History
Wild colonial boys
by David Lomas
Prison escapees from days gone by managed some long spells on the run.
Billy Stewart, 47, the self-proclaimed “hunted one”, may have attracted a modern-day media frenzy – but the Christchurch burglar’s 106 days on the run pales compared with the deeds of our most infamous wanted men.
Joe Pawelka back in 1910, Joe Driscoll during World War II and George Wilder in the 1960s were true folk heroes as they eluded massive police and military searches. Pawelka and Wilder were thieves; Driscoll was an army deserter.
The manhunt for Pawelka resulted in two innocent men being shot but public sympathy remained with him – a group of farmers sheltered him and eventually helped him escape from New Zealand.
Pawelka, 23, was arrested for burglary at Kimbolton, north of Palmerston North. He immediately escaped from police cells but was re-arrested three days later and taken to Wellington where he again escaped and returned to Manawatu. He was blamed for a series of burglaries in Palmerston North while he was on the loose. At one house a note was left, which Pawelka later denied he had written, saying Pawelka was a “man against the world”.
Then one night an arsonist set three fires, destroying a high school and two shops. Pawelka was again blamed. A massive manhunt ensued, with armed police and civilians patrolling the streets of Palmerston North.
A few nights later, a shot was fired as an armed policeman struggled with a burglar. Two other police arrived and they fired two shots. When the burglar ran off, the policeman he had been fighting with sank to the ground and later died of a gunshot wound. The next night another man, a civilian involved in the search, was shot and killed after being mistaken for Pawelka.
Two weeks later Pawelka was arrested while riding a horse through Ashhurst. He was charged with the murder of the policeman, but because there had been no clear identification and there was uncertainty as to which shot had killed the policeman, Pawelka was found not guilty. However, at a subsequent trial, Pawelka was convicted of burglary and sentenced to 21 years in prison.
A year into his prison term Pawelka escaped a third time, this time unscrewing bars in his cell. Again there was a big manhunt, with the search concentrated on Kimbolton, Pawelka’s old hometown. But locals there, appalled by the harsh sentence, protected him for six months. Pawelka was never recaptured. It is believed he went to Auckland and caught a boat to Canada.
Joe Driscoll came to attention when he deserted from army training in 1940. An orphan who had been a child swagger during the Depression years, he did not object to war, according to author Ivan Agnew, who later wrote a book on him. “He just did not like army discipline,” says Agnew.
Driscoll headed to south Westland where he had worked clearing bush. The army heard he was there and sent troops to arrest him. But locals warned Driscoll that the army was on its way and he watched the soldiers arrive at Whataroa.
That night he crept up to the hut where they were being briefed and listened to their plans. The next day he tracked the soldiers through the bush and when they camped stole some of their supplies. The soldiers, who had boasted they would capture Driscoll within 24 hours, returned several days later to be told by locals it would take them 24 years to find Driscoll.
Driscoll stayed in the bush till the end of the war. When he died in 1972, as a mark of respect, the army transported his body to his funeral.
George Wilder, now 71 and living quietly in southern Hawke’s Bay, has shunned publicity since he was freed from prison in 1973. A car thief, he came to notoriety in 1962 when he escaped from New Plymouth Prison and stayed on the run for 65 days, at one stage eluding 30 police and a tracker dog during an 8km cross-country run. He finally shook off his pursuers when he swam a river.
His second escape came when he and and three other prisoners used sheets to make a rope to escape from Mt Eden Prison. A guard fired a shotgun at the escapers, spraying them with pellets. Three were caught soon after, but Wilder stayed on the loose for 172 days, spending much of his time in bush trapping possums. It was later said he had travelled almost 2600km and committed 40 crimes during that escape.
Wilder’s exploits prompted the Howard Morrison Quartet to release a song called George the Wilder Colonial Boy.
Wilder escaped one more time from prison – an escape that lost him a lot of public favour. He joined forces with Lenny Evans and John Gillies, of the Bassett Rd machine-gun murder fame; they used a shotgun to force their way out of prison, then took refuge in a Mt Eden house where they held an elderly woman hostage. They gave themselves up after being offered a bottle of whisky.
