Man Escapes From Prison Multiple Times Before Police Finally Catch On To His Scheme

“I’ve spent more than 22 years of my life living in a 6-by-9-foot concrete box, deep in the heart of Texas,” Steven said. “Think about that for a second. Why have I been put here? Well, originally I was sent to prison for insurance fraud.”

It’s also important to understand that Steven was motivated by love. “This is a love story,” he said. “It’s about what a person will do, who is in love, who can’t see the forest for the trees.” Before Steven fell for the real love of his life, he was already married to Debbie Davis.

The two were raising a young daughter together, but once Steven realized he was gay, he moved to Los Angeles. He claimed to have been fired from a sales jobs due to his sexuality — this was the impetus of his foray into criminal behavior.

Committing insurance fraud earned Steven his first round of jail time in 1992. Just a few years later, in 1995, Steven made a fateful acquaintance in the prison law library, when he helped someone reach a book from a shelf.

His name was Phillip Morris, and the pair hit it off. When they were paroled in the same year, they moved to Houston together. Steven, wanting to give Phillip a lavish life, conned his way into a chief financial officer position with a medical insurance company.

Steven embezzled $800,000 in just six months to buy luxurious items like Mercedes-Benz cars, jet-skis, and Rolex watches. With such a flashy lifestyle, this didn’t go unnoticed for long. Steven was once again facing the big house.

Before being thrown back in prison, Steven impersonated a judge over the phone to lower his bail from $900,000 to $45,000. He paid with a bad check, which didn’t earn him his freedom either. Though he was trapped, Steven know the situation wasn’t as dire as it seemed.

During Steven’s first sentence, he stole black pants and a walkie-talkie to pose as a workman. “I tapped on the security gate with my walkie-talkie and the guy let me through,” Steven said. This daring escape took place on Friday, the 13th — Phillip’s day of birth.

He’d done it once, and on another Friday the 13th in 1996, he decided to try again. Steven used green pen ink to dye his prison uniform a color that was very similar to a doctor’s surgical gown.

All he did next was wait until the woman working at the front desk was busy and then walked out the front door. Steven ran to a nearby house and convinced a man to give him a ride. “By the time they had their helicopters and search teams out, I was drinking margaritas in a bar in Houston,” Steven said.

Steven immediately found Phillip, and they fled to Biloxi, Mississippi. Phillip was awaiting trial, and since he ran with Steven, he was a wanted man as well. They did live it up in casinos, but a U.S. Marshal eventually recognized Steven. Both men were arrested.

Once Steven was back in jail, he knew his next escape would have to be an extra crafty one. In 1998, he ate very little and took laxatives to mimic symptoms of AIDS. He also forged his health records. The plan worked marvelously.

Steven was transferred into a nursing home, where he entered himself into a fake treatment program by posing as his own doctor over the phone. Weeks later, he called the prison again, claiming he’d died. This worked. And again, Steven was free.

Next, Steven called the unit where Phillip was imprisoned, impersonated a judge, and ordered Phillip to be transferred to Dallas. Then, using a stolen attorney’s bar card, he posed as Phillip’s attorney. Before the U.S. Marshals knew it, the couple managed to sneak away.

Steven was caught again when he attempted to cash a fake check. When the police caught him, he faked a heart attack and was transferred to the hospital. There, he called the hospital on his cellphone as a fake FBI agent, getting himself released.

He was caught in Florida a few months later and was sentenced to 144 years in prison: 99 for the escapes and 45 for his other crimes. In 2009, he recorded his life story in a memoir, which was then adapted in the film, I Love You Phillip Morris.

Phillip hasn’t been in jail since 2006. In hindsight, Phillip says that he was manipulated by Steven. He loves that the film came out because it tells his story of victimization accurately. Though Phillip can now move on from Steven’s influence on his life, Steven can’t. He’s paid the price.

