George Wright: Hijacker and Fugitive Arrested
After 40 years on the run fugitive and political activist George Wright who was sentenced to 15- to 30-year to jail for the killing of a gas station owner named Walter Patterson in Wall, N.J. in 1962 was arrested by the FBI earlier today in Lisbon, Portugal.
George Wright who is a writer and activist had already served 8 years for the death of Walter Patterson, a decorated World War II veteran and father of two, at the Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, N.J. when he along with three other men who were part of the black panther movement when they decided on Aug. 19, 1970 to escape, hijack Delta Air Lines Flight 841 and ask for a ransom of $1 million and flee to Liberia- they eventually returned the plane, the money and liberated the 86 passengers unharmed.
While George Wright’s two other associates were arrested in France in 1976 the criminal who created a branch of the Black Panther Movement in Liberia remained free through the years.
But in 2009 the York-New Jersey Fugitive Task Force was created to solve cold cases with the highly publicized George Wright affair being on top of the list.
And according to Michael Schroeder, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service American authorities simply decided to visit a long list of old addresses where the fugitive used to conduct business in Portugal and they were lucky enough to find him in one.
George Wright who has yet to be interviewed will be taken back to New Jersey in the upcoming days.
Watch a report on this story below.
Category: News
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