Posted on 05/02/2008 9:46:50 AM PDT by Santa Fe_Conservative
SANTEE, California (AP) -- Marie Walsh kept a low profile for 32 years, trying to escape her past life as Susan LeFevre.
She raised three children with her husband of 23 years, Alan, who never knew she was using an assumed identity. Authorities wanted her for escaping from a Detroit prison a year into a maximum 20-year sentence on heroin charges.
Now, LeFevre, 53, is in jail awaiting extradition from California to Michigan on an escape warrant.
She was arrested April 24 outside her home in San Diego's posh Carmel Valley area, wearing a sweat suit and driving a black Lexus SUV. Authorities say her cover was blown by an anonymous caller who tipped Michigan authorities to her new name.
"It's been a secret no one knew for so long, and now everyone knows," LeFevre said in an interview Wednesday at Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee, a San Diego suburb. "I hope there's some mercy."
LeFevre, who grew up the second of five children, was just 19 when she was arrested during an undercover drug operation in Thomas Township, outside Saginaw, Michigan, in 1974. She said she got into drugs after graduating from her Catholic high school because she was despondent over the death of her teenage sweetheart in the Vietnam War.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Make her serve the rest of her sentence in maximum security.
She clearly has learned zero life lessons.
Maybe John Kerry will visit her.
Mmmm, have to say not sure how I feel about this one. Lots of resources spent on punishing someone for a drug charge. Yes, I know it is for escape. I just can’t help wondering why they could find her but not all of the illegals in the area.
I’m as hard on crime as anyone but, frankly, if I were the Governor of Michigan, I’d give this woman a pardon or commutation. Do we really want to send a fifty-something mother to jail for a decade or more over three and a half decade old drug charges?
I don’t.

Hard to be sure, but might be very not guilty with the right lighting.
Wow indeed a 20 year sentence for a 19 year old on a drug sting?
She lied to her husband, lied to her children, lied to the community. I'm thinking how her hubby must feel right now. Maybe not serve the remainder of her original sentence, but there should be some justice served.
I agree. She should have to punished somehow, but for 30+ years she has kept her nose clean and has been a productive member of society. If she hurt someone directly then that’s different, but I don’t see anyone benefiting from her being locked up now.
I wouldn’t be the lest upset if she was turned loose. What occurred was years ago and as her life has been above reproach nothing to be served by sending her to jail.
I agree. Most people that flee end up committing other offenses. She didn’t.
The red x is always guilty.
Sounds like she confided in someone she thought was a friend.
She clearly has learned zero life lessons.
That's ridiculous. You're ridiculous!
It was the evil SUV that gave her away to the nanny fascist police.
She must be punished.
Most drug use laws are a giant waste of time, money and resources. If you want to take drugs and die, that’s your business. Selling or harming another person in the process, that’s a different matter.
Give her a check for half and tell her we'll call it even......
Not sure what you thought she should have learned. How to become a productive citizen? Wait -- I've comments like that before on these kind of threads. Something about a woman being raped and beaten, and the police arresting her at the hospital for outstanding traffic tickets...
By "everything bad" are you referring to felonies? Or is this just a straw hat argument? Please specify.
She got the maximum sentence of 20 years in a brokered plea deal? She was 19 years old with no prior record? I can’t blame her for running.
People on the bench who do things like that should be the ones sent to prison.
“straw hat” = “straw man”
Oops, I had the image already in stored so it showed up fine in my preview page.
She still might have cleaned up nice IMHO.
It’s a waste incarcerating a drug user. Nonviolent drug offenders should not be in jail.
No I mean the worst thing you did, did you or did you not divulge it to your spouse, children, and community? or are you just a hypocrite?
What's ridiculous is blaming one's addiction and narcotics trafficking on the death of a boyfriend.
If someone has not learned by age 53 to take responsibility for their own actions, then they never will.
Not to excuse her crimes by appealing to circumstances.
It would have been a sin to keep a felony secret from my bride-to-be. But thanks for playing! Here are some lovely parting gifts!
As much as I dislike your "lock her up in maximum security" comment, your remark on not blaming her crime on circumstances is right on the money. Good insight.
I agree completely, at nineteen she was looking at a life sentence in her eyes.
I never understood how people get mad at inmates who try to escape prison after they get a life sentence. If I was her I would try my hardest to get out and be free, of course they will try to escape, its human nature!
She should be fined, given probation and house arrest for a good long while with an ankle bracelet. Paying to feed and clothe here after all this time is foolish IMHO.
I pray that the courts show mercy to this woman, by reducing her sentence to time served plus community service, and that her husband and family can forgive her.
Why don’t you go back under your bridge?
See post 26.
She’s appealing for mercy - I’m sure her lawyer told her not to hold back any story of woe that could generate sympathy.
LOL A voice of sanity and reason echoes through the wasteland of FR!
A sad way for you to admit that you do not understand the posted article.
I gather since you have not answered my question two times and you want me to go away, that you are a hypocrite, thanks, enjoyed playing your game.
At least I understand mercy.
Michigander in the pen ping.
If this current situation “causes” her to turn to drugs again, then I would say she has learned nothing since her teenage heartbreak and the method she used to cope then. But to say she hasn’t learned anything in the intervening years just because she recalls the emotional circumstance she was in decades ago is a big stretch.
The way she blames her desire to use drugs on something other than herself is a clue that she's been indoctrinated by a 12 step program. Spilling the beans about past drug crimes is one of the 12 steps. Big mistake. 12 step programs are full of stupid advice.
And since YOU seem incapable of understanding the point I was trying to make, I shall leave YOU in your abject ignorance. Have a nice day! Perhaps some day someone can use small words to assist you.
Okay what is your point - since I am so simple try and be clear. And if you have time answer my question, instead of asking me to go away.
If so, that was a bad strategy.
Most judges have heard a million sob stories - they don't often hear the defendant admit that it was all her own fault.
Regardless, I don't see any legal reason why she should get out of serving the remainder of her sentence - I'm not sure what her lawyer can do except try to appeal the original conviction and ask that she be released on her own recognizance while the appeal is pending.
That's probably a tall order.
And she is white. How times have changed.
You are correct. AA does a real number on people, especially court ordered attendance for people who are not alcoholics. I know a couple of people who have been helped, but often it is driven by guilt feelings that have people searching their pasts for offenses they may or may not have committed until they are just miserable. It’s almost like coaching confused witnesses so an eager prosecutor can try someone for a sensational crime - only you testify against yourself.
Why don’t you shut up and slink away, now. You have embarrassed yourself enough.
SHHHHH - he’s wants more rope.
Whattaya mean she’s learned zero life lessons? You may not like the excuse she’s giving for her crime, but she seems to have stopped committing crimes and to have successfully married and raised three children. Would that all felons could be rehabilitated so well.
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