Convicted killer on the lam for 56 years caught in Florida

It took 56 years for the law to finally catch up with Frank Freshwaters.

In 1957, Freshwaters was convicted of manslaughter for killing a pedestrian with a vehicle, and he was given a sentence of one to 20 years in prison. He violated his probation by obtaining a driver's license and was sent to prison, but he didn't stay long; in 1959, Freshwaters simply walked away from the Ohio prison farm where he was incarcerated. In 1975, he was arrested in West Virginia, but the governor would not extradite him, so he fled again.

U.S. Marshals from Ohio tracked him down to Florida, and, with assistance from local deputies, came up with a ruse to obtain his fingerprints. After matching the prints with an old sample from Freshwaters, he was taken into custody at his home. Maj. Tod Goodyear told The Associated Press that Freshwaters was a retired truck driver who lived off of Social Security benefits in a remote trailer. "It's a nice place to kind of hang out by yourself if you don't want people to know you're there," he added. The Brevard County Sheriff's Office said that Freshwaters was booked under the name Harold F. Freshwater, and he is being held without bond.

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