5. The Man Who Mailed Himself Out of Prison
In 1987 one of Richard Lee McNair’s burglaries went bad. He murdered a man named Jerry Thies and shot another man four times, who survived. He was caught and sentenced to 2 consecutive life sentences as well as 30 years for burglary, and as far as anyone could tell, McNair was never going to taste freedom again.
However, the same day that he was arrested he used lip balm to squeeze out of his handcuffs and made a desperate run from the police station. He was caught after he jumped into a tree which broke leaving him injured on the ground. He was brought to the Ward County Jail in Minot where he began digging through cinder blocks but was transferred before he could finish. In 1992, he escaped from North Dakota State Penitentiary by crawling through the air ducts after which he enjoyed 10 months on the run.
Although McNair had already proven to be daring enough to attempt nearly any kind of escape, his third attempt is what made him a legend. In April 2006, McNair placed himself inside a mail crate and mailed himself out of prison. After only 75 minutes, the crate arrived at its location and McNair cut himself out. He fled to Canada where he avoided recapture for over a year. In October 2007 he was pulled over by RCMP officer Stephane Gagnon after receiving a report about a suspicious looking white cube van. He is currently serving his sentence in super-maximum security prison in Florida where he has very little chance of escaping again.
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