“Solitary confinement is designed to weaken and destroy a human being. It’s a perverse form of retribution,” Steven said of his severe punishment. “Over the years, I’ve known 21 men that have died by suicide from hanging, cutting their jugular vein or femoral artery or overdosing on prescription medications.”

For over 20 years, and for the foreseeable future, Steven has been trapped in these horrifying conditions. He lives in the Texas Death Row Building, at the Polunsky Unit where, along with the suicides, he’s “witnessed hundreds of self-mutilations.”

While he isn’t a violent criminal. Steven could very likely be spending the remainder of his days behind bars. Then again, he might charm his way out. Plenty of other con artists since his heyday have proved that the biggest liars are often those you’d never suspect.

Colton Harris-Moore grew up about 30 miles outside of Seattle, Washington. Looking at him, he seems like an average teenage kid dealing with the pangs of getting older. No one could have predicted he’d have a rap sheet a mile long.

So how exactly did Colton go from a teen kicking back in the woods near his house to a felon convicted of multiple crimes? It all started when he was 12 years old.

Up until Colton was 12, he never had any run-ins with the law. That all changed when authorities busted him for possession of stolen property, and not long after he racked up three more convictions.

Much of this delinquency, according to court records, was likely due to his mother’s neglectful and abusive behavior when he was young. She was a destructive alcoholic who spent most of her time inebriated, and Colton suffered the effects.

Colton’s illegal antics didn’t come without some serious repercussions, even for someone so young. He was eventually sent to a juvenile halfway home, but at age 17, he once again caused a huge ruckus.

He wasn’t ready to let the center stop his urge to commit crime, so in 2008, he fled. None of the workers suspected anything for several hours after he went missing, which allowed Colton to get quite a jump on authorities.

Obviously, it was Colton’s safety his mother and the police were worried about, but it soon became clear it was the safety of others that had authorities concerned. All you had to do was look at security cameras.

Colton was captured by dozens of security cameras throughout multiple states breaking into vehicles and stealing valuables. He always signed the crime scene with the drawing of a bare foot.

But, not only did he leave the picture of a bare foot behind, he also seemed to rarely wear shoes while committing his crimes. Authorities were determined to catch him.

Police, as well as local residents who were instructed to keep their eyes peeled for Colton, labeled him the “Barefoot Bandit” or the “Barefoot Burglar.” Signs with his image were posted all over the towns he was spotted in.

Incredibly, this young man, who seemed quiet and reserved on the surface, had police all over the country on their heels. In fact, Colton’s spree was gaining so much attention, there was even a Facebook group dedicated to him!

According to police reports, Colton committed over 70 crimes throughout eight states, racking up a bill for stolen or damaged property that topped $3 million! However, the whole debacle came crashing down — literally — two years after it began.

On July 4, 2010, Colton jumped behind the gears of an empty Cessna 400 at an Indiana airport and took off to the Bahamas. After crash-landing the aircraft, he avoided capture for one more week. Finally, police nabbed the teen.

It wasn’t an easy capture, however. Colton stole a boat after making his way from the crash site and led police on a high-speed chase until officers tore the engine apart with bullets. Naturally, the arrest hit the news everywhere.

Every state in the country was on high alert for the boy. No one knew where he’d end up next, so once that orange jumpsuit was on, people everywhere breathed a huge sigh of relief. But the drama wasn’t over yet.

The courtroom drama that ensued satisfied most victims. The “Barefoot Bandit” agreed to a plea deal to serve six years in prison starting in 2012. Oddly enough, his wild two-year-stunt also garnered him some Hollywood fame.

In 2014, documentary filmmakers debuted Fly Colt Fly: Legend of the Barefoot Bandit, a compilation of interviews, as well as graphic novel-style animation fleshing out Colton’s crazy story. Colton also had a bizarre request regarding his mother.

After his release from prison in 2019, Colton created a GoFundMe page for his mother Pam who suffered from terminal lung cancer. He needed $230,000 to cryogenically freeze her body in hopes a cure would one day come around.

