Real Life Shawshank Guy Who Spent 56 Years on the Lam Finally Caught In Central Florida

Franky Freshwaters is no Andy Dufresne, but he’s a real life Shawshank convict who got away from a 20 year sentence over 56 years ago. For more than half a century Frank has been on the run using an alias by the name of William Cox. Now that the U.S. Marshals have finally caught up with him, they need to do what needs done, even though Franky has lived almost his entire life, and he’s even collecting Social Security benefits. He was arrested in his Florida mobile home at 79-years-old.

“[We] approached him, showed him the 1959 picture, asked if he’d seen that person. He said he hadn’t seen him in a long time,” One of the Brevard County Sheriffs, a Major Tod Goodyear, involved in the arrest said of their confrontation just recently in a Time article.

Freshwaters served time at the Ohio State Reformatory made popular around the world for being the setting of the 1994 film Shawshank Redemption, which is still often considered the greatest movie of all time, and ranks at #1 in the IMDB database. Although he served time at the Reformatory, he found a way to escape while working at a farm that prisoners were often sent to do labor. Freshwaters had only served seven months of a 20 year sentence for violating his probation on a manslaughter charge. This was all back in the year 1959.

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