Charles A. Krueger, Pontiac, was a guard and acting day Captain on a fateful Sunday afternoon, Sept. 7, 1919, when he “was shot down in cold blood by the desperados while unlocking their cell door.” The desperados were John Kelly, doing a life sentence for a Chicago Armed robbery, and John Fredericko, 20, serving 14 years for a $105,000 Bank Robbery in Argo. Kelly shot Krueger in the head at point blank range, killing him instantly. Another officer, Carl Hancock, was shot in the head by Frederico at close range, but survived. After holding a “posse” of armed guards at bay from the cellhouse, Frederico and Kelly made it to the roof of the prison hospital, but were turned back by a fusillade of bullets fired by guards outside the prison. Both inmates were mortally wounded. Kelly was found dead with a gun by his side in the cellhouse corridor and Fredericko died the following afternoon. Before his death, Fredericko said friends of Kelly smuggled the guns over the west wall the previous Thursday and Kelly hid them under a band stand in the yard. Nearby residents feared a riot and widespread escape when they heard the gun shots and clamor raised by inmates in the North Cellhouse. The local paper attributed the murder to a state law “which sanctions the incarceration in the local institution of the vicious outlaws of the Chicago crime bands.”