November 5, 2000, Sunday, BC cycle
>SECTION: State and Regional
>LENGTH: 257 words
>HEADLINE: Former fugitive answers the question: Why Indiana?
>DATELINE: MUNSTER, Ind.
>
>Two Mississippi State Penitentiary escapees who made their way to Lake
County
>in June came here because they thought the further north they went the less
>likely they were to get shot by someone who recognized them from a
television
>broadcast.
>
>Instead, the escapees were almost shot by Lake County police after they
>opened fire on a patrol officer who stopped their stolen van for speeding.
>
>The officer escaped injury and initiated a high-speed chase down Interstate
>65 from Merrillville to Lowell, after which the fleeing convicts bailed out
>of the van and ran into a cornfield. They were eventually apprehended.
>
>Roy Harper, 42, who was returned to the Parchman, Miss., prison in August,
>explained his escape to Indiana in a letter to The Times of Northwest
>Indiana. Harper and fellow escapee John Woolard knew they had been featured
>on a segment of the television program "America's Most Wanted" shortly
after
>the May 28 prison break.
>
>"We made the decision to head to the northeastern part of the country when
we
>discovered we had been on 'America's Most Wanted'," Harper wrote in the
>letter the paper received last week.
>
>"Our reasoning was that the greatest threat to us was being recognized by a
>citizen who had seen the show, and we felt it was less likely we'd run into
>any armed citizens in the Northeast as opposed to say, the South or West.
Too
>many citizens in the South and West carry guns."
>
>Harper is serving an 88-year term for several robberies. Woolard, 37, is a
>convicted killer serving a life sentence.
>SECTION: State and Regional
>LENGTH: 257 words
>HEADLINE: Former fugitive answers the question: Why Indiana?
>DATELINE: MUNSTER, Ind.
>
>Two Mississippi State Penitentiary escapees who made their way to Lake
County
>in June came here because they thought the further north they went the less
>likely they were to get shot by someone who recognized them from a
television
>broadcast.
>
>Instead, the escapees were almost shot by Lake County police after they
>opened fire on a patrol officer who stopped their stolen van for speeding.
>
>The officer escaped injury and initiated a high-speed chase down Interstate
>65 from Merrillville to Lowell, after which the fleeing convicts bailed out
>of the van and ran into a cornfield. They were eventually apprehended.
>
>Roy Harper, 42, who was returned to the Parchman, Miss., prison in August,
>explained his escape to Indiana in a letter to The Times of Northwest
>Indiana. Harper and fellow escapee John Woolard knew they had been featured
>on a segment of the television program "America's Most Wanted" shortly
after
>the May 28 prison break.
>
>"We made the decision to head to the northeastern part of the country when
we
>discovered we had been on 'America's Most Wanted'," Harper wrote in the
>letter the paper received last week.
>
>"Our reasoning was that the greatest threat to us was being recognized by a
>citizen who had seen the show, and we felt it was less likely we'd run into
>any armed citizens in the Northeast as opposed to say, the South or West.
Too
>many citizens in the South and West carry guns."
>
>Harper is serving an 88-year term for several robberies. Woolard, 37, is a
>convicted killer serving a life sentence.