Dying Mother's Last Wish Leads FBI To Her Fugitive Son in California

Aug. 23, 2011 — -- A dying mother's last wish led the FBI to her fugitive son that had eluded capture for 36 years.

After multiple name changes, two prison escapes and FBI searches through the United States and Canada, William Walter Asher III was found in Salida, Calif., years after his mother used a secret phone number to contact her son before she died.

"After 36 years of looking over his shoulder, William Walter Asher III, now 66 years old, is finally back where he belongs—in prison," said a FBI statement.

Asher was 20 in 1966 when he and three others robbed robbed a San Francisco bar in which the bartender was shot and then beaten to death.

Shortly after the robbery, Asher fled to Chicago but was captured the next year by the FBI. He was returned to California where hew was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Eight years into his sentence, a woman helped him escape from prison, according to the FBI. Investigators believed he was in the Northwest Territories of Canada and near Alaska, but could not find him.

"Investigators later determined Asher had assumed the name David Donald McFee, worked as a long-haul truck driver, married, and raised a family," said the FBI report. He eventually separated from his wife, but when Canadian authorities and FBI agents interviewed her, she could not help them locate Asher.

Years later, one of Asher's daughters contacted the FBI for information about her father's whereabouts, but the investigators had hit a dead end.

"Although the trail was cold over the years, investigators never gave up their hunt for Asher and recently got the break they needed," according to the FBI news release.

In 2005, Asher's ailing mother Mable Welch "asked various family members to assist her in using the 'secret' number to call 'Billy,'" said the FBI report. Using this information, the FBI collected phone records from the people believed to have helped Welch contact her son.