This one seems to come right out of a spy movie. The woman burglar and her male accomplice used a “slide for life” made from a leather harness that attaches to a wire so that the burglars could slide out of windows. The photos are from the 1911 newspaper article.
WOMAN PORCH CLIMBER DOES “SLIDE FOR LIFE” TO AVOID CAPTURE, CLAIM ‘FRISCO POLICE
In Alva Case the San Francisco police claim to have captured one of the cleverest “porch-climbers” known. They claim she masqueraded in Men’s clothing and operated from the housetops with a male companion, making her escape when necessary by sliding down a wire attached to a leather apparatus around her body.
The woman and her companion, George Upton, a discharged soldier, were arrested after they had tried to steal an $8 opera cloak.
Miss Case is 27 years old and says she has a husband. C.N. Case of Denver. Her parents live in southern Illinois, but she will not give their name.
“If I were a porch-climber,” she said, “do you think the detectives would have caught me in my room? If I am as clever as they, don’t you suppose I could have jumped out of the window and gone down the wire when they were in the house?”
Around for the “slide for life” jacket the police have built the theory that the couple climbed to the roof of a house and the man let down the girl through a skylight.
If she was discovered she ran to a window past which the man had stretched a wire, attached the hook to her jacket and slid to the street.
Source: (1911, December 01). Woman porch-climber does “slide for life” to avoid capture. The Day Book, pgs. 29-30.
