CRIME 14-Year-Old Lifer

"Where is the shaved head and the big ball and chain?" asked small, terrified, 14-year-old Barney Lee. Barney had not found San Quentin Prison all he expected.

Last April 29 Barney shot and killed his 36-year-old uncle, Nickoli ("Dick") Payne, at their ranch in the Monterey County mountains, because he had been "bawled out" for not doing his chores. His sentence: life.

Said State Parole Board Chairman Booth B. Goodman: "I've seen a lot of tough 14-year-olds and this boy is not one of them." The prison chaplain, Father George O'Meara, and San Quentin Warden Clinton Duffy, the judge and the parole board chairman were all in a quandary. They agreed that San Quentin is no place for a boy like Barney. But there is no law to permit his transfer. Barney does not seem to mind. He lives fairly merrily in the prison hospital.

He devours the unlimited funny papers he did not expect to find in jail, reported happily to newsmen: "I ate cookies and ice cream too."

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