Is Evansville a hub for fugitives? Or do recent arrests just make it feel that way?

EVANSVILLE – It’s like when you buy a Volkswagen.

You never noticed them much on the road before. But now that you have one of your own, it seems like they’re everywhere.

That was the analogy Vanderburgh County Sheriff Noah Robinson offered about the spate of high-profile out-of-state fugitives who have been caught in the Evansville area recently.

Since last May, five people on the run – two convicted killers, an accused murderer, a safecracker and a former corrections officer snared in a jailhouse romance – have landed in the Tri-State. They’ve come from as far away as South Carolina and from as close as Ohio.

Two of them attracted way more attention than the others. In spring 2022, murderer Casey White escaped Lauderdale County jail in Alabama with the help of corrections officer Vicky White. While authorities combed the nation for any sign of them and true crime shows brayed about their relationship, they holed up in Motel 41 just outside Evansville for 11 days.

U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement eventually found them. And on May 9, after a short chase up U.S. 41, Vicky shot and killed herself and Casey was arrested. The saga sparked slews of coverage – not to mention a Lifetime original movie.

Since then, a pair of fugitives from Ohio – convicted killer Bradley Gillespie and burglar James Marion Lee – were found in Henderson, Kentucky. And earlier this month, a man from South Carolina named Johnathan Torrell Kelly wanted on a felony murder charge was arrested at a residence on Pollack Avenue after dodging authorities for weeks.

“There’s been no spike or increase in these arrests occurring. I just think it’s kind of on people’s radar right now, kind of like when you buy a Volkswagen and suddenly you start seeing a bunch of other Volkswagens on the road,” Robinson said. “People are now attuned to look for it because of the national attention the Casey White case brought to Evansville.”

He also said he's strived to better publicize the arrests when they happen. Still, he acknowledged that the arrest of out-of-town fugitives here is “not a unique occurrence.” The Courier & Press archives back him up. They're stuffed with stories of jail escapees and violent criminals coming blowing the area.

It all raises a question: is Evansville a hub for this kind of thing? Sure, more fugitives are caught in much bigger cities, but do we field more than our fair share of fugitives compared to other locales? And if so, why?

Evansville: A hub of intersecting highways

“That’s an interesting question.”

That’s how Dave Oney, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals, and Kevin Gray, an associate professor of criminal justice and sociology at the University of Evansville, both responded when the Courier & Press reached out to them.

“It is not something our agency has the data to answer as it’s not something we monitor or report on,” Oney said.

He suggested asking the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. After this story was initially published, a spokesperson there said "BJS does not produce statistics on fugitives arrested in localities."

As for Gray, he offered a few guesses.

“The only thing that I can think of is that Evansville is centrally located and close to major highways and the interstate,” he said. “Maybe the people don’t want to be in an especially large city thinking there would be more police?”

As far as the former, Evansville sits in a hotspot of intersecting highways and interstates. I-69 cuts right through the city, while I-64 runs just a few miles north. Then there’s U.S. 41, which slices a straight line from the tip of Florida to the Canadian border. It’s where the Whites were eventually caught, and it’s served as the scene of other notorious Evansville crimes.

It’s also where Gillespie and Lee were discovered a little more than a year later.

Gillespie had been sentenced to two 15-years-to-life sentences for the murders of Hannah Fischer and Frank Tracy Jr. in Paulding County, Ohio. Lee, meanwhile, was serving time after being convicted of burglary and breaking and entering.

On May 23, the pair reportedly sprang from the Allen/Oakwood Correction Institution in Lima, Ohio, after hiding in a dumpster. A day later, they were spotted driving a stolen Mercury Capri just south of the Twin Bridges.

A car chase ensued, sending the pair crashing through a fence and into a backyard on Camaro Court. Lee was arrested, but Gillespie managed to scamper away.

That launched what Henderson Police Chief Sean McKinney later called “the longest five days of my career.” Authorities went door-to-door in Henderson neighborhoods, searching for any sign of Gillespie. Finally, on May 28, a boater spotted a body floating in the Ohio River. It was the fugitive.

If Gray is right, and fugitives assume a medium-sized city such as Evansville – or even a smaller one like Henderson – will have fewer law enforcement officials at their disposal, then the Gillespie/Lee saga blows a hole in their theory.

The manhunt involved 16 local, state and federal agencies, tallying more than 1,600 manhours. And Evansville has a U.S. Marshals Task Force that includes a slew of local and federal officials.

Sometimes the reasons are easier to explain. According to Robinson, South Carolina fugitive Kelly had “known associates” in the area, which could have drawn him to the city. He's accused in the Aug. 13 slaying of Ronnie Crawford of Varnville, South Carolina.

Famous fugitives from the past in Evansville

Over the years, fugitives have come into town for several reasons.

In 1899, an 18-year-old kid named Forrest Baker ran away from his home in Texas. He planned on “seeing the world,” but stopped in Evansville first to visit an aunt he never met. On the orders of his father, he was arrested at a train station.

Twenty-five years later, a man accused of killing two people was caught here after a nationwide search and spirited off to Louisville before an angry mob could reach him. In 1966, a 25-year-old fugitive from Virginia named James Clemons was nabbed drinking at a bar after slipping away from the Owensboro jail.

And of course there’s prohibition-era gangster Alvin Karpis, who visited the city twice while the FBI was hot on his heels.

He briefly stopped here in 1934 when his plane to Cuba ran out of gas and forced an emergency landing. A year later, after getting bored with liquor, gambling and sex workers in Hot Springs, Arkansas, he high-tailed it to Ohio to rob a train for fun. On the way back he visited an area “outside Evansville,” author Bryan Burroughs wrote in his book “Public Enemies.”

And if Esther Stephens is correct, John Dillinger was here too – way after the FBI claimed he died.

In 2021, the Warrick County shop owner and former quick-draw champion told the Courier & Press she bought a .32-caliber Colt pocket gun from a handsome older gentleman in a three-piece suit back in 1985.

After they completed the paperwork, he plopped in a chair and talked to Stephens for hours.

“He kept saying, ‘I really ought to go and get out of your hair.’ But he kept talking,” she said. “I think he was wanting me to look and see what was on the gun.”

When he left, she finally did just that. And there, inscribed just above the trigger, was the name “John Dillinger.”

Theories that Dillinger lived past his supposed death outside the Biograph in 1934 have circulated for years. Dillinger’s own family has even asked to exhume his body to make sure it’s him in the grave. But Stephens’ story tops all that.

She believes Dillinger gave authorities one last slip and secretly lived out the final decades of his life in Warrick County – that he escaped Crown Point jail with a friend who grew up in the Evansville area and ultimately moved down here.

If it happened that way, Dillinger was never caught like the five others who have come to the city in the past few months.

Given Evansville’s history, more will likely follow – just like they do in cities across the country. It doesn’t necessarily mean the city is a target for that kind of thing, Robinson said.

“I think it’s only natural for us to look for patterns,” he said. “It’s how we make sense of the world.”

Contact Jon Webb at jon.webb@courierpress.com

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: After recent high-profile arrests, is Evansville a hub for fugitives?