Recollections About An Old Friend
I had a close friend (Larry Williams) that became a CHP officer in the very late 1950ts. The CHP academy at that time was located on Meadowview Rd in south Sacramento and I lived about two miles from that location.
When Larry went through his training at the academy he was married, living in Grass Valley and restricted to the academy except for (as I recall) weekends and Weds. night was free for a few hours that he spent at our house for dinner and visiting. I was present at his graduation and several years later his funeral.
After graduation it was the norm for a rookie to be dispatched to southern California (either desert or LA area) and Larry was dispatched to the Norwalk area where I would visit him once in a while when I had a load of lumber to deliver near there. I can't recall the reason why he was sent to the Bakersfield area but do recall him telling me about going there for a brief visit to the onion field with other officers.
Larry was later transferred to Fresno for a few years and our families visited back and forth from Sacramento to Fresno. It was during this time that my family was invited to spend a week in a cabin the CHP had at I believe it was Bass Lake. During the tourist season the CHP would patrol this area and take turns giving the patrolmen and their families access to a mini vacation with pay.
After Fresno, he was relocated to Colfax where he patrolled I-80 from Colfax to Donner Summit and remained there a number of years until his request for a transfer to Weaverville on 299 W west of Redding California.
Larry's father was a sawyer at the sawmill in town and most of his immediate family lived close to that location. It was a dream come true (or as he thought) to be out of the congested, dangerous, big city locations where crime and killing was growing rapidly. What could be safer than a small mountain town with a local sheriff and small jail and great for hunting, fishing, flying etc.
So it was in the spring of 1973 that disaster struck.
The headlines of an article in a local paper.
Escape, attack charged!
By – GARTH SANDERS- WEAVERVILLE, Ca. –April 1, 1973:
Escape and assault charges were filed in Weaverville Justice Court Monday against two Trinity County Jail inmates accused of breaking out of, the Jail and wounding a California Highway Patrol Officer minutes later in a shootout. The shootout also left both of the jail inmates wounded. The wounded, CHP officer is Larry Williams, 39, of Weaverville, married and the father of three children. District Attorney Bill Neill filed the criminal complaint against John Randall Jefferson, 26, of Chula Vista and Paul Charles DeWitt,19, of Riverside. Both men are charged with:
-Escape from the Trinity County Sheriff's Office by means of force.
-Assault upon night jailer Leroy Eisele by means of force likely to cause great bodily harm.
-Assault with a deadly weapon upon Officer Williams.
Officer Williams is still in "guarded" condition at Mercy Hospital in Redding after surgery early Monday to remove a .38 pistol bullet from his neck. The-Record-Searchlight has learned that the bullet that struck the officer was from a special, low-powered "short" cartridge having only enough velocity to go through Williams' upper lip, and teeth, graze his tongue and lodge in his neck near an artery. Still listed in "guarded" condition at Mercy Hospital is Jefferson who was shot through the abdomen in the 8 p.m.Sunday gun battle on Trinity Lakes Boulevard, three blocks north of Weaverville’s Main Street. Jefferson had been serving a 90-day jail sentence for possession of a sawed-off shotgun when he allegedly fled the jail at about 7:45 p.m. Sunday. DeWitt had been in jail only two days, awaiting court action on a charge of burglary. Deputies said. He was accused of burglarizing a house trailer near Wildwood. DiWitt was reportedly struck in the leg by the same bullet that had, gone through Jefferson's abdomen. Tight secrecy has been clamped on the case by both Sheriff Tom Kelly and District Attorney Bill Neill, who say they don't want to make statements that might be considered prejudicial by a trial Judge later on. But the Record-Searchlight learned Tuesday that the official version of the jailbreak runs like this: Inmates called for hair clippers so they could give each other haircuts Sunday evening. Jailer Eisele, delivering the clippers to the cell, was overpowered by the inmates. The fleeing inmates allegedly either took Eisele's pistol or a pistol from a storage area of the jail. Eisele got to the radio at 7:45 p.m. and called CHP cars in the area and telephoned Sheriff Kelly and Undersheriff Ted Laag. CHP Officer Williams encountered. DeWitt and Jefferson at 8 p.m. and the gun battle ensued. Jailer Eisele was on duty in the jail Monday, but he was still shaken by his tussle with the jail inmates. He, could speak only in a whisper and officers said this was caused by his neck being squeezed in a headlock applied by one of the inmates. Two other jail inmates in the same cell refused to leave with Jefferson and DiWitt, Sheriff Kelly said.
Larry told me he didn't know the criminals were armed. He said the sheriff called him when he regained conciousness but was unaware the men had stolen his gun and when Larry confronted them, he told them to halt, approach slowly. He said he had the patrol cars door between him and the convicts and when they were close the one with the gun got off a shot that hit him in his neck and mouth, as he fell, he got off one shot that got both of them. Going through one and hitting the other.
As a result of this shootout, Larry was eventually found to be totally disabled according to the CHP requirements and was given a disability retirement. After a couple of years of rehabilitation, he took some of his settlement and purchased a lumber truck and became an independent trucker.
Larry eventually moved back to Grass Valley for a while in 1975 when I was building our mountain home up by the Empire Mine and later moved to Roseburg, Oregon where after two heart bypass surgeries suffered a fatal heart attack defending a neighbor lady and her daughter from a bully and his grown son who were intimidating them.
I spoke at Larry's memorial that was attended by many local and California law enforcement officers. Larry and his wife named their youngest of two sons after me. His name is Kenneth Scott Williams.
Papa-Ken