Richard Lee McNair AKA Robert Jones

Fri Oct 26, 3:17 PM



By Kevin Bissett, The Canadian Press

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CAMPBELLTON, N.B. - A notorious U.S. fugitive who was captured this week in northern New Brunswick told RCMP officers who tackled him on a dead-end gravel road: "You have captured a big fish."


Richard Lee McNair, a convicted killer who was considered one of America's 15 most-wanted fugitives, was arrested near Campbellton on Thursday, about 18 months after he escaped from a Louisiana prison where he was serving a life sentence.


The RCMP held a news conference in Campbellton on Friday to reveal the details of the dramatic capture that began when an off-duty police officer reported seeing a suspicious white van in the area Wednesday.


The vehicle drew his attention because its back windows were darkly tinted. Suspecting it might be involved in smuggling across the nearby Maine and Quebec borders, he decided to call it in.


RCMP spotted the van the next day and tried to stop it. During a brief pursuit, the van turned onto a dead-end backwoods road and the driver bolted on foot.


McNair, 48, ran about 400 metres before being tackled by one of the officers.


"We placed the cuffs on him and I escorted him to the car," said Const. Nelson Levesque. "At that time he told me we all got a big fish."


Levesque said their captive identified himself as McNair, but it was only after checking with Canadian and U.S. authorities that they realized just how big that fish was.


McNair escaped last year from a Louisiana prison where he was serving his sentence for the 1987 killing of a grain elevator worker in Minot, N.D.


McNair, who was trying to rob the place, shot and wounded Richard Kitzman in an office, then went outside to a rig waiting for a load of grain. The driver, Jerome Theis, of Circle Pines, Minn., was eating ice cream in the cab when he was killed.


"I've been waiting for this for a long time," Vern Erck, sheriff of Ward County in North Dakota, said Wednesday after hearing word of the capture.


McNair has a history of legendary escapes.


In February 1988, he used a tube of lip balm to slip out of handcuffs at the Minot police station. He was captured after jumping from the third floor of a building.


The second escape came from the North Dakota State Penitentiary. Officials said McNair and two other prisoners escaped through a ventilation duct on Oct. 9, 1992. He was on the lam until the following July 5, when he was captured in Grand Island, Neb.


Eventually, with North Dakota authorities unable to hold him, McNair was shipped to the maximum-security federal prison in Louisiana.


On April 5, 2006, McNair smuggled himself out in a pile of mailbags.


Since then there have been many reported sightings, including about 300 in Canada.

"I feel good," said Const. Stephane Gagnon, a rookie officer who had only been with the force for six weeks before tackling McNair.

The Mounties said McNair wasn't armed when he was arrested but did have lock picks. He spent the night in an RCMP lockup in Campbellton before being transferred to the maximum-security Atlantic Institution in Renous, N.B.

Insp. Roland Wells told reporters McNair was friendly and forthcoming after he was captured, but clammed up quickly.

"I think somebody like this enjoys the notoriety, and I think he wanted the members to know he was McNair," said Wells. "However, when we fingerprinted him and asked him to sign, he refused to sign his actual name, and signed the last known alias."

The signature read: Troy Snyder.

The van McNair was driving stolen in Ontario.

Police said it appeared McNair had been living in the van, which contained numerous items including computer equipment that they suspect may have been used to make fake identifications.

Wells said investigators were examining the van for evidence of other crimes.

"We're not ruling anything out," he said. "We're having them look for blood, we're having them look at the computer equipment in the vehicle, we're having them look for all physical evidence that's there.

"We're not letting this guy leave the country until we're sure that nothing more serious has happened here that we're not aware of yet."

However, McNair is expected to be turned over to U.S. authorities within the next few days.

While on the lam, McNair sent a Christmas card to Tim Schuetzle, warden at the North Dakota prison he escaped from.

Schuetzle called McNair's capture "great news," adding Wednesday he was confident he would eventually be found.

The warden plans to make McNair the first state prison inmate to be placed on indefinite lockdown, allowing him to leave his cell for one hour a day and only in restraints.

"He's our inmate and our responsibility," Schuetzle said. "I don't know of any other state that will accept him now with his escape history."

Schuetzle wasn't the only U.S. official celebrating the capture.

Wells said he spoke Thursday to one of the original investigating officers in the McNair file. He wanted to know how to spell Gagnon's name - the Mountie who tackled McNair - so he could name a child or grandchild after him.