On May 4, 2015, officers from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office in Florida were following
through on a tip.
The regional gang task force was about to make an unusual arrest.
And in so doing, they would help the U.S. Marshals close their longest-running manhunt
ever to catch a fugitive.
On a stretch of marshland near the western edge of Melbourne, Florida, hidden by thickets
of palm trees, sat the isolated, run-down, algae-streaked trailer that was home to a
79-year-old trucker, amateur guitarist, and suspected outlaw, known as William Cox.
When Cox answered the door, one of the officers held up an old black and white photo of an
Ohio man named Frank Freshwaters.
He asked if Cox recognized the man in the 1957 mugshot.
Cox responded that he hadn't seen that man for a long time.
Pressing, the cop followed up, "Are you that man?"
And indeed he was—once.
Cox went off with the police without protest.
His life had come full circle, and his 55 years and seven months on the lam were at
an end.
Frank Harold Freshwaters was the real name of a man who'd been living under the alias
of William Cox since 1959, when he fled from a prison camp in northern Ohio.
Freshwaters had served part of his sentence at the Ohio State Reformatory in the city
of Mansfield.
That imposing, castle-like complex is where the well-loved 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption
was shot.
And so, perhaps inevitably, news reports following Freshwaters' 2015 arrest dubbed him "The Shawshank
Fugitive."
Does that mean this is the real-life story behind the movie?
Well, the short answer is no.
The connection was always fairly tenuous.
The Shawshank Redemption, which starred Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, is based on a
Stephen King novella–that is, a work of fiction.
Both the movie and the story take place in Maine, not Ohio, the location of filming notwithstanding.
The action takes place between the 1940s and 1960s, and so it does overlap with the period
when Freshwaters was an inmate at the penitentiary in Ohio.
But whereas the Andy Dufresne, the protagonist in Frank Darabont's movie and King's story,
spends the better part of two decades behind bars at the equally fictional Shawshank State
Penitentiary, Freshwaters was only locked up in the Mansfield, Ohio, prison for a matter
of months.
He soon received a transfer to a minimum-security facility.
Dufresne eventually makes his getaway by chiseling a small hole in the stony prison walls.
Freshwaters wasn't even being held at the Ohio State Reformatory when he made his escape.
And while the character Dufresne, a banker, was innocent of the double-homicide for which
he was wrongfully convicted, Freshwaters was guilty, and remorseful, for the crime that
defined his early life.
So it's a very different story, but in its own way, it's quite a cinematic tale as well.
At a little after 11:00 pm on July 3, 1957, Eugene Flynt, age 24, an Army veteran and
father of three, was getting home from his late shift working at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Company in Akron, Ohio.
From across the street, his wife, Garnet, saw Eugene get out of the truck, and went
to put coffee on for him.
Young Frank Freshwaters worked for another rubber company—rubber and tires were what
put Akron on the map, and it was a boom time for the car industry.
And that night, Frank was burning some rubber himself, tearing down the street in his 1953
Mercury, at 50 miles per hour in a 35 zone.
Hearing a crash, Garnet Flynt turned to see her husband get hit and go flying.
Eugene Flynt died from his injuries in a hospital less than an hour later.
Police cited Freshwaters for a non-working car horn and broken emergency brake, either
one of which might have prevented or mitigated the accident.
But the real charge he'd face would be manslaughter.
At trial, Freshwaters already expressed horror at his own actions, crying as he pleaded to
the judge, "It's not something like a nightmare which is gone in a day.
It stays with you."
The comment was prescient.
Freshwaters gave a lowball estimate of his speed behind the wheel, which didn't stick.
But the sentence ended up being quite lenient for Freshwaters, who was 22 at the time of
the trial the following April.
His 16-year-old wife, Patricia, had given birth to their first son six months earlier.
For his crime, Freshwaters was given a prison term of one to 20 years, but the sentence
was suspended.
That meant he never had to see the inside of a cell, so long as he abided by his five-year
probation.
The terms included not driving a car, and paying $5 per week in restitution to Garnet
Flynt.
The sum would only be around $44 in 2019 money, but was to offer at least some assistance
to the widow and her children.
Nonetheless, the apparently cash-strapped Freshwaters failed to keep up the payments.
On top of that, he was caught driving with a fake license.
So the prison sentence became active, and Freshwaters was sent to the facility in Mansfield.
But once at the penitentiary, Freshwaters quickly developed a reputation as a cooperative
inmate.
Thus, he was transferred to the Osborn Honor Farm, adjacent to the city of Sandusky, Ohio,
and just inland from Lake Erie.
The farm grew vegetables and hogs used for food elsewhere in Ohio's prison system, and
would have been a relief compared to the stultifying conditions at the Ohio State Reformatory.
Freshwaters was assigned to work in the mess hall of the nearby Ohio Soldiers and Sailors
Home, a nursing facility for veterans a short distance from the farm itself.
On September 31, 1959, Freshwaters and another inmate made their escape.
They were last spotted on the road outside the home, heading south just before 5:00 pm.
Both were in prison garb—blue jeans with red stripes and gray-and-white striped shirts.
The exact circumstances for the escape aren't recorded.
