdini of Maine State Prison surfaced after eleven days. Glad to be alive, Finnegan swore off crawling into dead-end holes. Curtis received a citation for finding the missing inmate, and McCabe told his men they had restored the public’s confidence in the supposedly escape-proof state penitentiary.
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