She was born in Sioux City
In 1933, Eleanor Jarman, known in newspaper headlines as the "Blonde Tigress," was convicted for her role in a string of armed robberies across Chicago. The crime spree ended when her partner, George Dale, fatally shot 70-year-old shop owner Gustav Hoeh during a daylight robbery.
Although prosecutors argued Jarman helped assault the victim, she denied taking part in the killing. She was sentenced to 199 years in prison, while Dale was executed in 1934.
For seven years, Jarman was considered a model prisoner. Then, on August 8, 1940, she and another inmate scaled a 12-foot barbed-wire fence at the Illinois State Reformatory for Women, changed into stolen civilian clothes, and disappeared. Her fellow escapee was recaptured within months, but Jarman was never found.
Over the following decades, she reportedly stayed in contact with family members through coded newspaper advertisements and is believed to have secretly met relatives in Iowa in the 1970s. Despite an FBI wanted poster and years of investigation, authorities never located her.
Researchers now believe Jarman may have spent her final years living under the alias Marie Millman in Denver, where she likely died around 1980. While her true fate has never been conclusively proven, her escape remains one of the longest-unsolved fugitive cases in American history.
