Escapee Writes Bogus Check For Trip In Taxi

AVERY PENLAND

A $15 Fare, Almost

The disgruntled taxicab driver looked at the worthless $15 check in his hand and settled down to tell how he unknowingly drove a county Jail escapee from Startex to York Monday morning.

Avery Penland of Yellow Cab Co. said he was dispatched to Startex at 10 a.m. to pick up a fare. It turned out to be Jimmy Lawson Thompson, one of two prisoners who dug their way out of "escape proof" County Jail shortly before midnight Sunday.

"He acted very courteous and talked intelligently. I didn't have the slightest idea the man was a criminal," Penland said at his home at Una Monday night.

"He told me he had been in an automobile wreck with three other fellows and wanted to go to York to pick up some clothes," Penland added.

He said the man appeared to be in a great hurry and "walked as if his feet and ankles were hurting him." Thompson had earlier jumped about 15 feet to the ground from the jail's second floor.

"The fellow said he worked in the finance department at Donaldson Air Force Base and asked if I would take a $15 check as payment for the taxi fare," Penland went on.

Thompson - a dark-haired, well built young man - tried once to cash the check at a whisky store near Blacksburg, but was turned down.

En route to York, the man told Penland he was going to see a girl friend and at one time asked if he would come back for him Friday.

"He talked about several persons in Spartanburg, calling them by name, and really had me convinced he was telling the truth," the 53-year old cab driver and father of six children said.

"I'm glad I remembered directions to the house where I let him out at York, for I was pretty mad when they told me at Citizens and Southern Bank the check was no good."

The check bounced - and so did Thompson, all the way back to a new cell at county Jail late Monday afternoon.

A few weeks ago, a Columbus, N.C., man chased off three Yellow Cab Co. drivers with rifle fire after they took him home in a before daylight ride.

Monday, around the cab company's lot on Magnolia Street they were dreaming up new versions of the firm's slogan which reads:

"A thinking fellow calls a Yellow."

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