ORLANDO, Fla. — A convicted killer escaped from an Ohio prison farm in 1959 then was allowed to slip away from law enforcement in 1975 until a ruse to get his fingerprints led to his arrest in Florida this week, investigators said Tuesday.
Frank Freshwaters, now 79, admitted his identity when authorities confronted him Monday, according to the U.S. Marshals Service and deputies in Brevard County, Fla. They created a ruse to get him to sign papers so they could check his fingerprints, which matched the decades-old arrest, said Maj. Tod Goodyear of the marshals service. “They showed him the pic, and he said he hadn’t seen that guy in a long time,” Goodyear said. “Then he admitted it and basically said, ‘You got me.’ “
Freshwaters was convicted of manslaughter for killing a pedestrian with a vehicle in 1957 and escaped in 1959. He was living Florida as William Harold Cox, authorities said.
