Escaped, Accused Cop Killer Lands on Most Wanted List
Oct. 2, 2006 — -- When alleged cop killer and escaped inmate John Parsons entered the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List over the weekend, his chances of surviving on the run dropped precipitously, officials say.
Since the list was created in 1950, 454 of 484 fugitives have been apprehended or located, said Ernest Porter, the FBI's acting supervisor of investigative publicity.
Located means found dead, he said to ABC News.
"We're 98 years old. We've been around for a long time, and we usually catch our man," Porter said referring to the FBI.
"Or woman," he added. Seven women have made the list since its inception.
"It's added pressure," Porter said. "Not just from law enforcement, but from the general public. Someone could recognize [Parsons] right around the next bend."
The FBI contributes a minimum of $100,000 to local reward money for a 10 Most Wanted capture, Porter said. The bounty on Parsons now stands at $125,000.
While there is no specific set of criteria for addition to the Top 10 list, Porter said that killing a cop "certainly resonates within the law enforcement community.''
A vacancy on the 10 Most Wanted list opened up on Sept. 8, when Ralph "Bucky" Phillips surrendered to authorities who had tracked him to a small Pennsylvania town just over the New York border -- after more than five months on the run.
He also is accused of killing a law enforcement official, as well as wounding two others.
Parsons was added to the list on Saturday, and the Cincinnati field office of the FBI is planning a news conference at the Ross County courthouse today.
On the Run
Parsons has been on the run since a bold prison escape on July 29.
"There's no question he's getting help," Ross County Sheriff Ron Nichols told ABC News.
Parsons' mother and a former work colleague were arrested in August and charged with obstruction of justice.
Fifteen other family members and associates have been subpoenaed.
Nichols said that as evidence developed he intended to arrest more of Parsons' family and friends.
"Systematically, we are going down the list and removing people that have been helping him," he said. "The people that are helping him -- he is jeopardizing their freedom."
Nichols pointed out that the weather was turning colder in Ohio and that the vegetation that he believed had shielded Parsons -- who he thinks is hiding out in the woods in the southeast part of the county -- was beginning to fall from the trees.
The sheriff urged the fugitive to surrender.
He seemed to be taunting Parsons when he asked, rhetorically, "What kind of individual is going to let your mother go to prison for you?"
Chillicothe is a small Ohio town, 45 miles south of Columbus, that was once the state's capital.
Local authorities believe Parsons may still be hiding in the area, based on at least two apparently legitimate recent sightings, and the discovery of an abandoned hideout shack where his fingerprints were recently found.
But Parsons has remained elusive.
Sightings
On Friday, a man resembling Parsons was spotted by a truck driver at 3 a.m. as the rig pulled into a Sunoco station along Route 23, south of Chillicothe, Nichols said.
K-9 dogs tracked the inmate's scent behind a gift shop next door to a gas station.
"When he saw me, he took off running," truck driver Travis Woods told a local newspaper.
He said that Parsons was dressed for colder weather, in a gray jacket with a hood and jeans, and that he had the beginnings of a beard.
On Sept. 19, two men made a similar sighting southeast of Chillicothe. They watched as a man authorities now believe was Parsons entered an abandoned shack just 100 yards from a house belonging to his brother.
The men ran to get a gun, but by the time they returned the man had disappeared.
Police subsequently found Parsons' fingerprints on a mirror inside the shack. Inside they also found clothing, a toilet made from a lawn chair, a small transistor radio, knives, machetes, and an escape hatch in the floor -- indicating that Parsons may have planned to hide there for awhile.
Massive Manhunt
Like many violent crimes, this one allegedly began as a small-time robbery.
On April 21, 2005, Chillicothe police Officer Larry Cox was leaving his parents' home after a visit.
Nearby, police said, Parsons had allegedly just stolen a car from J.R. Valentine's Family restaurant and used it to rob a BP gas station.
A chase ensued through Cox's neighborhood, and Cox joined on foot, unarmed. Cox was shot in the neck in an alley behind his parents' home. He died at the scene.
A popular, longtime elementary school anti-drug officer and a 19-year veteran of the force, Cox had reportedly arrested Parsons before, but he may not have been aware of who he was after.
Cox had chased down some vandals in the days before the shooting, and may have believed another one was loose, his father told The Columbus Dispatch newspaper.
Parsons was apprehended nine days later, after the kind of massive manhunt that follows reports of a police officer shot in the line of duty.
Parsons was charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, grand theft, tampering with evidence, and weapons charges.
Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty.
The Escape
In hindsight, it's easy to see that Parsons was up to something while sitting in jail awaiting a murder trial.
In a collect phone call to his mother, Debra Flesher, recorded by authorities three weeks before his escape, Parsons asked her to "get what you can done" at her house.
Elsewhere in the conversation, he told his mother that he would soon give her phone bill "some slack for a while" and that there were some things "you just can't keep putting off."
He also talked to a man identified only as "Frank," indicating to the man what time of day he was usually taken out for recreation.
Transcripts of the phone conversations were obtained by The Associated Press after Flesher's arrest.
She was charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly leaving camping and other survival equipment outside of her house for her son.
Police also arrested Orlando Crockett, an employee of Parsons' at a rental store.
Parsons showed up at Crockett's house the day he escaped, and Crockett gave him a shirt, authorities said. He contacted police later that day.
He too was arrested for obstruction of justice, but the charges were dropped, his attorney told ABC News.
In a twist worthy of "The Shawshank Redemption," Parsons' cell was inspected the night before his escape.
Deputy Walter Miller found a suspicious mixture of what turned out to be toothpaste and melted, blue candy that Parsons had used to reseal a cinder block.
Behind the block, Parson hid items to be used in his escape.
Miller did not investigate further, however. If he had, he would have been able to thwart the escape plan.
Miller had only been working for the sheriff's department since March, and Nichols said that inexperience, not negligence, was to blame.
Nichols said that the toothpaste-and-candy epoxy was used skillfully.
"When you look at it, it's the same color as the paint on the wall," he said, defending Miller's actions.
"There was no reason to pull out the [cinder] block because there was nothing on the side of that block but another block. There was no escape route."
In an instance of really bad luck, Miller's report to maintenance to repair the wall was submitted Friday evening. They were gone for the weekend, Nichols said.
The next day, Parsons left his cell for recreation.
He should have been shackled and "belly-chained" any time he left his cell because of his high-risk inmate classification, according to an investigator's report about the escape released last month.
The report was prepared by a neighboring sheriff's department at Nichols' request.
Parsons smuggled a pole fashioned from newspapers, duct tape, and a rope made of bed sheets hidden under his clothes past the guards and into the recreation area on the roof of the jail, authorities said.
He moved to the corner of the roof that is hardest for guards to see, and tossed the rope to the top of an 8-foot chain-link fence that sits atop an 18-foot concrete wall.
There was a camera in the recreation area, but it wasn't working properly that day, the report said.
He scaled the wall, pulled away the lower of two rows of razor wire, and squeezed between them.
Then he jumped to a roof, scaled a ladder, and then jumped 20 feet into an alley, where his bloody clothes were later found.
Nichols told ABC News that he believed there was a car waiting for Parsons.
For more on Parsons and the 10 Most Wanted list, go to http://fbi.gopv/wanted/ten/fugitives/fugitives.htm
Additional reporting by ABC News' Nick Tucker and Gerard Middleton.