Watch now: Kinnie Wagner becomes an old hand at breakouts

BLOUNTVILLE — "K. Wagner breaks jail, desperate, heavily armed," a headline blared from the July 10, 1925, Extra edition of the Kingsport Times, written after his 6 p.m. escape that same day. "Desperate gunman and six companions overpower jailor Barr."In addition to being a shooting ace, Scott County, Virginia, native Kinnie Wagner was an escape artist. His escape from the Sullivan County Jail in Blountville eclipsed the news that day from the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, which was the secondary article that day.The April 13, 1925, gun battle on the Holston River in Kingsport, which left a sheriff's deputy and police officer dead and another officer with injuries, was just one early part of the desperado's story.He led a lifetime marked by daring escapes, shootouts, and in his 30s heart problems, the last of which led to a heart attack that took his life in March 1958 at the age of 55. Many of his exploits were in the Tri-Cities, as is his final resting place.BLOUNTVILLE JAIL CAN'T HOLD WAGNERWagner broke out of the Sullivan County Jail in Blountville on July 10, 1925, along with six other men. At one point, one of his guards was Jack Blalock, the grandfather of former Sullivan County Commissioner Jim Blalock."He (Jack Blalock) worked part time for the county when you could work off your (property) taxes," Jim Blalock said. "My grandfather claimed he played checkers with Kinnie Wagner."On the afternoon of the escape, the prisoners tricked guards into thinking they were all in their cells to be locked in when they weren't. The aftermath was chaos, including the deputizing of many citizens in a fruitless search for Wagner.An April 24, 1943, FBI memorandum, among more than 800 pages obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, details Wagner's life to the point of his capture by the FBI and Virginia State Police that year.It says that Wagner and the others escaped the Blountville facility while he was awaiting an appeal of his April 26, 1925, electric chair sentence. The appeal was based on the original trial scheduling not giving enough time for preparing a defense and finding all witnesses, as well as evidence not supporting the sentence and the inability to get a fair trial in Sullivan County because of his notoriety, according to the FBI and newspaper accounts."The men made their escape after the two guards brought in the crew of prisoners who had been working on the road. The guards and the jailor had gone upstairs to the prisoners' cage and the jailer had opened the door to admit two of the prisoners when Wagner and the other six men rushed out," the memo said, based almost word for word on a Kingsport Times article of July 10, 1925."One of the prisoners hit the jailor over the head with a Coca-Cola bottle and Wagner and the others pounced upon him and the other guards and took their guns." The jailer's name was Barr, no first name given.Wagner fired a shot at jail helper R.C. Carter but missed, FBI files say. Claude Gentry's book "The Guns of Kinnie Wagner" indicates that one of the other prisoners learned to imitate Wagner when asked if he was in his cell, fooling a jailer into locking the cell while Wagner was actually outside.Wagner could still have been in the jail in Knoxville, where he was taken May 12 after the trial, but the Times on June 5 reported he had been moved back to Blountville the evening of June 4 for no stated reason, although his second trial or appeal had been set for June 22 but was delayed. After he vacated the Knoxville jail, officers found a gun possibly meant for Wagner's use, the Times reported on June 5.WAGNER WALKS AWAY FROM MISSISSIPPI JAILIn Mississippi, Wagner had escaped from the Greene County Jail in Leakesville on Nov. 11, 1924, after being arrested for having a stolen pocket watch in George County near Lucedale, which Wagner said was a setup.Wagner had "secured a hacksaw blade from a released prisoner and sawed the bars of the cell and walked away to freedom," the 1943 FBI memo says.However, a first cousin of Wagner, Amy Lee, told East Tennessee State University English professor Thomas Burton in a Sept. 5, 1966 interview that Wagner "piled his magazines and papers and things up in his bed," got behind the door "and when they brought his breakfast and thought he was still in bed and opened the door, he went out the door and locked it." Burton quoted Lee in "A Ballad Outlaw's Self-concept."The April 19, 1925, Kingsport Times, quoting from the Greene County Herald, said the "two gun desperado" had "knocked down" Sheriff McLeod (no first name given) to escape the jail.Wagner also allegedly escaped during transport back to Mississippi after the Tennessee killings, according to multiple newspaper accounts, but in the Gentry book Wagner said that did not occur.After his Oct. 31, 1925, conviction for killing a Mississippi deputy, Wagner went to that state's Parchman Prison on Nov. 5, 1927 and first tried to escape on Dec. 8.The Gentry book attributed the plan's failure in part to heavy mud in the escape route and other potential escapees not following Wagner's lead.PARCHMAN PRISON BREAK NO. 1However, that was followed by a successful escape almost 15 years later, on Oct. 27, 1940, when Trusty Wagner allegedly forced guard J.W. Fowler to drive him well away from Parchman. A Nov. 1 edition of the Delta Democrat-Times carried an Associated Press account