Despite his criminal history, Colton doesn’t want to live in its shadow now that he’s free. “What the past 10 to 15 years has really ingrained in me,” he said, “is a keen appreciation for not wasting time and moving forward as quickly as possible.”

If fame was what Colton sought through his crimes, even if unintentional, that’s exactly what he got. He was a young kid who eluded authorities in spectacular fashions, and he began drawing comparisons to one of the most legendary con artists of the century.

It would be over 60 years after his crime spree before Frank Abagnale Jr. stood on the red carpet with Leonardo DiCaprio, the megastar set to portray him in Steven Spielberg’s latest project. He started out far, far away from the spotlight.

On April 27, 1948, in Bronxville, New York, Frank Abagnale Jr. was born. He was the third of four children for Paulette Abagnale and Frank Abagnale Sr. The parents met in Algiers, Algeria, amidst the Second World War, when Frank was stationed in Oran, below.

The two were only teens when they wed. And when the war was finally over, they moved to New York, where Frank Sr. decided to start a business for himself. Life was good for the Abagnales.

Frank Jr., right, was close with Frank Sr. The older Frank traveled extensively because of his dedication to the Republican party. Unfortunately, these absences weighed on the family, and Paulette filed for divorce.

This was the moment when Frank’s life changed. His family life became chaotic and unstable. His father wanted to work things out, though Paulette was done trying. The entire family was shifting into a new phase of life.

Frank Jr. moved in with his divorcee father and came along with him while he maintained the family business. This is where young Frank began to understand white-collar transactions — not all of them squeaky clean.

As Frank grew up, he began to shoplift and commit other smaller crimes. Quickly, he mastered this craft and decided to move on to bigger and better burglaries. Here we go. Get ready for things to take off.

Frank decided to steal his dad’s gas credit card for his first big scam. He went to gas station workers and convinced them to give him some of his sale in cash and in return they’d get to keep a piece of it too.

Once Frank Sr. got his credit card bill, the scam fell apart. Frank Jr. had spent thousands of dollars in a short period of time. Unfortunately, he had no idea his dad was in deep debt, and this weighed heavily on him.

Paulette punished Frank Jr. by sending him to a school for troubled boys. At 16, the tension became too much, so Frank Jr. left home. He had very little money to his name and no education. He didn’t have many options.

To get a better job, Frank changed the age on his driver’s license. And in interviews he lied about his education level, so he could earn more money working. Still, he was barely making anything.

Eventually, he realized that writing bad checks would get him much more funds. He quickly wrote hundreds of bad checks and overdrew his bank account by thousands. The cops were on to him, so Frank decided to hide.

Frank still needed money, so he started making up even more wild stories to tell bank workers. He thought a pilot would be a great cover for him. They have a professional appearance, which people trust, and Frank knew he could exploit.

First, Frank got a pilot’s uniform by calling Pan American Airlines’ headquarters and explaining he’d lost his uniform. Then he picked up a “new” one and created a fake employee I.D.

Next, Frank took the time to learn about flying. He pretended to be a student writing a story about Pan Am, which gave him even more information about impersonating a pilot. Things were taking off — literally.

Frank used his disguise to ride on planes all over the world, but, once again, was quickly found out by Pan Am. To escape their scrutiny, Frank masqueraded as a doctor in Georgia. Once again, Frank became another person.

A visiting doctor invited Frank to come with him to the hospital and reportedly, Frank was hired there. He worked at the hospital for a short period of time, before leaving for his next location.

For two years, Frank flitted from one job to the next, eventually settling in Montpelier, France. He wanted to give up crime and be a white-collar businessperson, but an ex-girlfriend turned him in to the police.

Frank spent time in a French, Swedish, and finally an American prison. The FBI made a deal with Frank Jr. — to earn his freedom, he had to work with the organization to teach them about his fraudulent methods.

In the end, Frank worked with the government for more than 30 years and eventually started his own company, Abagnale & Associates. They specialize in educating the public on fraud. How ironic.

