On this day …….. 20th of December 1942
A convict who escaped from Beechworth goal three years ago was arrested in Sydney on this day in 1942. He was charged with breaking and entering and theft of £1000 worth of property. The man, William McEntee, aged 51, escaped from Beechworth prison by scaling a high wall. An old hand at goal-breaking, Beechworth was McEntee’s third prison escape. He had previously got away from Yatala prison, South Australia, and from Ararat goal. After the second escape he was at liberty for nearly 12 months. Regarded as desperate and declared an habitual criminal nine years ago, McEntee disappeared from Beechworth prison just before the midday muster one day in February, 1940. Stealing a bicycle in a street 150 yards from the gaol, he rode out of the township in his prison clothes, and vanished. After hiding for two days and two nights in the scrub to evade capture by armed warders and police, McEntee got away from the district. Last trace of him until his arrest in Sydney was the discovery on a roadside at Tarrawingee of the bicycle he had stolen.