Brothers John E. Biddle and Edward C. Biddle were condemned prisoners who escaped from the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania using tools and weapons supplied to them by the warden's wife, Kate Soffel who fled with them. During the subsequent pursuit and capture all three were wounded, the brothers mortally. The incident is the basis of the 1984 filmMrs. Soffel.
Background
Jack and Ed Biddle were born in Anderdon Township, Essex County, Ontario to George and Mary Ann Biddle. Soffel was born Anna Katharina Dietrich in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Biddles were arrested on April 12, 1901 at a house in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania as leaders of the "Chloroform Gang", which for more than a year had been overpowering victims with chloroform or ether before robbing them. Tried and convicted on December 12, 1901 of the murder of a Mt. Washington shopkeeper, they were imprisoned in Allegheny County Jail to await hanging.
Escape
Kate Soffel, wife of warden Peter Soffel, frequently came into contact with prisoners in her efforts to rehabilitate them. She developed an infatuation with Ed Biddle, and eventually agreed to help the brothers escape by smuggling saws and guns to them. The brothers sawed openings in the bars of their cells, and at 4am on January29, 1902 one of them called out that his brother was ill. As a guard approached, Jack Biddle lunged through the opening between the bars and, seizing the guard by the waist, threw him over a railing to the stone floor sixteen feet below. Ed Biddle shot and wounded a second guard. The Biddles locked the wounded guards, and the third guard on duty, in the prison "dungeon". After changing from their prison jumpsuits into the guards' street clothes, they left the prison to rendezvous with Soffel. Only at the guards' 6am shift change was the escape discovered.
Pursuit and recapture
The three took a trolley to West View, Pennsylvania, then walked a mile to a farm on Route 19, where they stole a sleigh and a shotgun and started for Butler County. Meanwhile, Charles "Buck" McGovern gathered a posse, assuming the fugitives were headed for Canada and would follow back roads. McGovern stationed his men at the Graham Farm in Butler County and waited. After some time the brothers approached, bringing the sleigh to a halt as they realized they were surrounded. One of the detectives recounted the story: However, this account conflicts with that of John Biddle: What precisely happened during the showdown is uncertain, but the police may have opened fire on Soffel and the Biddles when they made their attempt at suicide. Reporters later described John Biddle as "riddled with buckshot", mentioning that the Biddles were armed with a shotgun, but stated that the police only carried revolvers and rifles. As detectives approached the wounded brothers, Kate Soffel lay near them; she had shot herself. The detectives believed Ed Biddle to be reaching for a pistol, and so they shot him again, with McGovern firing at the brothers until his rifle's magazine became empty. All three were taken to the jail at Butler, where the brothers were placed in adjoining cells. There Jack denied killing the Mt. Washington shopkeeper and a detective who had been shot dead during the Biddles' arrest.
Death and burial of Biddle brothers
Ed had sustained three gunshot wounds, and Jack was described as "riddled with bullets." Jack died at 7:35pm on February1the third day after the shootingand Ed, who had been largely unconscious most of the time, died at 11pm. The brothers' bodies were returned to Pittsburgh where they were met by a large crowd: they had become local celebrities. Thousands showed up to their, some believing they were innocent. They were buried in the Calvary Cemetery, originally without a gravestone because Ed had committed suicide. In 1983, during the filming of Mrs Soffel, a Greene County resident arranged for MGM to erect a headstone; the stone's inscription included a poem found in Ed Biddle's pocket, which had been written by a daughter of a pastor who visited the brothers in jail.
Soffel's later life
After recovering from her bullet wound and possible pneumonia Soffel was returned to Pittsburgh, where she confessed to aiding the Biddles' escape and received a two-year sentence at the Western Penitentiary. Removed from his job as warden, Soffel's husband divorced his wife, remarried, and moved with the couple's children to Canton, Ohio. Kate Soffel briefly attempted to star in a drama, A Desperate Chance, but the production was, according to the New York Times, "enjoined by the Fayette County Court". Soffel later took up dressmaking, and sometimes used her maiden name of Dietrich, or called herself Katherine Miller. She died of typhoid fever in 1909 and was buried in her mother's unmarked grave in Smithfield East End Cemetery.
