Hacksaw Jones

From the Great Shit You Probably Haven't Read files (h/t Weingarten), here's …

Michael Browning: Prisoner 97961 got a hernia a few weeks ago. He had to go to the hospital.

The jailers shackled him with handcuffs and leg irons. Eleven armed men escorted him in a three-car motorcade. He was admitted under a false name and brought to the operating room.

Doctors and nurses gaped as he was chained to the operating table. Two cops, scrubbed with antiseptic and wearing surgical masks and gowns, hovered over him during the operation. He was unconscious, but they were taking no chances. That night, around his bed, four guards kept vigil, dozing fitfully in their chairs.

Who is this guy, anyway?

He is Edward R. Jones Jr., better known as "Hacksaw Jones," The New Houdini, The Man Bars Can't Hold. A petty thief with an eye for women and jewelry, Jones has escaped from custody 14 times in the past 21 years. He has waved goodby to jails from Seattle to Tallahassee, leaving his turnkeys empty-handed and open-mouthed. He cut his widest swath through South Florida, where he pulled his biggest robbery and engineered his most spectacular escape. All across the country, even years later, they remember him: the policemen, the jailers, the FBI agents, the U.S. Marshals. They'll never forget Jones, the incomparable Hacksaw Jones. He is the stuff of legend. He is the one that got away.