Shawshank fugitive goes free on or after April 24

COLUMBUS, OHIO — Frank Freshwaters has paid his debt to society for fatally striking a pedestrian with his vehicle, violating his probation and fleeing a work farm linked with the prison featured in "The Shawshank Redemption" during the late 1950s, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority has determined.

Thursday afternoon, the board decided to release the 79-year-old Melbourne retiree from an Ohio prison on or after April 24. Freshwaters will be placed on parole for five years. As a stipulation, board members said they prefer that he be released in West Virginia.

“We thank God for their decision. There are probably 2,000 people praying for him across a half-dozen states,” Gordon Beggs, Freshwaters’ defense lawyer, said minutes after the announcement at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction's Operation Support Center in downtown Columbus.

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“There was wonderful support from people who knew him for many, many years. So many people wrote in, telling what a kind, generous guy he was,” Beggs said.

“That’s who he is today,” he said.

Back in 1958, Freshwaters pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter for killing Eugene Flynt, 24, in a crash in Akron. A judge sentenced Freshwaters, who was 21 at the time, to one to 20 years in prison. The judge suspended the sentence and gave him five years of probation.

However, Freshwaters violated his probation and served six months inside the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, where inmates lived in the world’s largest freestanding cell block. This sprawling, Chateauesque complex later provided the backdrop for the prison-escape movie “The Shawshank Redemption,” starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

In September 1959, Freshwaters was assigned to an honor farm in Sandusky after exhibiting good behavior — and he escaped by month's end.

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Freshwaters gained notoriety as "the Shawshank Fugitive" in national media after the U.S. Marshals Service arrested him last May at his rural trailer off Jones Road. He had spent more than a half-century living in West Virginia and Florida under the name William Cox, and authorities extradited him into the Buckeye State's prison system. He has remained incarcerated since, and he did not attend Thursday's hearing.

The Adult Parole Authority hearing took place inside a conference room at the Operation Support Center. Snow flurries drifted across the jail-like complex, which is ringed with metal fencing.

"The board finds that inmate Freshwaters has realistic, viable release plans; community support that would facilitate his re-entry into society; and that inmate Freshwaters' physical condition and advanced age presently abate the risk to the community posed by his release," Chairman Andre Imbrogno said during the parole announcement.

Brad Gessner, chief counsel with the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office, delivered a PowerPoint presentation during the hearing on behalf of Flynt's family. He unsuccessfully requested that Freshwaters serve at least four years behind bars.

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"We're disappointed. For the family, we had hoped there would be some punishment for his conduct," Gessner said after the decision.

"The parole board took into consideration his age and his physical condition. We are happy that they did say five years' supervision," Gessner said.

"And hopefully, they're correct that there'll be no more activity that would cause them to see him again," he said.

Eugene Flynt's son, Richard, was 3 when his father was killed, and he said the death has caused a lot of grief for his family. Asked by board members what he thought should happen to Freshwaters, Flynt said it was in the board's hands.

Freshwaters' son, Jim Cox, reconnected with his long-lost brother Jeff Lloyd during a July family reunion after news broke of their father's arrest.

"(I'll) just be glad to get him home. Get him where Jeff can get to know him a little better. Jeff's three hours away. He's my brother," Cox said after the parole announcement, putting his arm around Jeff's shoulder.

Contact Neale at 321-242-3638, rneale@floridatoday.com or follow @RickNeale1 on Twitter