Looking back: 10-year-old girl ran over by train and three men break out of local jail
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of May 6 to May 12 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
POCATELLO — A 10-year-old girl was run over and killed by a train near the Pocatello fairgrounds, The Pocatello Tribune reported on May 6, 1909.
Lavinnia O’Donnell, daughter of Mrs. J.P. Fitzen, died instantly after a freight train on the Short Line ran over her about a quarter of a mile south of the fairgrounds.
Her mother said she’d been having trouble recently with her daughter about attending school. The morning of her daughter’s death, she “insisted that Lavinnia go to school, but the girl refused.”
“As she was leaving the house she called back to her mother, ‘I will not go to school and I will not come back here,” the article reads.
The family previously lived on a ranch near Inkom and the presumption was that the little girl started to walk there and was struck by a passing train.
Her body was found by Mrs. William L. Rice, wife of a rancher living nearby. At the time the article was published, no report had been made by an engineer of knowledge of the accident.
“Mrs. Rice saw the girl walking on the track a short time prior to the passing of an east bound freight train but forgot the incident,” The Pocatello Tribune said. “After the train passed, she happened to notice the body of the girl on the track and thought she had fallen asleep. Mrs. Rice went to awaken her and found the little miss cold in death.”
1926-1950
BLACKFOOT — Three burglary suspects escaped from the Bingham County Jail a few hours before they were scheduled to enter plea in district court, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported on May 7, 1941.
The three men who escaped and were charged with the burglary of a J.C. Penney store were Ted Coburn, 30, of Idaho Falls, who had a “long police record,” Earl Bybee, 31, of Idaho Falls and Elwin D. Williams, 28, of Ely, Nevada.
The three escaped from the jail “with outside help,” according to John Berg, deputy sheriff. Berg said the three sawed their way through the bars of the main cellblock and used a long piece of wire to “fish open” a desk drawer in the sheriff’s office to obtain the keys to a second barred door.
Berg said he believed “someone on the outside must have smuggled in the hacksaw used to saw the bars.”
“Deputy Berg and the sheriff, William Clough, were asleep in an upstairs room when the escape occurred, but the three prisoners worked so quietly that they did not awaken the officers,” the local paper wrote.
Other prisoners “denied knowledge of the break.” Officers said the men must have escaped between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.
“Descriptions of the three men were telephoned to Idaho Falls and there flashed to all eastern Idaho officers over the Idaho Falls police department’s radio,” the article states.
1951-1975
POCATELLO — A bear escaped from the Ross Park Zoo in Pocatello and was on the loose, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported on May 6, 1969.
Authorities were searching for a 250-pound bear. Police said vandals apparently cut a hole in the cage Saturday night.
Zookeeper Demar Day said the bear recently shed most of its coat and may not be able to survive long in nearby hills.
1976-2000
POCATELLO — A car caught on fire in a hospital parking lot, the Idaho State Journal reported on May 12, 1977.
The car was parked at the St. Anthony Community Hospital. The vehicle, owned by Dorothy Wooton, was destroyed.
“Cause of the blaze was the engine compartment of the 1969 Buick,” the paper explained.