FIRED JAILER WANTS APOLOGY FROM CITY

Former Cape Girardeau jailer Norman Farrar says the city of Cape Girardeau owes him an apology and compensation for what he called an unjust investigation of him four years ago.

"It should seem like the city should take it on themselves and give me something for what they put me through," Farrar said. "And they didn't find nothing," he said with emphasis.

"I mean, they really put me through the mill," he said. "Not only that my family, too."

Farrar, 64, of Cape Girardeau, worked as the Cape Girardeau Police Department's weekend jailer before being fired May 29, 1987. His termination followed the attempted escape from the city jail by federal prisoner David A. Smith on May 12, 1987.

Farrar said the investigation of him began after he left his job. Police, he contended, have tried to make it sound as if he gave Smith the gun that was used to break out.

Smith broke out of the jail with a .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol and hacksaw blades that were smuggled in. A police lieutenant critically wounded Smith by shooting him in the chest before he could get out of the building.

Smith was tried and sentenced in April 1990 to two life sentences and 100 years in prison for the jail break. At his trial, Smith testified that Farrar unknowingly had allowed the gun in the jail compound after it had been smuggled in in a candy box.

Smith said a former jail prisoner, Mary L. Cavaness of Scott City, had smuggled the handgun and hacksaw blades in on different occasions. Cavaness later admitted to aiding Smith in his escape, and she was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 1988.

The hacksaw blades were cut in half and smuggled in in a body-powder container and a shampoo bottle, Smith testified. Smith said Farrar had allowed the body-powder container in the jail while another jailer, Chester Going, had allowed the shampoo bottle in.

Smith maintained that Going had agreed to help him escape from the jail for $50,000. Going denied any involvement in Smith's escape.

Farrar said the investigation of him involved the subpoenaing of his telephone records by a federal grand jury in St. Louis. He said also that cars followed him when he left his house in his car.

He said he was investigated by the Cape Girardeau Police Department, the U.S. attorney, the U.S. Marshal's Service and Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle. Neither of the city's other two jailers, Going or Gary Hurt, who worked during the week, were investigated, Farrar said.

Then-Cape Girardeau police chief Ray Johnson, now police chief at Chesterfield, confirmed the police department had investigated Farrar. But Johnson said: "That's the only one I was involved in. If there was something else going on, it was unbeknownst to me."

Johnson said as far as he is concerned the matter surrounding Farrar is dead.

Johnson said he didn't want to give Farrar "any fuel to open a new problem with." He said, "All I can say is I feel the action we took was proper and it doesn't warrant any follow-up response."

The current Cape Girardeau Police chief, Howard Boyd, declined to comment on the matter.

Farrar said that after he was fired he took the matter before the Missouri Commission on Human Rights. A commission memorandum, he said, says probable cause existed that he was terminated because he is black. Going and Hurt are white.

Farrar said an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission document gave him a 90-day right to sue the city of Cape Girardeau and its police department. But Farrar said a St. Louis attorney he retained to bring a suit, which would have been filed in federal court, allowed the 90 days to run out for some reason.

Farrar said: "I had a good case. I lost it, especially the federal aspects of it."

Since then, he said, he has tried to take legal action against the attorney, but three lawyers he has talked to won't take the case.

The St. Louis attorney, Wayne Harvey, declined to comment except to say that Farrar filed complaints against his office with the Missouri Bar Association. "It cost my office a small fortune," said Harvey. He said the mere mention of Farrar's name angers him.

Johnson declined to say whether police believe Farrar gave the gun to Smith. "I don't want to comment on the details," Johnson said. "But (Farrar) was never charged with that," he said.

A copy of a termination letter dated May 29, 1987, from Johnson to Farrar said Farrar was being fired immediately for his "laxity and inattention" to his duties. The letter also said Farrar was being terminated as a member of the department's reserve police force. Farrar said he had served as a reserve officer for 10 years or longer.

Farrar conceded that he may have passed the gun to Smith. If that happened, though, it's as Smith testified: the gun was hidden in the candy box and it was passed unknowingly, said Farrar.

Farrar denied that he purposely helped Smith, whom he said was a racist. "Do you think I would give a guy a gun, and he's a racist and don't like me? I'd likely be the first one he'd shoot," he said.

Farrar said his telephone records, copies of which he showed to the Southeast Missourian, were subpoenaed to try to show he had called Cavaness or a man in Kentucky who also was linked to Smith.

"They were trying to make a connection there, but they couldn't," said Farrar. "I didn't even know who they were. I knew Mary Cavaness because we had her there in jail once."

Authorities, he said, also tapped his telephone. The Missouri Commission on Human Rights cites Johnson as saying that no tap was placed on Farrar's telephone, but a "pin register" was. Johnson said a pin register records the date, time, length of call, and number called from.

Informed of Farrar's speculation on a wiretap, Johnson told the Southeast Missourian that Missouri law outlaws wiretapping and the department violated no state laws.

Asked if a pin register had been used, Johnson responded: "I don't want to go into what the investigation entailed, but I can say again there was no wiretap on his telephone. Not to my knowledge, and from my knowledge, we were the only department involved in the investigation."

The commission memorandum said Johnson had stated that police showed Farrar's photograph to residents of the neighborhood where Cavaness lived. The photograph was shown to see if the neighbors had seen Farrar in the area, he said.

Johnson said neither Going nor Hurt's telephones had pin registers placed on them nor were their photographs shown to people.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis said the office could not comment on any investigation nor confirm whether one had taken place. A telephone message left for the U.S. marshal in St. Louis, Willie Greason, was unreturned.

The Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney, Swingle, said his office did not investigate Farrar, but the U.S. Marshal's Service investigated the jailbreak.

Farrar said the city of Cape Girardeau should pay him whatever is "reasonable." He told the commission he would settle for $50,000, according to commission documents.