‘Shawshank’ Fugitive Finally Captured Five Decades After Escaping Prison

Frank Freshwater, aged about 79 years, was arrested by the authorities after almost half a century.

Frank Freshwater was one of the fugitives after he escaped from the prison in 1959. Initially he was sentenced to a five years prison after having crashed with a pedestrian in a vehicular accident. However, when Freshwater breached the terms of his probation two years later he was put in prison and awarded a term of twenty years.

Freshwater was initially incarcerated in Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, where the Hollywood film 'The Shawshank Redemption' was shot, and then later transferred to Sandusky Honor Farm. It was after the first seven months at the Sandusky Honor Farm that Freshwater made his bid for freedom and spent almost half a century as a fugitive.

He was briefly detained by the authorities in 1975 when deputies in West Virginia arrested him on an Ohio warrant but the state's governor refused to extradite him at the time and he went back into hiding.

He made his living by working as a truck driver with the identity of William H Cox. The US Marshals Services Cold Case Unit managed to find him living in the trailer and later Frank Freshwater was arrested.