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Collin's Bay Institution
: History & News |
Collin's Bay Penitentiary
Escapes
On June 13, 1998, two inmates, convicted killer John
Leslie Chaif and a 26 year-old bank robber by the name
of Melhuish, both considered "extremely dangerous"
by authorities, escaped from Collin's Bay by hiding
in a correctional staff member's van. The following
day a state trooper discovered one of the inmates after
pulling over a 1988 Ford Thunderbird that had its license
plate stripped off and a sawed-off shotgun showing in
the backseat. After ordering the man to exit the vehicle,
the driver pulled a .32 caliber Derringer from his watch
pocket, and may have fired a shot off had the officer
not narrowly overpowered him. Along with the weapons
in the car was a wig, female clothing, and female identification.
Melhuish had received plastic surgery sometime during
his life on the run, altering the shape of his nose
and eyebrows to pass as a woman.
Melhuish had committed a string of crimes across the
southeastern United States while fleeing from police,
including a bank robbery in Memphis, Tennessee, a holdup
of the Bank of Nova Scotia on Market Place in East York,
numerous weapon crimes, resisting arrest, theft, and
assault. Like his counterpart, Chaif also committed
a series of bank robberies while on the run. Chaif was
caught one year after he escaped and is serving time
in Tennesse (The Toronto Star, July 20 1990).
Suicides and Deaths
Donzel (Chilly) Young, a Jamaican immigrant serving
a double-murder sentence since 1989, was killed on March
6 1995 in Collin's Bay. Young contested that he was
always innocent, and he made an application to re-open
the case to the federal government the previous year.
According to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, there was
evidence that the murder had been committed by another
man, who had allegedly also confessed before killing
himself. The inquiry into Young's innocence, however,
was criticized as too slow, on account of "overworked"
federal government lawyers that probably were not as
suited to the case as an independent body would have
been (Kitchener-Waterloo Record).
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