On September 11, 1927 the one of the most exciting events in the history of the McLean County Jail occurred. William Evans, a notorious bank robber was awaiting indictment for the robbery of the Chenoa Bank in 1925. In that robbery the three robbers masqueraded as bank examiners and robbed the bank after hours. Funnily enough, Evans was identified as a suspect in the robbery only after his attempt to break Harry Funk, his convicted co-conspirator, out of the Joliet Prison. (Evans was also wanted for the murder of a police officer in Missouri.) This dramatic attempt was perpetrated in disguise -- Evans masqueraded as a priest this time, armed with mustard gas, pistols and "enough nitroglycerine to blow up a city block." Papers were found on Evans after that attempt which identified him as one of the Chenoa Bank robbers.
On September 11, 1927 the jail was under the supervision of Lloyd Nelson, the acting sheriff. The jail received a call on the evening of the 11th, requiring the assistance of the sheriff in a dragnet to catch two supposed Joliet escapees. This call turned out to be a ruse, and was placed from a garage in Odell.
Once the sheriff's men had left in response to the call, only one man was left in charge of the jail, Mr. Johnson Clagett (right). Clagett said that when he arrived for his shift around 9 pm there were two women visiting in the jail. Oddly enough, these women were visiting the "bull pen" where roughly 60 men were confined.
Evans was being held on $100,000 bail and should have be considered an extremely dangerous prisoner. However, it was in the open area of the bull pen that Evans managed to remove the mortar between bricks behind the bathtub (!) and then place the nitroglycerine and fuse caps that caused an explosion after 9 p.m. Obviously, the presence of 60 other prisoners in this area shielded his actions. Fortunately, this attempt to blow out the wall of the jail failed. Two bottles of nitroglycerine were unexploded and were found the next day on a windowsill.
The assumption was that the two women had brought nitroglycerine to Evans and that their call was part of a conspiracy to free Evans. None of the men in the jail, who all must have been aware of the placement of the nitroglycerine in such a public place, would say anything against Evans, reportedly out of fear of this dangerous criminal. One inmate said that Roy Nichols, jailed for auto part theft, had ordered everyone to the north side of the bull pen just prior to the explosion. Nichols was known as the "judge" of the jail's "kangaroo" court, and the inmate claimed everyone assumed Nichols was going to "hold court."
All these facts put together give an amazing picture of a certain strata of life in McLean County and the operations of the jail. The fact alone that there were 60 men in the bull pen during recreation time, NOT in their cells at 9 p.m. is mind boggling. That two women could visit the men in this area, unescorted and unobserved, is another head scratcher. If this man was such a dangerous criminal, why was he imprisoned with the general population and why was he receiving visitors? After the explosion the sheriff's department wised up and put Evans in solitary confinement.
Just another Keystone Cops moment for the sheriff's office.