by Paul Buck
Unfortunately for Lefroy, The Daily Telegraph made history by publishing the first portrait of a wanted man. It led to many false arrests. In the end, Lefroy’s downfall was by his own hand, traced from a telegram sent to his employer asking for his outstanding wages. (Other accounts say that he was found in a house in Stepney where the blinds were permanently drawn, its occupant only going out at night.)
Noel ‘Razor’ Smith, a career criminal, claims that if he had been shown a little basic human trust then he would not have taken a holiday from prison. He recounts in his autobiography, A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun, how he managed to slip away on a home visit in November 1992. His mother was ill, having been in hospital a couple of times. He was allowed to visit, but, rather than being given a one-day parole, which he says he would have honoured, he was taken by taxi with an escort of two prison officers, who were handcuffed to him with instructions that under no conditions were they to let him go free.
They drove from the Verne prison in Dorset to south London’s Stockwell Park Estate, a destination, he notes, that didn’t thrill either the taxi driver or his escort, all of whom wanted to get away as soon as possible. Having negotiated their way past the local youths on the stairwell, the warders were relieved to knock at the door of the family flat. Smith’s father looked straight at the handcuffs and stated that if they intended bringing in his son the cuffs had to go, or else they could turn around and go straight back – which would have been difficult, as the taxi had driven off to safer pastures for a couple of hours.
The cuffs were released and the officers directed into the kitchen, provided with daily newspapers and drinks, whilst Smith went into the living room to see his mother and other members of the family who were gathered there. He informed them he was not returning to prison that night, and was shown how to get out of the window and down to the balcony below. He knew it wouldn’t be long before his escape was known. Brixton police had been notified of his day trip and would have had contingency plans ready for any escape bid. “I wasn’t just some burglar or car thief coming onto their patch, I was a long-term prisoner with a proven propensity for loaded firearms.”
Not surprisingly, no sooner had Smith made for a local pub and downed a drink than he could see police activity outside the windows. He managed to escape by calling a cab and ducking into the back seat, his sympathetic driver (whose brother was in the local prison) taking him, albeit temporarily, to a safer area.
V
Who Goes There?
Impersonation as a way to escape prison is another tried and tested method. But impersonating a dead man belongs to an earlier era, as it would be more complicated to pull it off today. But that is what the highwayman John Nevison achieved in the mid-seventeenth century. Our idea of the highwayman is generally of a good-natured rogue. We think of Dick Turpin dressed in finery and crying, “Stand and deliver!” Today we may even sometimes associate the idea of the highwayman with armed robbers, hoping to bestow a more light-hearted image. Yet of course Turpin was rough and violent, far from being a chivalrous man who charmed all the women he encountered on his hold-ups. By all accounts, it seems that Nevison, another highwayman from the period, would have been a better candidate for our imaginings.
Nevison went to the gallows for murder, but was generally no more than a spirited and renowned robber, with many amusing tales of his exploits abounding. Most relevant to us here is his escape from Leicester gaol, where he was being held for his thievery. Before Nevison was even brought to trial he pretended to be ill, giving the impression he had been struck by the plague. A physician friend who came to visit confirmed that this was indeed the case, and suggested Nevison be removed immediately for fear that he would infect everyone and bring death upon the whole place, prisoners and staff alike.
Nevison was separated from the others, given his own cell and attended by a nurse and his friend the physician, who visited a couple of times each day. As his condition appeared to deteriorate so the sense of despair grew, to the extent that the wife of the jailer forbade her husband or any of their servants to go any closer than the door of the cell.
The next step in the plot was for some of Nevison’s other friends to visit, one of whom was a painter, who brought with him the tools of his art. Treating the prisoner as his canvas, he added various marks and blue spots to indicate that death from the plague was approaching. Finally, the stage was set and the physician administered a preparation that gave Nevison the appearance of death – at least for an hour or two. Time enough for a coffin to be brought and the contagious corpse to be removed. Witnesses brought in to confirm his death were afraid for their own lives and refrained from stepping too close.
There was a downside to being dead, as Nevison was to discover. When he resumed his career staging hold-ups, those he encountered who had heard of his demise now believed they were being confronted by a ghost. Once the whole saga was uncovered, the jailer was instructed to go out and catch Nevison. (The myth surrounding Nevison lingers today, particularly in Yorkshire, where sightings of his ghost are still reported.)
One wonders whether Frank Abagnale could have succeeded in faking his own death, for his ingenuity compels one to suspend disbelief, as if we really have encountered a modern day version of those mythical characters of the past. Abagnale’s escape through impersonation was partly due to luck and partly to being smart enough to take advantage of circumstances.
After he was captured in Canada, as detailed earlier, he was handed over at the US-Canadian border and taken to the Federal Detention Centre in Atlanta to await trial. This was in spring 1971. At the time there was a lot of activity and concern about conditions in prisons from civil rights groups, congressional committees and Justice Department agents. Clandestine investigations were in operation, and there was a fear that prison inspectors were being planted in the jails. Abagnale responded accordingly. By chance, when he arrived at the Atlanta prison, the US Marshal escorting him did not have the right papers. He had to more or less force his prisoner into the place, telling them to house and feed him until he came back. Suspicious from the start, they gave Abagnale better treatment and food than the others, fearing the worst. He understood their fears when he read in the local newspapers that two of their officers had recently lost their jobs.
