The Innocents
(1964)
by Edward D. Radin
Excerpt on
Eugene Padgett
Prisoners bored with routine jail life sometimes confess to
a crime they have not committed, hoping for an outing.
One prisoner, though, had a different kind of a plan, and it backfired on
him. In 1940, while serving a twenty-year burglary sentence in the Texas
State Penitentiary, Eugene Padgett confessed that he had beaten to death
Will Sanderford, the owner of a service station at Little River. Padgett
pleaded guilty to the murder, waived his right to a jury trial, and received
a ninety-nine-year sentence. He was returned to prison. He then revealed
that his confession had been false. He had expected to be taken to a small
town jail for the trial and reasoned that he would be able to break out of
it. Instead, he had been lodged in an escape-proof jail in Austin. Padgett
was told the court could not act on his appeal until he had served out his
time on the burglary charge. In view of his own admission that he had
planned to escape, he was held for the full term of his sentence, and it was
not until July, 1955, that the Court of Appeals freed Padgett on his false
confession to the murder.
APPENDIX
EUGENE PADGETT, Little River, Texas
Trial, 1940, District Court, Belton, while serving a 20-year sentence for
burglary; pleaded guilty to murder; sentence, additional 99 years. Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals refused to accept case until burglary sentence ran
out in May, 1955. July, 1955, conviction set aside, freed by court. No
compensation.