There
was a handsome young prisoner who made a tragic attempt to escape.
His name was Herbert Repsoldt and he was dubbed The Society Burglar
and The Perfume Burglar. He had been a popular
man in the bay area and was invited to many parties.
He
discovered that most of the lady guests would leave their coats and
hand bags on a bed in one of the bedrooms. When the party was at its
height, he would slip into the bedroom and search the handbags for
money and jewelry. Sometimes he would make a good haul. He had a
peculiar trait. After burglarizing the room he would spray it with
perfume and this gave him the name of The Perfume Burglar
as well as The Society Burglar. This high
scented perfume always the same kind, eventually played a part in
identifying and convicting him.
At
San Quentin he was assigned a job in the main office as a clerk.
These men were not locked in their cells at the early lock up, and
were allowed to stay in the office until nine o'clock. One cold night
in January, Repsoldt decided to make a get away. Beneath the office
was the electrical control room for the entire reservation. Repsoldt
knew about this and he stepped out of the office and entered the
control room. He pulled all the switches, leaving the entire prison
in darkness. He took the electrodes that made the main contacts with
him, and tossed them into the bay. It was some time before Mr.
Goulde, the resident electrician, could get the lights turned back
on. A thorough search brought no trace of the Society or Perfume
Burglar except that the electrode rods from the main switch were
found on the beach at low tide.
About
a week later, some duck hunters, hunting on the marshes west and
south of the prison found a body on the mud flats. It was Repsoldt.
He had apparently tried to swim the bay to reach the south shore, but
through exhaustion or the cold or both he could not make it, and was
drowned. His body was brought to the prison and placed in a home made
boxlike wooden coffin. He was a gruesome sight, as crabs and fish had
eaten away part of his face.
Author:
William J. Duffy, Jr.