Girls in Men’s Togs Foil Prison Guards.
Until three girls were arrested in Bridgeport, Conn., all of them wearing articles of men’s clothing, it was not known that they had escaped from the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills, Westchester County. They employed Harry Thaw’s method of escaping, walking out the gate when the milkman opened it.
They told a remarkable story of hardships while being sought by police and guards in automobiles. They slept in woods and ravines during the days, and traveled and foraged at night.
The girls are: Ida Oakley, formerly of Danbury; Mildred Doyle, of Manhattan, and Alice Kilcoyne, of Brooklyn. They said they were about to be placed on a bread-and-water diet at Bedford Hills, and decided to escape. They had covered several miles in the prison garb of gray-and-white uniforms before their escape was discovered. They kept far back from the roads, and at noon hid in a ravine. At night they made a raid on a farmer’s chicken coop, and, over an open fire, they broiled three chickens.
Early the next morning they made a raid on the clothesline of a housewife, and obtained enough clothed for Ida Oakley to discard her prison garb. Then, while the[{62}] others hid in the woods, she went into the village and begged food and clothes, telling a story about a husband with tuberculosis and several hungry children.
In that manner they obtained plenty of food, but clothes were scarce, particularly women’s garments. They obtained sufficient clothes for several men, but not enough for two women. Therefore they had to wear men’s clothes. Mildred Doyle and Alice Kilcoyne, unable to get a skirt, wore men’s trousers until they were in the outskirts of Bridgeport, when they met two young men in the road and explained their predicament. The men purchased skirts for them, but they had to continue wearing men’s coats.
Their appearance in Bridgeport, where they tried to find work, caused comment, and they were arrested. Under questioning, they soon broke down and told of their escape from the Bedford Reformatory.