Details

Collection Summary
Collection: FND002 - SHSND Foundation - North Dakota Peace Officer Memorial Program
Series: Tribute
Folder: DIG
Item: 01820
Title: John Holcomb
Date:
Creator:
Inscription/Marks: 6/6/1890
Summary: John Holcomb Bismarck Tribune Saturday 7 August 1954 Prison guard killed. John Holcomb special duty officer at the State Penitentiary here was fatally injured Saturday while trying to prevent the escape of a prison inmate. Holcomb died of internal injuries suffered when he was caught between a moving boxcar and the frame of the prison wall gate through which it was being pushed. Taken to a hospital in Bismarck, he died about an hour later. He was 64 years old and leaves his widow and five daughters. The accident occurred as workmen at the penitentiary "jacked" an empty boxcar from the prison grounds through the railroad wall gate. Prison officials said Holcomb saw an inmate leap through the open door of the boxcar in an attempt to ride it through to freedom. Holcomb also tried to jump into the boxcar but it was already too far into the gateway and his body was rolled and crushed as the heavy car moved slowly through. The inmate, prison officials said, jumped from the boxcar after it was outside the prison walls and started running. He stopped quickly, however, when a tower guard fired a rifle bullet at him, and gave himself up. Holcomb had been a special duty officer at the institution since last fall. He was a former Cass County Deputy Sheriff and a former member of the Fargo Police Force. Warden O. J. Nygaard described him as an "extremely able, conscientious and alert officer.''Mrs. Holcomb is matron of the women's section of the institution. The body is at the Boelter Funeral Home here. An inquest will be held probably next week, Coroner Hubert Graves said Monday, into the death of John Holcomb, 64, a guard at the State Penitentiary here. Holcomb died in a Bismarck hospital Saturday about an hour after he was crushed in the door of a boxcar as the car passed through a gate in the prison wall. He had leaped into the car after seeing an inmate, Vern L. Stoehr, 45, enter the car. Stoehr, under sentence from Bowman County on a charge of assault with intent to kill, jumped from the car after it cleared the prison gate, but surrendered when a tower guard opened fire with a rifle. The coroner said physicians performed an autopsy, but that a report on it had not been received. He said the inquest will be scheduled after the report is at hand.
Red ID: FND_I_77306 Image ID: 509126 Image Notes: 0950 00002 01820

Collection: FND002 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: SHSND Foundation - North Dakota Peace Officer Memorial Program
Date:

Summary: The North Dakota Peace Officer Memorial Program honors fallen officers with highlights of their lives and careers.

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