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Free Too Long
Most escaped prisoners managed to sneak their way out. But Lester Eubanks, a convicted murderer, got away by strolling into a shopping mall—after being dropped off there by prison guards.No, we’re not kidding. On December 7, 1973, the inmate at the Ohio Correctional Center in Columbus was granted an “honor assignment” for good behavior. He was taken with other prisoners to the Great Southern Shopping Center, where he could wander around on his own looking for Christmas gifts. Just call us in two hours and we’ll pick you up, the guards said.
Surprise—that call never came. And Lester Eubanks has been on the loose ever since.
It’s all the more infuriating given the nature of his crime. On November 14, 1965, Eubanks was out on bail for an attempted rape when he attacked a 14-year-old girl in Mansfield, Ohio. He confessed to taking her into the woods, where he tried to rape her and then shot her twice. He left her for a short time, then returned to discover she was still breathing. Eubanks completed the murder by smashing the girl’s skull with a brick.
Eubanks was convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. When the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, Eubanks’s death sentence was commuted. That left him with a sentence of life behind bars … except for that little outing to the mall.
A former Air Force medic who had also been a housepainter, Eubanks was 30 when he disappeared. FBI investigators learned that he had a love affair with the wife of a cousin, named Kay, and lived with her in Los Angeles during the ’70s. At that time, he worked at a place called Quality Quilters, using the name Victor Young. Kay’s son told law enforcement that he was always told Eubanks was “an uncle of mine.”
Kay herself was murdered in 1978 but not before telling the FBI that Eubanks packed up and “went north into the mountains” after learning that Bureau agents were questioning her. The trail is otherwise totally cold.
The son of a minister, Eubanks was always very religious, and the FBI thinks he could be active in a Baptist congregation today. Characterized by police as a quiet loner, he may also be painting houses to earn money. But the closest the FBI can come to guessing his whereabouts is to say that, in addition to having lived in L.A., “he has ties to Michigan, Ohio, Alabama and Canada.” Eubanks, who is left-handed, has a black belt in karate.
It’s now been 34 years of freedom, and counting, for Lester Eubanks—thanks to one of the dumbest Christmas presents ever given to anyone.
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