COLUMBUS, Ohio – Records show an escaped Ohio prisoner recently found in Florida was caught decades ago in West Virginia but had built such a good life with his stolen freedom that the governor concluded he'd been rehabilitated as a fugitive.
Frank Freshwaters disappeared from a prison camp near Sandusky in 1959 while serving time for manslaughter.
In 1975, police found the Akron man hiding under a sink at a home in St. Albans, West Virginia. They became suspicious because they were there on a routine warrant to follow up on a complaint by his ex-wife, not to capture the fugitive he turned out to be.
Copies of subsequent correspondence show then-Gov. Arch Moore Jr. of West Virginia refused to extradite Freshwaters, saying he'd been a "flawless" citizen there.
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