Frederick Barrett: Florida’s Longest Fugitive
The night was clear and hot at Raiford Prison on August 17, 1979. Suddenly, the lights on the Northwest side of the perimeter fence flickered and fell dark. Three figures darted across the prison yard. One of the men was caught in the focus of a search light. Guards fired warning shots from the tower and the man dropped to the ground. The other two continued on unnoticed, scaled three fences topped with barbed wire and disappeared into the Florida night. One of the escapees, Willie Griffith, who was serving a life sentence for the murder of a cab driver, managed to elude capture for eleven years. When he was finally arrested in Holladay , Utah , his wife and mother of his two young children was shocked as she was completely unaware of his past criminal life. The other escaped prisoner, Frederick Barrett, also serving a life sentence for murder, spent an astounding thirty-two years on the run before he was taken into custody. Frederick Mark Barr...