“Fauria, Bank Robber, and Felon Companion Escape from Asylum,” Toronto Star. June 18, 1936. Page 01 & 02.
“Slip Out Penetang Hospital Gate While Rolling Baseball Diamond.
ARE STILL AT LARGE
Outdistance Pursuers and No Trace Found - Both Classified as Criminally Insane.
Special to the Star. Penetanguishene, June 18. - Classed as ‘criminally insane,’ Marion ‘Cal’ Fauria, a convicted bank robber, and John Brown, with a record of breaking and entering, escaped here yesterday noon from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and are still at large.
Police squads have searched the neighborhood in vain.
Dr. C.A. McClenahan, hospital superintendent, said there was no definite clue to the men’s whereabouts, but they were believed hiding in the district, possibly near Wyebridge, five miles south of Midland.
One report said they had been seen in Penetanguishene last night.
Describing the escape to-day, Dr. E.A. Clark, of the hospitals branch of the department of health, Toronto, stated ‘Brown’ and Fauria were engaged with a guard in rolling the baseball diamond, an enclosed ground connected to the institution. The guard opened the gate for a second to shove the roller out, and both patients jumped through, and escaped.
‘Both are very active, and they outdistanced pursuers.’
All Wednesday afternoon and evening, the hospitals branch, which immediately notified the police, hoped that the escaped men would be recaptured.
‘We think they are hiding somewhere,’ Dr. Clark said.
Although classified as ‘criminally insane’ both men, it was intimated at the parliament buildings, are not socially dangerous, so far as endangering anybody by assault.
‘There was nothing about their mental condition to warrant any great concern,’ it was stated. ‘They were allowed out on the recreation ground to help roll it because, to all intents and purposes, they were normal.’
Neither man attempted to assault the guard before escaping, the department reports. ‘When the gate was opened,’ they just simply made a jump, each in a different direction. The guard followed them, and the alarm was raised, but both men are exceptionally active, and easily outdistanced the guard.
‘There is not a great distance from the institution to wooded, rough country where it is easy to hide,’ said Dr. Clark. ‘Besides, there are highways, and it is not very difficult to hitchhike.
Wearing Ordinary Clothes
‘Neither men had anything about their clothes to attract anybody. They were dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, and it would be easy for them to obtain rides.’
Whether the two men joined each other later is not known. Neither man was seen after the break-away.
Records at Toronto detective headquarters show Fauria on Feb. 8, 1933, held up and robbed the Queen and Kenilworth branch of the Bank of Toronto of $5,833.65.
Police records describe Brown as 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 153 pounds with dark brown hair, hazel eyes and fresh complexion. A heart pierced by an arrow is tattooed on his left arm.
Both men came from Kingston penitentiary. Hospital authorities say Brown is not so much ‘criminally insane’ as ‘psychopathic.’
Also Sentenced to Lashes
Fauria was convicted in Hamilton on a charge of bank robbery in October, 1933, and sentenced to seven years with 17 lashes in Kingston penitentiary. At that time he had already been committed for trial in Toronto on a charge of robbing the Queen and Kenilworth branch of the Bank of Toronto. But when the Hamilton conviction sent him to Kingston the Toronto trial was not proceeded with, police say.
While being taken for trial in Hamilton, Fauria escaped and an exciting police chase took place before was recaptured.
Fauria was arrested in Jacksonville, Fla., for Hamilton and Toronto on April 13, 1933. He was extradited and brought back to Toronto by Det-Sgt. Norman Tinsley, of the Toronto police department, to face bank robbery charges.
He is classed by Inspector of Detectives John Chisholm as a ‘dangerous criminal.’ Fauria, according to police records, was born in New Orleans and is a machinist by trade. His last known address was Windsor.
Fauria is described as 27 years old, five feet nine inches tall, black hair, brown eyes, a birth mark on his chest, sallow complexion.
Fauria passed most of his life in the Windsor-Detroit area.
Released on parole
At Windsor in 1929 he was sentenced to from one to two years for a series of break-ins, auto thefts and thefts of other articles. He was released on parole six months later.
After that he was picked up on twice on charges of vagrancy and theft, and carrying a loaded revolver. Cases against him were dismissed.
In 1932 Fauria and a companion got $2050 from the branch of the Royal Bank at Mount Hamilton. His companion, Stanley Lawrence, was arrested in a small hotel at Windsor.
Evidence at the trial in Hamilton indicated Fauria had stolen a car in Detroit to use in the bank robbery. He and Lawrence entered the bank, herded clerks toward the vaults and scooped currency from the tellers’ cages. They separated immediately. Both men were given seven-year sentences.”