The Gas Fume Fugitive

Late one fall night in 1929, the barber Charlie King opened the gas lines of his home and left his four sons and wife sleeping in the deadly fumes, then hopped on a freight train heading north. It was a year before he would show up behind a barber chair 250 miles away.

Late one fall night in 1929, the barber Charlie King opened the gas lines of his home and left his four sons and wife sleeping in the deadly fumes, then jumped on a freight train heading north. In spite of a heroic effort by police and neighbors alike, Ethel King and three of her sons died in the tragedy, and it was a year before the Charlie King would show up in the world. Although he initially denied he was “The Gas Fume Fugitive,” this novella length true crime history shows how a wily police chief wrangled the truth from him and sent the barber on the way to his date with Old Sparky, the electric chair at the Ohio Penitentiary.

After 25 years writing the first draft of history as a writer and editor for his hometown newspaper, the Hamilton Journal-News, Richard O Jones left the grind of daily journalism in the fall of 2013 to embark on a second career writing the second draft of history, focusing on stories of true crime. Mr. Jones, a creative writing graduate of Miami University, Ohio, spent most of his career as an arts journalist and has won numerous awards for his reviews and profiles. In 2004, he was named a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts Theatre and Musical Theatre program at the Annenberg School of Journalism. The Ohio Associated Press named him Feature Writer of the Year in 2011. Since leaving the newspaper world, Mr. Jones has become an active member of his local history community as a board member of the Butler County Historical Society, a member of the History Speakers Bureau and a regular presenter at Miami University in a program titled “Yesterday’s News.” The Michael J. Colligan History Project of Miami University presented Mr. Jones with a Special Recognition for Contributions to Public History for his coverage of the Centennial Commemoration of the Great Flood of 1913.