Mr. Hubert. Now, as I understand it, of course, the plans were formulated by yourself and Batchelor and perhaps Stevenson, and after you learned that Sheriff Decker was agreeable to your bringing the prisoner over, or it was agreed that you would, the plan of carrying him there by armored truck was first discussed, and later that was changed. That was the plan. Who was in charge of actually executing the plan?
Chief Curry. I don’t suppose any one particular man would have been charged with the responsibility of the entire movement.
Chief Stevenson and Chief Batchelor and Chief Lumpkin, all of these men went into the basement immediately prior to the transfer, and each would have had responsibility to correct anything that was amiss.
Mr. Hubert. All were aware of the plan?
Chief Curry. Yes.
Mr. Hubert. To use the armored truck which had meanwhile pulled up as a decoy and carried out as you described a few moments ago?
Chief Curry. Yes.
Mr. Hubert. I think there has been some testimony by other people prior that an attempt had been made to reach you early Sunday morning but that the line was reported busy.
Chief Curry. The FBI asked me about that a few days ago, and I recall that the squad that came out, or that they actually called me and said they had been trying to get me and the squad was on the way out there; and discussing this with my wife, she said that she had taken the phone off the hook sometime during the night, and that the telephone company had made some kind of noise over the phone that woke her up and told her that something was wrong with the line, and the phone was off the hook, and she replaced it on the hook.
But when I was talking to the FBI Agent Vince Drain, about this, I didn’t remember just what was wrong with the telephone.