of Wagner disappearing into "thin air."The guard and Wagner were out hunting an escapee, but Wagner said the guard willingly helped him flee. Wagner stayed on the run until his April 16, 1943, capture by the FBI and Virginia State Police on U.S. Route 23 about 7.7 miles west of Gate City.FBI records indicate Fowler was unavailable for an interview on the matter in the early 1940s.PARCHMAN PRISON BREAK NO. 2Wagner's last escape, about 10 p.m. on March 15, 1948, but not discovered until midnight, occurred when he left Parchman with a machine gun on his normal rounds.The FBI declined to help with that search, with Director J. Edgar Hoover indicating Mississippi could find its own escapee since it had armed Wagner and let him leave."I agree. It is just a waste of money to catch him and send him back to Mississippi," Hoover is quoted as saying in an Aug. 14, 1950, memorandum from agent M.A. Jones.Other documents, including a March 17, 1950, letter from Hoover responding to Mary Whitaker of Norton, Virginia, said bluntly that inquiries about Wagner should go to Mississippi prison officials.A Sept. 12, 1950, memo from an unnamed special agent in charge from New Orleans also recounted the FBI would not help Mississippi capture Wagner as requested by Col. T.B. Birdsong, commissioner of public safety and head of the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Birdsong was on hand when state authorities finally captured Wagner on Jan. 29. 1956.MORE KILLINGS BUT NO CHARGESWagner admittedly killed, albeit he claimed in self-defense, brothers Bob and William Carper in Arkansas on Aug. 16, 1926. He wounded a third brother, Bob. This followed the killing of the deputy in Mississippi and the two officers in Kingsport.Most sources list Wagner as killing five men, although Hoover at one point tagged him with six killings.The Kingsport officer who survived being shot by Wagner in 1925 was George Frazier. He passed away in 1938 after a heart attack following the shooting of a fellow constable near Cooks Valley in Sullivan County. So Frazier is not included in most Kinnie Wagner death counts.Also not counted are the deaths — in which Wagner was suspected but never charged — of two Black men from North Carolina mentioned in FBI records.Informants also told the FBI in the early 1940s that Wagner was adamant he didn't kill a man in Scott County, despite rumors, and no FBI files or other sources indicate he was charged with any slayings in his home state.Wagner's 1931 life story in The Vagabond Gazette, which ceased publishing before his serialized account was completed, mentioned some shootings in Mexico, but it is unclear if those resulted in any deaths. Wagner also told Gentry that he shot at least one escaped inmate, but no death was indicated.Wagner was never charged for the Carper killings because, FBI files indicate, the Carpers were "notorious."According to Jim Necessary in a Sept. 8, 2003, presentation to the Kingsport Survivors Club, it might have helped Wagner that the Carper brothers were the suspects in the killing of the husband of Lillie Barber, the female sheriff to whom Wagner surrendered after the Carper shootings.She became the first female sheriff in Arkansas after her husband was killed.ON THE RUN AGAIN AND AGAINWagner's return to Mississippi and subsequent sentence of life in prison in 1925 meant the rest of his days were spent in prison, escaping, trying to escape, or on the run.In stark contrast, newspaper and wire service accounts and Gentry's book say Wagner when he died was holding the puppy of a guard dog he had been in charge of training at the prison, where he was a trusty even after attempting escape in 1927 and escaping in 1940 and 1948.Necessary said that of a 32-year span, according to his calculations, Wagner spent about 16 incarcerated and 16 on the run.Wagner helped track down escapees, bringing them back to prison, and helped quell a prison riot, the Gentry book says.Further, Wagner claimed via Gentry he once was offered a full pardon if he shot a convict one of the prison officials wanted dead, but Wagner said he wouldn't do it, although he did shoot to injure an escaped inmate. Necessary said such pardon offers were good for all prison trusties.Wagner also trained the dogs not to follow his scent before his last escape in 1948, a ploy that worked.WAGNER TALKATIVEDogs were not the only beings who listened to Wagner, who in later life told Gentry he enjoyed their company more than most people.Wagner also was an expert horseman, having tamed a horse nicknamed Funeral Wagon in his circus days. And according to an April 24, 1943 memorandum from the Richmond field office of the FBI, while in the Bristol, Virginia, Jail after his capture earlier that month, Wagner was chatty and friendly with everyone."He is loquacious and has a witty reply for any question. He is boastful and humorous, continually reciting poetry and verses to any audience he can obtain. He is a legend in Scott County, and is believed to be a hero to the people there," the memorandum says.The Gentry book paints him as a reader who kept up with current events.Also according to the April 24, 1943 memo, he told a social worker in 1925 after his Tennessee murder conviction that he had no words for posterity."Hell, no. They killed Jesus Christ for being too good and they're going to kill me for being too bad, so you lose at either end of the road."Wagner also reportedly said that if a harp in heaven