Abagnale asked a friend to visit and pose as his fiancée. She brought with her the business card of Inspector Dunlap of the US Bureau of Prisons in Washington, obtained by posing as a freelance writer investigating fire safety measures in federal detention centres. With permission she passed it over the barrier to Abagnale. On another visit she handed over the card of the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale’s case, the contact number of which she had altered. Later, Abagnale congratulated his guards on their cleverness and admitted that he was indeed an inspector, handing them Dunlap’s card.
It was 9pm, and the office telephone number would not be picked up if they tried to verify his credentials. Abagnale asked to see the lieutenant in charge that night, and he was taken to his office, where he allayed suspicions about his role and confirmed that his report would exonerate the prison. Having caught them offguard, he stated that he needed to talk urgently to an FBI agent and asked them to reach him on the phone. He handed over the agent’s card and said he would still be at his desk. The lieutenant phoned. Abignale’s friend answered and carried off the FBI role. The number was actually a payphone in an Atlanta shopping mall.
Abagnale claimed he needed to see the FBI agent immediately as he had obtained information that could not be given over the phone. Covering the mouthpiece, he asked if it would be possible to step outside the prison, as the FBI didn’t want to enter and compromise the undercover operation. The lieutenant agreed. When a red and white Buick arrived outside the prison, Abagnale was led down the back way, using the staff elevator, and allowed to walk out to his female friend disguised as a man behind the wheel.
She drove Abagnale straight to a greyhound bus bound for New York. “Frank Abagnale
, known to police the world over as the Skywayman and who once flushed himself down an airline toilet to elude officers, is at large again,” ran one prominent press story. Still determined to reach Brazil, he had to bide his time before trying to obtain a flight. Unfortunately for Abagnale, in his movements across the country he checked into a motel where the receptionist was a former airline stewardess who recognised him from an earlier con, when he pretended to be a member of the aircrew. She called the police, but he slipped through the net by stating he was an FBI agent looking for one of his colleagues. Abagnale was remarkable, in that he excelled in such con artistry since the age of sixteen.
Just like Abagnale, Charles Victor Thompson’s personable character seems to have enabled him to carry off an audacious escape from prison through impersonation. In November 2005, Thompson was being temporarily housed at the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, following a re-sentencing hearing in connection with the killing of his former girlfriend and her new partner. He had managed to retain the street clothes he had worn in court, and it seems he had these with him when he went for a meeting with his attorney. Except that the attorney did not show – assuming Thompson had ever arranged to meet him in the first place.
The unit where the meeting was to take place had the highest security in the jail, as it was also the section that had the greatest potential for escape bids. Once in the booth, Thompson slipped out of his handcuffs, changed from his orange jumpsuit into his street clothes and then left the booth, brazenly walking towards the exit, passing four checks in the process by showing a fake ID badge purporting to be from the Texas Attorney General’s office. Then he vanished. He was caught a few days later in Louisiana, the worse for drink. He had obtained food, clothing and money by claiming to be an evacuee from Hurricane Katrina.
Walking out of prison only works if one can carry the conviction of one’s fake identity. Perhaps the most remarkable example of impersonation is of the inmate in Northern Ireland who made a costume from cabbage leaves, with the intent to crawl out disguised as a row of cabbages. It doesn’t seem to have worked.
Danny Ray ‘Rambo’ Horning seems to have found it relatively easy to walk out of Arizona State Prison in Florence, near Phoenix, wearing the smock of a medical technician in May 1992. Horning, who was serving four life sentences for bank robbery, kidnapping and aggravated assault, then headed for the remote parts of northern Arizona, acquiring food and equipment from cabins along the way. His survival tactics, learned whilst serving in the army, also included eluding and confusing dogs by backtracking in circles and figures of eight through the backcountry of the Coconino National Forest and Grand Canyon National Park.
Horning also made fools of his pursuers by leaving notes ridiculing them and daring police to catch him, just like a villain from the Batman comics. Fifty-four days later he was captured near Sedona, after what he described as an enjoyable experience that he wished could have gone on longer – a view that may not have been shared by some of the tourists in the National Park he felt compelled to kidnap during his flight, even if no one was injured.
Though one reads periodically of inmates who dress as women and slip out at visiting times, if you are one of twins then you have another option to pull a fast one – even if you are as conspicuously infamous as the Kray brothers. Ronnie Kray escaped after being committed to Long Grove Hospital, near Epsom, Surrey, in 1958. He had been admitted in February, having had a schizophrenic breakdown. He received treatment and, by May, felt he should be returned to Winchester Prison to complete his sentence. The doctors refused his request.
