Posts Tagged ‘Garry Donald Webb’
Mother’s deathbed request leads FBI to son on run for 36 years
It was the deathbed request from the mother of a longtime fugitive that finally led the FBI to William Walter Asher III.
For 36 years, Asher had been on the run — ever since he escaped from a prison camp in 1975 rather than serve time for a deadly robbery.
But last week, federal agents caught up to him. He had changed his name, worked for a trucking company and lived with a woman who had no idea about his criminal past…
For years, it seemed that the FBI would never nab Asher.
In 1966, he and three accomplices robbed a San Francisco bar, shooting and then beating the bartender to death, authorities said.
Asher was 20 at the time…He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The file would have closed there. But eight years into his sentence, Asher escaped from a prison in El Dorado County, California — aided by a female accomplice…
In 2005, shortly before she died, Asher’s mother asked relatives to get in touch with her son. “She asked various family members to assist her in using the ‘secret’ number to call ‘Billy,’” the FBI said. Agents had been tipped off about the conversation by a source.
Armed with that information, agents scoured phone records of people who they believed may have helped fulfill the mother’s request.
They found two phone calls made to a home in Salida, California, to a man named Garry Donald Webb. The calls had been made two days before the mother died…
Authorities placed the home under surveillance. They also kept a watch on a trucking business where he was said to work.
On Friday, agents saw Asher leaving the home and confronted him.
“After some initial discussion Asher admitted his true identity,” the FBI said.
Which illustrates more than anything else is that “unidentified sources” – someone who expected payment and got it – is still one of the most important constituents of modern police work.
