After Richard Lee McNair mailed himself out, perhaps the most astounding part of his escape was still yet to come.
Although Richard Lee McNair is a convicted murderer , it ’s his extraordinary power to head for the hills from prison house that has made him more notorious than the literal crime that put him there .
Richard Lee McNair escaped from prison three times , which is an impressive feat in itself . But it was his third escape in 2006 that required the sort of creativeness and foundation that you very rarely see .
And by all accounts , McNair designate that kind of creativity flop from the get - go . Born in Oklahoma on December 19 , 1958 , he was the boy of a military reserve police officer and was quicklydescribedas keenly healthy . His sidekick said , “ He is about the overbold somebody I ’ve ever meet , ” adding , “ He was a good guy rope that I always admired — until he made bad choices . ”
United States Marshals ServiceRichard Lee McNair
United States Marshals ServiceRichard Lee McNair
On the night of November 17 , 1987 , in Minot , North Dakota , McNair broke into a building that stored cereal with the intention of robbing it . The burglary was botched though when two serviceman startled him . One of the men was motortruck gadget driver Jerome Theis , who McNair shoot and killed . He also shot at the 2nd man but he managed to pull through .
After the police force wreak McNair in for questioning , he surrendered a concealed handgun and it did n’t take long before he was condemn to hard time . He was giventwo liveliness conviction for slaying and attempted slaying , on top of a 30 - yr judgment of conviction for burglary .
This was when Richard Lee McNair switched from a life history of crime to a life of prison escape .
McNair ’s first escape was a relatively humble thing . It came just after his initial arrest , at the Minot police post in February 1988 . McNair was in a elbow room with three investigator , handcuffed to a chair . In his pocket was a tube-shaped structure of lip balm . McNair managed to utilise the lip balm as a lubricant , greasing his hands enough so that he could dislocate out of the handcuffs when the detective allow for him alone .
The dodging resulted in a pes chase , with Richard Lee McNair leading the cops around townsfolk . He ran into a construction , where the cops engage up a few escape of stairs to the building ’s third trading floor . Once surrounded , he jumped . McNair landed on the reason and offend his back , making it much easier for cops to detain him .
But that was just a warm - up for his next safety valve .
In October 1992 , Richard Lee McNair was dish his time at the North Dakota State Penitentiary when , along with two fellow inpatient , heslipped out through a ventilation duct . He manage to remain a fleer for longer this time , not being recaptured until July 1993 in Grand Island , Neb.
McNair was then ship to a maximal - surety Union prison in Louisiana . This was where he would perform his tour de force of escape cock .
At the Louisiana prison , McNair ’s line of work was to repair torn mailbag so that they could be ship out to carry offices for habit . This was where he planned his great dodging , which take on place on April 5 , 2006 .
He constructed a sort of escape pod out of the stuff available to him , outfit it with a breathing tube , hid it under a flock of mailbags on a pallet , and got inside of it . McNair hid there until a forklift carried the pallet ( which was shrink - wrapped ) to a nearby warehouse outside the confines of the prison house .
When the warehouse staff left for luncheon , Richard Lee McNair cut back himself out and walked to freedom . But perhaps the most astounding part of his dodging was still to come .
Just after the escape , a police officeholder check McNair jog near railroad tracks in Ball , La. and , know that there had been a prison flight nearby , stopped him . The officer ’s dashboard camera catch the whole exchange :
Despite not having any recognition on him and tally the verbal description of the escapee that the officer had receive before stopping him , Richard Lee McNair was able-bodied to talk his way out of it . He told the ship’s officer his name was “ Robert Jones ” and that he was just a man out for a jog . When he slipped and say his name was “ Jimmy Jones ” a few minutes later , the officer did n’t notice .
“ You screw the bad thing about it , you ’re mate up to him , ” the officer said , refer to the description of the escapee .
“ Well , that sucks does n’t it , ” McNair respond .
The officer give notice him to carry some ID next meter and the two shared a laugh before the military officer said “ Be careful brother ” and McNair jogged on to exemption .
Clearly , Richard Lee McNair was , as his brother said , a really smart and ingenious cat . And the authorization had to match .
“ I think he ’s a smart guy,”saidTim Schuetzle , a warden at McNair ’s prison house in North Dakota .
While on the run for the third meter , McNair bump time to broadcast Schuetzle a Christmas card .
Richard Lee McNair managed to remain free for a year and a one-half . He was catch 100 miles northward of the border in Campbellton , New Brunswick driving a steal hand truck on October 24 , 2007 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police .
In what must have been no surprisal , McNair tried to make a run for it once more , but a officer tackled him to the primer .
Today , Richard Lee McNair resides in a concrete cell at the supermax prison in Florence , Colo. which houses infamous crook like the Boston Marathon wedge Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,“Unabomber ” Ted Kaczynski , and “ Shoe Bomber ” Richard Reid .
It ’s the most secure prison in the United States and Richard Lee McNair has certainly earned his place inside .
After this look at Richard Lee McNair , step inside theworst prisonson Earth . Then , see what aliveness was like inthe depths of the notorious Alcatraz prison .
