Ohio board considers parole for ‘Shawshank Fugitive’ who was 55-year fugitive

FILE - This pair of photos shows Frank Freshwaters, left, in a Feb. 26, 1959, Ohio State Reformatory photo released by the U.S. Marshals Service, and right, in a May 4, 2015, booking photo released by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office in Florida. An Ohio board scheduled a Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016, hearing to receive arguments about whether to grant parole to Freshwaters, 79, of Akron, Ohio, who disappeared from a northern Ohio prison camp in 1959 while serving time for manslaughter and was found last year in Florida. (Ohio State Reformatory and Brevard County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) FILE - This pair of photos shows Frank Freshwaters, left, in a Feb. 26, 1959, Ohio State Reformatory photo released by the U.S. Marshals Service, and right, in a May 4, 2015, booking photo released by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office in Florida. An Ohio board scheduled a Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016, hearing to receive arguments about whether to grant parole to Freshwaters, 79, of Akron, Ohio, who disappeared from a northern Ohio prison camp in 1959 while serving time for manslaughter and was found last year in Florida. (Ohio State Reformatory and Brevard County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

By Associated Press February 25, 2016 3 min read

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – An Ohio board heard arguments Thursday on whether to grant parole to a man who disappeared from a prison camp in 1959 while serving time for manslaughter and was found last year in rural Florida.

Frank Freshwaters wasn’t at the hearing before the full state parole board in Columbus. But his attorney, Gordon Beggs, told the board that Freshwaters has lived a clean life and never forgot the accident that led to his case. Freshwaters was speeding when he fatally struck 24-year-old pedestrian Eugene Flynt in 1957.

Shirl Cheetham, a friend of Freshwaters’, got choked up as she talked to the board about him. She said that Freshwaters has become like family to her and that he’d be welcome to live with her family in Florida if he’s released from prison.

Investigators who tracked down Freshwaters last May said he was living off Social Security benefits under an alias at a weathered trailer in rural Brevard County, Florida. They found him living as a retired widower under an old alias, William Harold Cox.

The 79-year-old was returned to Ohio and had a closed parole hearing in August.