I knew it would catch up with me eventually!
Published: Mon, 03/31/14
There is a film currently on release called Labor Day. Venetia and
I saw it in Oxford when we were working there last week. It is a
rather delightful love story about a withdrawn and depressed woman
who bonds with an escaped convict. Highly recommended and
afterwards Venetia said. " I wonder where they got the idea
from?" Apparently the film is based on a novel by Joyce
Maynard so the story is presumably an piece of imagination. However
strangely enough a couple of days before we saw the film there was
an article in the independent about a man who escaped from Fort
Leavenworth (the US Army's jail) in 1977, 3 years into a 23
year sentence for murdering another soldier. James Robert Jones
the fugitive settled in Florida, married in 1983 and seems to have
lived as a model citizen ever since. Jones had been living under
the assumed name of Bruce Walter Keith and recently an army
investigator decided to reopen the file and asked the US Marshals
service to run a search for matching mugshots on the Florida
drivers license database. The data-mining technology came up with
a match and Jones was arrested and will now serve the rest of his
sentence even though he is now 59 years old. Apparently even his
wife had no idea that she was married to a fugitive for over thirty
years. When arrested Jones apparently said. "I knew this
would catch up with me some day." I won't spoil the film
in case you see it but it does have a happier ending.
Seeing the film and reading the article got me thinking about the
nature of freedom. Apparently Jones stabbed another soldier to
death in 1974, I have no idea of the circumstances but it was
judged to be murder and deserve a long sentence. In the film the
escaped prisoner has been responsible for two deaths albeit in
tragic circumstances.
Escaping does regain freedom of a sort but only with the constant
fear of recapture, any encounter with the authorities can easily
result in return to prison. I know someone who can never return to
the USA even though this person has family there, a decade ago this
person was arrested and bailed on a minor charge. Having dual
nationality they were able to leave the USA on their UK passport.
But if ever they returned to the USA the fingerprinting that is now
required at the border would immediately set of an alarm.
I don't know how the US military justice system works but if it
is anything like the civilian one I would not expect that Jones
would have served more than 15 years maybe less. Even if he had
served the full 23 years he would now have been free for at least
17 years now, and probably a decade more.
Hopefully most of us are not fugitives on the run from the law for
some reason. But there are other things that can haunt us and be
ready to catch us out. Being in an inappropriate relationship,
cutting corners in work or some kind, setting yourself up as an
expert before you are ready. Just as a prison sentence eventually
comes to an end there is a right time to act in all aspects of our
lives. Impatience and frustration may drive us to grab what we
think we want much sooner, but it will come back and catch us out
eventually.
On the other hand there comes a time when not acting to grasp the
opportunity would be wrong. I believe that opening the Stav Centre
is just such an opportunity for me. This week I am going to move
the Stav centre along with major redecoration at the front and
compliance with Building Control (something else that can't
just be ignored).
I would like to invite you to come and train on Saturday the 5th.
I will divide the day between staff work including nine guards
training and an introduction to CQC including five principles knife
defence and dagger training. We will do stances and staff
exercises of course too. http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html for
details and link to booking page.
regards
Graham