Soldiers of Misfortune

In April 1975, Roger Allen Jaske murdered 16-year-old Jeffrey Harmon of Michigan City, Indiana, allegedly during a fight which ensued after Harmon asked to borrow Jaske’s vehicle. Jaske stabbed him and left him for dead in a wooded area. He later returned to retrieve the rope he’d used to tie up Harmon and discovered Harmon was still breathing. Jaske stabbed him several more times, threw away the knife, and took Harmon’s wallet to make it appear to be a robbery gone wrong. In December 1976 he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison by the court.

While serving his sentence at Indiana Reformatory, Jaske killed a fellow inmate named Clinton Page in December 1983. Page’s death occurred during a violent initiation ritual into the so-called “Syndicate”, which Jaske had promised offered its members opportunities for money, jobs, and an early release from prison. To be initiated, Page allowed Jaske to tie him to a post and beat him with a board from the Reformatory’s lumber yard. Page suffered severe internal hemorrhaging from repeated strikes to the abdomen and passed away during the initiation. Jaske and another inmate then hid his body in the lumber yard, where it was soon discovered.

Jaske was scheduled to be tried for involuntary manslaughter at the Madison County Circuit Court in Anderson, Indiana in March 1986. But long before his court date, Jaske began planning an escape. At the time, Indiana Reformatory did not monitor inmate phone calls or censor mail, making it trivial for Jaske to communicate his plans to the outside.