had his name on it, he wouldn't know how to play it, although the Gentry book mentions him playing a guitar while on the run in the West.Before Christmas 1945, a Kingsport News staff writer named Eileen Crawford, later Eileen Cannon, wrote an article based on an interview with Wagner. Crawford reported Wagner wanted a pardon and wished to "spend the rest of my life helping young people stay out of crime," according to the article reporting his death in the March 10, 1958, edition."I want to devote the rest of my life to helping young people see right from wrong, so they will not make the mistakes I made," Wagner was quoted as saying.He was on "Christmas furlough" at the time, the paper reported. His furlough and general comments were confirmed by FBI memos from that time, including reports of him in the Tri-Cities.LAST RECAPTURE AS END NEARSWagner was captured by law enforcement and prison officials in 1956 in Mississippi. Hoover had refused pleas from state officials for the FBI to help capture Wagner as it had done in 1943 because the prison had let Wagner be a trusty, which is how he escaped in 1948 armed with a submachine gun.The FBI's jurisdiction was based on a charge that Wagner had kidnapped a jailer in his 1943 escape and that he hadn't registered with Selective Service. FBI agents found a blank Selective Service registration card among his items in the house where he was hiding.The federal charges against Wagner were never pursued, and in 1947 he was under consideration for pardon. A 1950 FBI file says the only witness to the 1925 Tennessee shootings was then in an asylum.According to a March 9, 1958, United Press article, 10 instances had been documented of Wagner being furloughed from prison, including ones between 1943 and 1948 that flabbergasted FBI officials, according to FBI documents.Necessary said Parchman was progressive in that regard and in granting conjugal visits to prisoners. However, it was also brutal to inmates, most of whom were Blacks. The Gentry book says that Wagner and other prisoners were sometimes beaten with "Black Betty," a 6-inch-wide, 6-foot-long leather whip with staples.MINISTER GIVES TAKE ON WAGNER'S LIFERetired Hawkins County minister Harry Fleenor's late half-brother, Methodist minister Worley Fleenor, said a prayer at Wagner's funeral service.Harry said cars were lined up at the Wood Cemetery that day. Worley had visited Wagner in prison and more than a decade later wrote a letter lauding the Gentry book and defending Wagner as having killed in self-defense."Kinnie just had a lot of friends," Harry said of the crowd that attended Wagner's viewing, funeral and graveside service."Worley believed he was pushed into defending himself when he shot those two deputies," Harry said of the 1925 killings on the bank of the Holston River."It (the Gentry book) would be good for youth to read, not that they will admire Kinnie as a great hero, but see that 'THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR IS HARD,' and that crime does not pay," Worley wrote in a circa 1969 letter to the Kingsport Times News Reader Forum while serving churches in Troutdale, Virginia.WAGNER RESTS IN SCOTT COUNTYSo William Kenneth Wagner, known as Kinnie, with a long list of aliases, died in Sunflower County, Mississippi. He was born Feb. 18, 1903, in Speers Ferry in Scott County to Charles Monroe Wagner and Nancy Jane Penley Wagner.His mother died in 1910, and his father remarried two years later. Wagner literally ran away to join a circus, became a bronco rider and ended up in the moonshine business, according to Gentry, before becoming the killer of at least five men.After an adult life as an outlaw, escaping from jails twice and the same prison twice, Wagner died March 9, 1958, at Parchman Prison. However, it wasn't in a volley of gunfire. Instead, he fell to the ground after being granted leave from a hospital bed to check on a puppy of a dog he had trained.His body was transported back to Scott County for his viewing, funeral and burial, the latter on March 12, 1958, a Wednesday. He was laid to rest beside his mother.His grave, marked "W. Kinnie Wagner," is in Mountain View School or Wood Cemetery. According to the Kingsport Times, the viewing drew 15,000 people to the Scott County Funeral Home. The book said cars lining U.S. Highway 23 included those of Mississippi prison officials."Mississippi liked Kinnie," the Rev. Harry Fleenor said. "They wouldn't turn him loose to come back to Tennessee."However, Mississippi let him return home to Virginia one last time in March 1958 for a permanent furlough.Young men, young men, take warning,Oh take my last advice:If you start the game in life wrongYou must surely pay the price.— "Kinnie Wagner's Surrender," sung by Vernon Dalhart (a.k.a. Altoona Craver), written by the Rev. Andrew Jenkins and recorded Sept. 13, 1926.Try the Kingsport Times News app today. Download here from Google Play and the App Store.Kinnie Wagner, asked by a social worker if he had words for posterity after Tennessee murder conviction in 1925: "Hell, no. They killed Jesus Christ for being too good and they're going to kill me for being too bad, so you lose at either end of the road." Source, FBI memo dated April 24, 1943"I want to devote the rest of my life helping young people see right from wrong, so they will not make the mistakes I made." Kinnie Wagner, on "Christmas furlough" from prison, in December 1945. Source: Kingsport Times News