THE MOLE'S MANY ATTEMPTS

The man of a thousand schemes, James Earl Ray, has tirelessly tried to scratch, claw and dig his way out of jail so many times that fellow inmates nicknamed him "the Mole." He has made eight known escape attempts--and bungled most of them. His reported escapades, up until last week's getaway:

> Attempt to flee an Army stockade in October 1948, after arrest for drunkenness in his barracks.

> Attempted breakout from a courthouse in St. Louis, Dec. 15, 1959, as he was about to go on trial for a $120 holdup. Ray pushed an escort deputy violently away, fled through the building until a policeman stopped him at gunpoint.

> Attempted flight over the wall of the Missouri State Penitentiary at Jefferson City, on Nov. 19, 1961. Serving a 20-year sentence for armed robbery, Ray tried to scale the wall with a jerry-built ladder, but it collapsed.

> Another escape try from Missouri state pen, on March 10, 1966. Ray placed a dummy in his bed, shinnied up a pole to his cell window, used wire cutters to snip through the steel mesh, and crept through a shaft to a fan ventilator. He hid there until the next night, but when he tried to leave, guards nabbed him.

> Successful getaway on April 23, 1967, from Missouri state pen. Ray claims he clambered up a water pipe and used a stolen steel hook to yank himself over the prison wall, but prison officials believe he hid in a large bread crate, and escaped in a delivery truck that carried the box out.

> Attempt to escape from Brushy Mountain Prison on May 3, 1971. Ray left a dummy in his cell, used tools provided by another inmate to remove a concrete block in his cell, crawled into an air chamber, ripped the bars from a ventilation fan and slipped into the prison courtyard. There, using a crowbar, he pried open a manhole cover to enter a steam tunnel leading out. But its 400DEG heat drove him back.

> Second escape attempt from Brushy Mountain, Feb. 5, 1972. Ray somehow got a hammer and a homemade saw, tried to cut a hole through the wooden ceiling of a room next to an auditorium where prisoners were watching a movie. But the film ended before he finished, and he was caught.

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