Still, most of the information about Frank’s life is from his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can. He later clarified that some of the details in the book were enhanced to create a stronger story. He may have conflated his story with another of history’s greatest con men.

Victor Lustig was born on January 4, 1890 in a little town called Hostinné, in what later became the Czech Republic. He grew up poor, though he claimed his parents were descended from aristocracy — just the start of his career of deception.

As a youngster, Lustig was exceedingly smart in school. While studying in Paris, he became fluent in Italian, Czech, German, and English and learned to observe people and disarm them with his beguiling charm. As intelligent as he was, his studies couldn’t keep him entertained for long.

Lustig got bored with school, and while looking for a challenge to occupy his mind, he took up mischief. He roamed the local streets, learning to panhandle, hustle, and pickpocket with ease. While fellow university students focused on class, Lustig learned to gamble.

At age 19, he left university and realized Paris was getting too small for him. It was the roaring twenties, and across the sea, America lay dazzling with opportunity. Lustig saw the perfect chance to nab money from rich travelers aboard the ocean liners sailing to New York.

He bought his first ticket and set out on a ship from France. During the journey, Lustig practiced his first scam, convincing wealthy passengers that he was a Broadway producer, seeking investments in a nonexistent musical. Not only did this work, but it emboldened him for his next move.

In the United States, Lustig took his moneymaking enterprise to a new level. He created a steamer trunk-sized device, known as the Rumanian box, and began peddling it as a machine that would successfully duplicate real U.S. currency, at the rate of one bill printed every six hours.

The device’s premise sounded fishy, but Lustig filled the box itself with complex gears and machinery, as well as a few authentic bills, to convince would-be buyers. He sold each one for $30,000, and by the time victims realized they’d been scammed, Lustig had vanished.

Lustig turned a fantastic profit selling his boxes, but before long, suspicion arose around his name, and the Secret Service began tracking him. With options narrowing, he set sail once more for France — and stumbled across the con that would make him infamous.

When he landed in Paris, Lustig read a news story: the Eiffel Tower was falling apart and badly in need of maintenance, which the French government couldn’t afford. The newspaper hypothesized that the tower might be removed altogether, which gave Lustig an idea.

He hired a forger to print him a fake ID and fake government stationery, got the details of his plan sorted out, and selected five key Parisian scrap metal dealers for a secret rendezvous at the stately Crillon Hotel.

Once Lustig got all five dealers in the room, he introduced himself as an official from the department of public buildings, and carefully and thoroughly outlined what he said was a controversial, and discreet, government decision: the Eiffel Tower would have to be sold for scrap.

Several of the dealers were wary, but one of them, André Poisson, was less-experienced and anxious for a chance to establish himself. Lustig saw the perfect target, and selected Poisson as the man for the deal.

Lustig arranged to meet Poisson privately the next day to talk over the details — but this time, Poisson confessed he, too, was doubtful. Ever the resourceful con artist, Lustig put his charm to work.

Lustig confided in Poisson that he was just an overworked, underpaid government guy whose paycheck couldn’t support his party lifestyle. He didn’t really care who got the tower, he just needed to make some cash on the deal — suggesting that Poisson grease his palms a bit.

Meanwhile, back in Paris, days passed and Poisson began to inquire about the date when the tower would be dismantled. When the few people he asked ridiculed him, he discovered he’d been had. However, he was too ashamed to alert the police.

Having carefully scrutinized Poisson’s personality, Lustig had been banking on this embarrassment, and was delighted that no news of the scam came to light. He got back on the train to Paris, assembled a fresh group of metal dealers, and began the selling process again.

This time, though, Lustig’s victim had more wits about him. Soon after they closed the supposed sale, the second dealer checked into the offer a little more and uncovered the truth. But Lustig got wind of this, and by the time police came, he was hiding out in America.

