Florida Man Arrested After Escaping From “Shawshank,” Spending 56 Years On The Lam

By Josh Fatzick

A 79-year-old man who had spent the last 56 years of his life on the run from authorities was arrested in Florida Monday, ending a decades long flight from justice.

Frank Freshwaters escaped from the Sandusky Ohio Honor Farm in 1959 after he convinced guards he wasn’t a flight risk at the Ohio State Reformatory, the state prison where possibly the greatest movie of all-time, “Shawshank Redemption,” was shot, reports Florida Today.

Freshwaters took a bit of a Shawshank-esque escape route, though he didn’t end up on a beach in Mexico, he ended up in a run down trailer on rural land in Brevard County Florida, according to Florida Today.

During his time out of prison Freshwaters worked as a truck driver before he retired and collected Social Security benefits.

Deputies in Florida concocted a fake plot to get Freshwaters to sign papers allowing them to check his fingerprints, and when they matched up with the ones from his prior arrest, they knew they had their man.

After a week long surveillance operation, police officer confronted Freshwaters with an old mugshot of himself and asked him if he knew who the man in the photo was, CBS News reported.

Freshwaters immediately knew the jig was up and he went quietly when police escorted him away from his house in handcuffs.

Police in Ohio originally arrested Freshwaters for running over a man with his car in 1957. He was convicted of manslaughter and received probation with a suspended sentence of one to 20 years in prison.

Freshwaters later violated his probation in 1959 when he obtained a driver’s license and started driving. He was sent to prison in the Ohio State Reformatory, where he later escaped after being transferred to the lower security work camp.

He is currently being held without bond while he awaits a hearing and a possible extradition to Ohio.

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