The brothers then decided to play a trick that had worked at other times. One Sunday afternoon, when visitors flocked to the hospital to visit their relatives, Ronnie received two cars of visitors. A patient was only allowed two visitors at a time, however. In the first car, an electric blue Lincoln, were his twin Reggie and an old family friend, Georgie Osborne. In the second, a black Ford, were several unnamed friends: “one was a safe blower, two were ex-boxers, and the man at the wheel was known for his skill as a smash-and-grab-raid driver,” notes the Krays’ biographer, John Pearson, in The Profession of Violence. They parked both cars outside Ronnie’s block. Explaining to the porter that they hadn’t realised only two visitors were allowed, those in the Ford said they would wait until Reggie and Osborne had visited. Reggie entered wearing a light-fawn raincoat and went to visit Ronnie. Ronnie was dressed smartly in a blue suit and maroon tie. His brother had brought holiday snaps for them to enjoy and Ronnie was having a good laugh, the male nurse on duty noted.
At 3:30pm tea was brewed in the scullery along the corridor. Patients were not allowed to go beyond the ward doors during visiting times, so visitors had to collect their tea and biscuits. That Sunday, the Kray twin wearing the fawn coat went out, acknowledged by the nurse. After twenty minutes no one had returned with the tea, and the nurse realised something was wrong. He went up to the one he thought was his patient and asked after his brother, Reggie. The twin replied that he was Reggie, and he could prove it with his driving licence. Then the nurse realised Ronnie had gone out for tea and had kept right on going, out of the block … into the black Ford, and away to London. Nothing could be done. Ronnie and Reggie had arranged earlier to wear the same suit and tie, and had switched the coat when the nurse wasn’t looking.
Though the police came and questioned Reggie and his friend, they could do nothing. “It’s not as if we actually done anything. We’ve just been sitting here waiting for a cup of tea that never came.”
The rules on prisoners certified as insane at the time stated that anyone who escaped and remained at liberty for more than six weeks had to be recertified, once recaptured. The idea was for Ronnie to lay low for a couple of months, cause no problems, then give himself up and go back to prison to finish his sentence, his certification having lapsed. Though those six weeks became fraught, ultimately Ronnie gave himself up, and, though his certificate had lapsed, still received treatment for his problems. Eventually he went back to Wandsworth, to complete his sentence prior to release.
Steven Ray Russell has escaped from prison countless times, his main method being to impersonate others. He is another inmate who has had the tag ‘Houdini’ attached to him. As we will see, he seems to be equally adept as a con artist. One time he impersonated a judge and had his own bond reduced from $900,000 to $45,000, which he then paid directly, and vanished.
One report suggests that he always makes his escapes on a Friday the 13th, which suggests that there are only one or two days in a year when he requires extra vigilance if in prison or custody at the time. Like Willie Sutton, whom we will meet later, he uses the ‘obvious’ approach, dressing as a civilian and just walking out of the prison. This is what he did in Harris County Jail in Houston, May 1993, having studied when guard activity was at its lowest, least attentive and most incompetent. Clutching a walkie-talkie to partly hide his face, but also to give him an authoritative appearance, he walked out along with the visitors.
Another time, in 1996, whilst attending art classes, he removed green Magic Marker pens so that he could dye his white uniform green, the same colour as the medical staff. He left as a doctor. And again, when he was under arrest, he feigned a heart attack and managed to phone on a mobile from his bed to impersonate an FBI agent, instructing the agent guarding him outside the hospital room that the prisoner in the bed (Russell) was no longer under suspicion and that he, the agent, could leave the hospital and go home.
The most contrived of his escapes started in the prison library where Russell read up on AIDS, realising that, if he took laxatives, he could generate some of the symptoms. He also forged a medical document to confirm his diagnosis, and convinced the prison doctors he had a special needs parole to a hospital in Houston. His date for departure to the hospital was Friday 13 March. In his efforts to cover his traces once and for all, Russell acted as the doctor who had placed him under his special care and informed the authorities of his own death.
Unfortunately, a fake lawyer ID card was discovered bearing Russell’s photo and the file was not closed.
Many of his escapes are unverified as yet in their detail, unsurprisingly for someone who lives by deception. But Russell has something of Frank Abagnale about him. Rather than take menial jobs between his periods in prison, he has been bold enough to fabricate elaborate ploys to obtain high-level employment with sizeable wages. One executive of a medical management company said, “Russell was the best chief financial officer we ever had” – neglecting to add that he also stole large sums from the company.
VI
Up and Over
Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire attracted attention after three escapees sued for damages with regard to the injuries they sustained as they were being apprehended. In September 1994, six men armed with two guns smuggled into the high-security prison made a break, going through a perimeter wire fence and climbing the wall with a seventeen-foot ladder made from knotted sheets. Apparently the fence had already been cut, suggesting that someone working at the prison had done it as no one else had access. (Video footage from the CCTV cameras was found to be missing.) The escapees were five IRA men – Gilbert McNamee, Liam McCotter, Paul Magee, Liam O’Duibhir and Peter Sherry – and an armed robber, Andrew Russell. Four were caught in the adjoining railyard, the other two within a few hours by the police in the fenlands nearby.