In the United States, Lustig continued selling his Rumanian box money-printing machines, and partnered with two other con artists to begin a counterfeiting business that grew so large it threatened the economy. But as slick as Lustig was, he didn’t know how to quit while he was ahead.

In May 1935, Lustig began cheating on his girlfriend. Angry, she phoned a tip about him to federal agents, who promptly arrested him for counterfeiting. Victor Lustig was sentenced to 20 years in Alcatraz. He’d heard the prison was impossible to escape from.

Nowadays, dozens of triathletes undertake a 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz to the San Francisco Bay every summer. While this race is simply meant for sport, some use it as evidence supporting the most successful prison break in history.

There was some serious chatter in the Alcatraz prison yard during the early months of 1962. Most inmates were content to quietly pass the time until their release, but three prisoners were desperate to get out. Luckily, they had a plan.

John Morris met brothers Clarence and John Anglin during a previous prison stint in Atlanta; it seemed like providence when the three bank robbers were assigned to adjacent cells on The Rock. They agreed to smuggle a few special items out of the mess hall.

Spoons. On their own, these utensils wouldn’t do much good for tunneling. But a bit of sharpening turned them into handy picks that could chip away at the concrete walls. The cons’ plan would be slow, though that’s just how they wanted it.

They heard about the so-called “Battle of Alcatraz” that erupted back in 1946, when a group of prisoners tried to take the jail by force. Once the guards overpowered them, this doomed attempt got everyone involved shot, executed, or locked up for life.

Morris and the Anglins agreed that a shootout would be a one-way ticket to the grave. If their schemes went off without a hitch, the trio would make it off the island before anybody realized they were gone.

Hunched under their cell sinks, the conspirators worked to widen ventilation ducts into tunnels. Prisoners were allowed to play music at certain hours of the day, so Morris blasted his accordion to cover up the excavation noise.

The dig was slow going, but it gave the trio time to perfect the other parts of their plan. They collected supplies from various blocks of the prison, including a bag of hair trimmings from the barber.

Each lock was a key ingredient for the most ingenious feature of their escape. Morris and the Anglins constructed papier-mâché models of their own heads, complete with real human hair. Hopefully, these sculptures would buy them a few more hours.

On the night of June 11, the convicts made their move. They crawled through their tunnels, snuck through a little-used service corridor, and broke through a ventilation shaft in the roof. However, the metal grill made a loud clang when they pushed it aside.

But the guards made nothing of it! All the prisoners appeared to be in their beds, thanks to the dummy heads that Morris and the Anglins had constructed! It wasn’t until the next morning that the guards discovered the ruse.

Alcatraz officials were in a frenzy as they retraced the escapees’ route. A prison who helped engineer the operation confessed that Morris and the Anglin brothers constructed a raft out of raincoats and were currently making their way to nearby Angel Island.

A comprehensive search of the bay turned up a floating paddle, a tattered homemade life jacket, and fragments of the raft. Police deduced that the prison breakers must have drowned during the rough voyage. They assured the public not to worry.

Alcatraz, now a museum, continues to buy into that narrative. Tour guides retell the stages of the complex escape while maintaining that none of the three criminals ever made it back to the mainland. Not everyone is so sure, however.

John and Clarence Anglin’s family received a number of postcards over the years, purportedly from the fugitives. They could have been pranks, except the trend kept up. Their mother received an anonymous bouquet of flowers every Mother’s Day for the rest of her life!

Then there were the alleged sightings. An old pal of Morris claimed he encountered him in Maryland. Meanwhile, a family friend of the Anglins believed he spotted them during a vacation to Brazil. A photo of two men in South American resembling the brothers supported his story.

In fact, the FBI has followed these leads, investigating whether it was possible that the escape was successful. They’ve also released time-lapsed mugshots to the public to aid in their search, but to no avail. It seemed like a cold case until 2013.

A letter arrived at FBI headquarters, signed by one John Anglin. It spelled out the supposed truth of their post-prison lives, stating that all three fugitives lived until old age. John, real or fake, claimed to be the last living member, and he included a shocking request.

