Joseph Pawelka

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Joseph John Thomas Pawelka (1887–unknown) was a New Zealand criminal and famous prison escapee. He was born in West Oxford, Canterbury, to Moravian immigrant parents, Josef Pawelka and Louise Konig. At 13, he was apprenticed to a butcher.

By 1908 he had moved to Palmerston North in the North Island, where he contracted typhoid fever and spent five months in hospital. He married Hannah Wilson on 29 September 1909. After a suicide attempt in December 1909, Hannah sought a separation order. Their daughter Iris was born in July 1910.

On 25 February 1910 Hannah went to the Palmerston North police station, accusing Pawelka of breaching their separation order. Police searched his home and found an unregistered firearm and stolen goods from burglaries. He was charged with theft and appeared in court on 7 March 1910, but escaped custody five days later (12 March). He was captured at Awahuri on 14 March and taken to Wellington’s Terrace Gaol. On 23 March, Pawelka escaped again through a negligently unlocked door after a cellmate was moved, and he headed north.

On 2 April 1910 he robbed a Palmerston North couple, and on 5 April arson destroyed Palmerston North High School and a shop. On 9 April he threatened his wife and mother-in-law, and on 10 April he tried to burgle a butcher’s home. During the disturbance, Police Sergeant John McGuire was shot and later died on 14 April. Pawelka was recaptured on 20 April at a cowshed in Ashhurst.

Over the next month, in court he was acquitted of the shooting of McGuire and the robbery, but he was convicted of theft, arson, and escape from custody. On 8 June 1910 he was sentenced to 21 years in prison, a sentence that caused public outcry because of its severity.

He made three more escape attempts on 11, 14, and 17 August 1911, and on 17 August he was free for only an hour. On 27 August 1911 he removed a grille above his cell and vanished toward Wellington’s Botanical Gardens. He was never recaptured, and his fate remains a mystery, though his escapes are noted in New Zealand’s criminal history.