'Shawshank' fugitive set to go back to Ohio
MELBOURNE, Fla. — The 79-year-old fugitive who escaped from an Ohio prison work camp nearly six decades ago is set to return to the state to face charges after a Brevard County, Fla., judge denied his request to fight extradition. The judge's ruling now paves the way for the escapee to be flown back to Ohio to face escape charges.
Ohio authorities will be allowed to remove Frank Freshwaters from the Brevard County Jail Complex in Sharpes as soon as Tuesday to have him flown back to Columbus, Ohio, to face escape charges — 56 years after he walked away from prison work camp.
"More than likely he will be brought to the Columbus area and will face a judge. They're looking at escape charges," said U.S. Marshal Pete Elliot, whose agents worked with Brevard County's GAMEOVER unit to take Freshwaters into custody May 4.
Judge Rhonda Babb issued the ruling Monday in response to contentions from Freshwaters' attorney that his client was "confused," and was not formally assigned an attorney when he initially signed a waiver of extradition on May 5, a day after his arrest. Freshwaters was wheelchair-bound and mumbled during his first appearance. It was not immediately known if Freshwaters' attorney would be able to appeal the ruling.
The U.S. Marshal's office in Ohio formed a cold case unit and used it to track Freshwaters down to a dilapidated trailer just off of the Sarno Road extension in Melbourne.
Records show that he was 21 years old when he was indicted on second-degree manslaughter charges in the death of 24-year-old Eugene Flynt in front of his home. He was sent to Ohio Reformatory, the prison featured in the 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption, after authorities said he violated his probation.
He later gained the trust of prison officials and was reassigned to the work camp where he later walked away. He was arrested in 1975 but West Virginia Gov. Arch Moore refused to send him back.
Friends, who knew Freshwaters under the alias "William Cox," said that he thought the issue of the escape had been settled with his release by West Virginia authorities. He worked as a truck driver and spent 28 years working for the parents of Florida state Sen. Thad Altman.
"This has been going on since 1959, and it is time that it comes to a conclusion," said Assistant State Attorney Michael Hunt.
"Ohio can take into consideration what he has done since," he added.
Freshwaters had no further record of any legal trouble, said Maj. Tod Goodyear of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, and friends say he lived a quiet life, volunteering occasionally for a local church and growing old with a wife who died of cancer in the 1990s.
Babb said in her two-page ruling that "although the defendant initially indicated to Judge (Benjamin B.) Garagozlo that he wanted to 'fight' extradition, he later announced to the judge that he wanted to waive his right to extradition and affirmed that he signed a waiver."
Babb said that, based on the testimony in a May 14 hearing at the Brevard County Jail Complex that, "the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to extradition and was not confused as he alleges." The judge also said in her ruling that case law in cases involving extraditions was clear and that Freshwaters did not have the right to legal counsel at the initial extradition hearing.
Agents from Ohio's adult parole authority were expected to arrive in Brevard County Monday to take custody of Freshwaters. Freshwaters will likely be flown back to Ohio by midweek rather than be transported by ground, authorities said.