He said that he had cancer and was willing to reenter the prison system for a year in exchange for medical treatment! FBI agents asked themselves if such a message was too good to be true.

After handwriting analysts failed to establish a solid link between Anglin’s handwriting and this letter, the FBI concluded that the author was likely not authentic. On the other hand, they couldn’t disprove his identity outright.

Toshio Takata struggled to make ends meet. After moving into a halfway house, it got to the point where the 62-year-old had trouble buying supplies for his beloved art projects. This old dog would have to learn some new tricks if he wanted to survive.

Traditionally speaking, the Japanese treat their elders quite well. Old-fashioned standards oblige younger people to not only care for their parents and grandparents, but to treat them with the utmost respect.

In the modern age, however, more and more senior citizens like Toshio are feeling left behind. His family has more or less dissolved, and he’s grown estranged from his brothers, two ex-wives, and three children. Toshio only has himself.

Across the country, older Japanese citizens are unable to find a support system. There’s just so many of them. Over a third of the national population is now 60 or older, and the senior citizens have outnumbered the children for years.

With the number of seniors only increasing, Toshio saw some of his contemporaries lose just about everything. Even with pensions and benefits, they couldn’t afford food and housing. Some were even put out on the street. But Toshio found a solution.

Nowadays, Toshio lives comfortably. He’s got three square meals a day, plenty of staff on hand to provide for his every need, and plenty of similarly aged friends to spend time with. It all started with a bicycle.

This bicycle didn’t belong to him. Toshio found it parked on a street corner in Hiroshima, and he just rode off with it. But this was no mere joy ride; Toshio knew exactly where he was headed.

He rode to the nearest police station. Approaching the front desk, the old man calmly informed the authorities that he stole the bicycle. With no other choice, the police cuffed the seemingly harmless senior and brought him in.

The court sentenced him to one year in prison for petty theft. Did Toshio have an uncharacteristic lapse in judgment? Had he been hit with a wave of remorse once he hopped on the bike?

Nope. The theft, the arrest, the sentence — it had all been part of his plan. With no criminal history, in the Japanese prison system, he enjoyed the stability behind bars.

So he served his year worry free for the most part. Then, once he got out, something peculiar happened: Toshio threatened women in the park with a knife.

He now claims that he didn’t mean any harm, he simply wanted the police to lock him up once again — this time for a longer period of time. A single year wouldn’t cut it anymore.

Now 69-years-old, Toshio wakes up in a cell every morning, but he does so with a purpose. He has a place where he belongs and all the time in the world to work on his art. Strangely enough, he’s not the only one to enjoy life behind bars.

In a trend that no social scientist saw coming, one in five Japanese inmates is 60 years or older. And these aren’t hardened criminals either.

This is no short-term solution for seniors, either. Roughly a quarter of them commit another offense soon after their release, leading to an even longer sentence. But why is prison such an attractive place for them to spend their golden years?

For now, prison life remains more comfortable than freedom for Toshio and his ilk. They feel certain that there’s nothing for them outside the jail walls. However, a large segment of senior inmates do have one key difference from Toshio.

An increasing number of them are women! Although women across the board are statistically less likely to commit a crime than men, female seniors who live alone are particularly affected by poverty and isolation.

With the population of senior citizens on the rise, Japan will have to find a more efficient way to care for them. If they do not enact radical reforms, the Japanese will find themselves in a prison of their own making. Unfortunately, loneliness and isolation drives seniors to act out all over the globe.

As he walked across the Redding, California, soil for the first time, Kevin Burns’ heart filled with anticipation. He thought about new friends, career prospects, romantic possibilities. But it was his elderly neighbor that won most of his attention.

Though her house seemed like it could hold a full family, 68-year-old Ruth Ratliff lived next to Kevin all by herself. Odder still, she seemed to never spend any time inside the house. She was always in her parked car, eating.