However they did it, that afternoon would be the last time anyone saw or heard from
Frank Freshwaters for a long time.
Not long after the escape, the state of Florida issued a driver's license to one William Cox,
and thus was born the identity that the fugitive would hold for more than five decades.
We'll stick with that name for now—it's essentially a new identity he adopted.
Cox soon moved to a dot of a town, Hurricane, West Virginia.
For 16 years, he built a second life in that state, settling down with his a new significant
other, Joyce Wade, and raising a son.
Ironically, given his record, Cox worked as a truck driver.
A ninth-grade dropout himself, he also spent time driving a mobile library around to promote
childhood literacy.
His work caring for horses earned him the nickname "Cowboy."
He rode in local parades.
But Cox and Wade became estranged, and Joyce reported that she feared violence from her
ex.
When police came round Cox's home near Charleston to deliver a peace warrant, similar to a restraining
order, they discovered him hiding in a special compartment he'd built under his sink.
The odd hiding place may have backfired, leading to more suspicion than, for instance, not
hiding under the sink.
The deputies took him into custody, fingerprinted him, and learned his true identity.
Wade stopped pursuing her case against Cox, but he clearly had bigger problems at hand.
Held in the jail of Kanawha County, in which the state capital of Charleston is located,
Cox shared his already-convoluted true story.
Probably the proximity to state government helped the case find its way to West Virginia's
then-governor Arch Moore, who became an advocate for Cox, vocally denying Ohio their extradition
request.
Moore claimed that the complaint Wade had filed was bogus, but the actual or perceived
threat Wade felt remains a matter for debate.
Wade failed to show at the court hearings against Cox, and later, she didn't wish to
revisit the chapter of her life.
As far as Moore was concerned, Cox—the name he would continue using–was a reformed citizen,
and welcome to continue life as a free man, with a special provision for his monitoring
by the state of West Virginia.
And that was that, for about ten years.
Sometime in the mid-1980s, Cox became involved with another woman in West Virginia, named
Brenda, and the two moved to Melbourne, Florida in 1987, along with his son Jim Cox, by then
16.
Jim, who would stick by his dad, later noted that the backstory was no secret: he knew
who his father was.
As his son relates, Cox wasn't so much on the run as fully ensconced in his new life.
The move to Florida may well have been motivated more by a yearning for warm weather than any
desire to lay low.
As before, Cox got work as a trucker, hauling trees for a family who owned a large stretch
of marshlands on the western edge of the city.
Part of the deal was that he'd keep an eye on their property, which was prime trespassing
territory for off-road vehicle enthusiasts and poachers, and they gave him a trailer
to live in.
A bit cold and leaky in the wintertime, Cox reasoned that it wasn't as cold as Ohio could
get.
Following the loss of his wife Brenda to cancer in 1999, he was on his own in his dilapidated
trailer home.
But by now Cox was again growing close to his neighbors in the new community, who knew
him as an affable cheapskate who loved country music and fried chicken.
He stood up as best man for Shirl Cheetham, a close female friend and hunting companion,
at her wedding.
Her kids knew him as "Grandpa Bill."
But in 2015, the northern Ohio office of the U.S. Marshals launched a cold case division.
And they didn't get much colder than Cox, aka Frank Freshwaters.
It's not that hard to track down a fugitive who's not really even hiding—Cox's cover
had been blown for decades.
And unlike in West Virginia, in Florida, there was no one who would fight Ohio's extradition
order.
The uneventful operation to take Cox in and send him to Ohio went forward.
Frank Freshwaters was back.
U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott, who had created the cold case squad, commented that he didn't
have any opinion regarding whether Freshwaters deserved additional charges or additional
jail time.
In Elliott's view, if there was a prison escapee on the loose, it was the job of the U.S. Marshals
to bring him in, and, essentially, it would be up to the courts to handle the rest.
As Freshwaters awaited trial in a jail facility for handicapped prisoners in Ohio—again
a compliant, model prisoner—friends and family showed their support in writing, in
pictures, and on social media.
The prosecution noted, correctly, that Freshwaters still owed restitution to the Flynt family,
who still felt the trauma of Eugene Flynt's death six decades later.
The state pushed for the reinstatement of a four-year prison sentence, based on the
original conviction; they declined to press any additional charges for the escape from
custody.
But in February, 2016, the sentence given was very similar to that handed down in 1958:
five years parole.
Freshwaters, now nearly 80, could only walk very short distances, and had trouble hearing.
His ill-fitting dentures rattled around.
There would be little opportunity for him to violate the terms of his release this time
around.
There was some delay as the state of Ohio made sure there was a provision for where
Freshwaters would stay once released.
Finally on June 15, 2016, Frank Freshwater smiled as he walked out of state custody for
the last time, to go and live with his son in West Virginia, looking forward to a return
to private life after this last round of media attention.
Do you think there should be a statute of limitations on prison breaks?
Or are the U.S. Marshalls working to keep criminals from escaping justice by pursuing
cold cases?
Let us know what you think in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called New Evidence Shows Alcatraz Prisoners
Survived The Prison Escape”!
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See you next time!