How Tough?

The three teen-agers were tougher than anyone their age ought to be. One was a gunman, one a thief, one an incorrigible delinquent. All of them had made several escapes from Missouri's ill-famed Training School for Boys at Boonville and been recaptured. But they were not tough enough to take the n agging boredom of the bleak, brick-tiled isolation cell. Irritable and depressed, they yammered at each other.

Ironically, the argument touched a question of tough professional pride. How old did you have to be to get into the Algoa Reformatory near Jefferson City, a place for even tougher guys? As the words grew angrier, one of the boys grabbed Rolland Barton, 15, from behind, crooked one arm around his neck and held on for ten minutes. When the body grew limp, he and the third boy tossed it on the bunk, tore strips from a blanket and cinched them around their victim's neck to finish the job. In a final fury they showered blows on the unconscious body. It was not necessary. Rolland Barton was dead.

It was the second such killing in five months at Boonville and it stung indignant Missourians to action. A state senator demanded an investigation; Boonville's residents held a mass meeting.

Superintendent John C. Tindall, who had taken over after the first killing, made no excuses. He had done his best to clean up the filth, weed out the crooked, underpaid staffers, refurbish inadequate and worn-out equipment. But he could do no more in the face of apathetic, economy-minded state legislators. Said Tindall bitterly: "More criminals have been made in this institution in the past 30 years than in any institution in the United States."

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