Posted on 05/05/2015 11:31:19 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Authorities in Florida say a ruse to get a man's fingerprints led to his arrest as a convicted killer who escaped an Ohio prison farm and disappeared for most of six decades.
Brevard County deputies say investigators with the U.S. Marshals Service in Ohio sought help to check out the man while chasing leads about Frank Freshwaters, an Akron man who escaped in 1959.
Major Tod Goodyear says they created a ruse to get the man to sign papers, then matched the fingerprints to those from the decades-old arrest.
Goodyear says they watched the man for a week, then confronted him Monday at his trailer near Melbourne. Goodyear says they showed him his photo from 50 years ago, asking if he'd seen that guy, and he admitted they had found him.
Freshwaters, now 79-years-old, was arrested and booked Monday by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. He's been ordered held without bond. It is not known if he has hired an attorney.
Ugly never gets old.
At 79 I would bet that he is glad to have the free healthcare provided in prison.
Note to self: Don’t fall for the old “we need you to sign some papers” gag.
This is a waste of money. They should have left the old guy alone.
What was he charged with?
Unless it is murder, won’t the statute of limitations apply?
Soon to be on dateline I’m sure.
Sounds like a dateline I saw. A convicted sex offender faked his death and started a cult. He was careful not to give up his fingerprints when they tried to trick him by showing him photos. But when they finally got his fingerprints they didn’t come back with a positive hit.
He even went to prison for false ID crime and never admitted who he was. They finally figured it out and then charged him with a ton of other crimes. He was still raping kids :-(
First line says convicted for murder.
And he’s escaped from prison. I’m not sure but I think escape is open ended. Meaning there is no time limit on when they have to capture you by.
convicted killer
Yeah. I re-read it. If he’s a convicted murderer, throw him the chair and I don’t care if you forget to wet the sponge.
Here is a link with more details. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ohio-fugitive-arrested-florida-56-years-1959-escape-article-1.2210842
It appears it was Voluntary Manslaughter when he hit a pedestrian with his car. I am thinking drunk driving. He was sentenced to parole for 5 yrs but violated the parole and went to jail.
He tried to lam, but they cheesed him.
Statute of limitations only apply yo before you are convicted. He was convicted, so he still owes that time. And escape from prison is an ongoing crime, so he was still committing it when they knocked on his door.
If it was voluntary manslaughter due to drunk driving, maybe it would better to wet the sponge.
He’s an escaped prisoner, so he was already convicted and sentenced. He’s surely already been convicted in absentia of escaping as well, so there would be time tacked on for that too.
The older picture reminds me of someone but I just can’t put my finger on who.
From another article i learned he was originally arrest for vehicular homicide. Only served around a year of his sentence.
Also, he was pick up Charleston, West Virginia in 1975. The then governor refused to send him back to Ohio, he was let go....?
News Net 5 Clevland ABC
Local escapee Frank Freshwaters caught in Florida after 56 years on the run
Courtney Danser
May 5, 2015
CLEVELAND - He was on the run for 56 years, but now he’s back in custody.
According to the U.S. Marshals office, Frank Freshwaters of Akron, a.k.a. William Harold Cox, was involved in a car crash that killed a pedestrian on July 3, 1957.
Freshwaters pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 1 to 20 years in prison, however, his sentence was suspended and he was given probation for five years.
On Feb. 19, 1959, Freshwaters was found guilty of violating his probation and his original sentence was imposed.
Freshwaters served time at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield but was then transferred to the Sandusky Honor Farm to finish his sentence. On Sept. 30, 1959 Freshwaters escaped.
In October of 1975 Freshwaters was taken into custody by the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office in Charleston, W.V. for the Ohio warrant. But the governor of West Virginia refused to extradite him to Ohio and he was again released.
There is more to this story than the drive-by Florida media has bothered with. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter due to a car crash that killed someone. He was given probation which he violated which is why he was on the prison farm.
He was previously captured in 1975 but West Virginia apparently felt it was not worth the effort to send him back.
I would say the cold case group was looking for an easy score to build their record for future funding. Cold case units are a waste of money.
What?
If he was a convicted murderer, what bozo decided to transfer him to an “honor farm”?
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