Federal agents ended a 41-year search for a fugitive from a New Jersey prison on Monday when they captured him in a town outside Lisbon, Portugal.
George Wright was serving a 30-year sentence in New Jersey for robbing and killing World War II Bronze Star recipient Walter Paterson at a gas station in 1962.
According to Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz of NBC New York, in August 1970 Wright escaped from prison with two other people and headed to Atlantic City in the warden’s car. The three then went to Detroit and joined the Black Liberation Army, while Wright worked under a fake name as a male model.
From NBC New York:
Two years later, Wright and several others commandeered a Delta Airlines flight from Detroit to Miami — Wright boarded the flight dressed as a priest, with a gun hidden in the cut-out pages of a Bible.
His fellow members of the Black Liberation Army also boarded with weapons, and 88 passengers were held hostage.
Wright and the other hijackers demanded a suitcase of cash from federal agents, and instructed them to deliver it wearing nothing but bathing suits so they could make sure the agents weren’t carrying weapons. The hostages were released, but the crew was kept on board and flew the plane to Boston, and then to Algeria.
The FBI was able to track down Wright, now 68, in Portugal after he began contacting family members in the U.S. He is being held without bail, and authorities are seeking to get him extradited.
Via Daily Intel.
