Illinois Governor Asked to Pardon ‘Blond Tigress’ : Crime: Eleanor Berendt Jarman was called the most dangerous female outlaw alive in 1930s. She escaped prison in 1940 and would be 92 if still alive.

Sixty years ago, Eleanor Berendt Jarman was dubbed the most dangerous female outlaw alive after she helped kill a man on her way to a baseball game, then broke out of prison in a polka-dot dress.

Is she still alive and on the lam at age 92?

Jarman’s relatives want Gov. Jim Edgar to grant her clemency to lure her out of hiding, or clear her name if she’s dead.

“A lot of Ella’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren would like to see her and touch her and know they have a grandmother who is alive,” said Doug Jarman, who believes his grandmother is living a fugitive’s life.

The last time Jarman was seen by her family was in 1975, when she showed up at a bus station in Sioux City, Iowa, asking about her two sons, then in their 50s. She met with one son before leaving town on a Greyhound bus and disappearing.

According to Doug Jarman, who lives in Sioux City, his father and grandmother talked through coded classified newspaper advertisements after the visit.

Police said Jarman pummeled and clawed Gustav Hoeh while her boyfriend, George Dale, shot him during a 1933 holdup at his clothing store before a Chicago Cubs game.

Dale was executed for Hoeh’s murder the following year. Jarman’s role earned her the moniker “blond tigress.” She and a third suspect, Leo Minneci, were each sentenced to 199 years in prison.

In 1940, Jarman put on a polka-dot dress and scaled the walls of a women’s reformatory in Dwight. The FBI searched for her to no avail into the 1950s.

In their petition to Edgar, Jarman’s family said she was “completely unaware” that Dale planned to break the law.

Although Doug Jarman wants clemency for his grandmother, he said his father opposed the idea right up to his death. He feared publicity could expose the family to ridicule and tarnish their businesses.

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board plans to consider the clemency request in October.

Jarman’s husband left her in 1930. Her 98-year-old brother, Otto Berendt, is in a nursing home. One of her sons, LeRoy Jarman, a retired Sioux City real estate broker and firefighter, died March 1 at age 71. Her other son, LaVerne Jarman, 67, is a recluse in Florida.