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Frank Freshwaters, 79, of Akron, Ohio, United States, is seen in 1959 and 2015 photos released by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office in Florida.
Reuters

A fugitive who spent time at the penitentiary featured in prison-escape film The Shawshank Redemption was finally apprehended in Florida after 56 years on the lam.

Authorities arrested 79-year-old Frank Freshwaters, who also used the name Williams Cox, on Tuesday after receiving a tip from U.S. Marshals that he was living in Melbourne, Fla., News13 reports.

“[We] approached him, showed him the 1959 picture, asked if he’d seen that person. He said he hadn’t seen him in a long time,” Major Tod Goodyear of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said of the confrontation at Freshwaters’ isolated mobile home. Freshwaters went by aliases since escaping in 1959, but authorities said he had a Florida driver’s license, stayed out of trouble and was even collecting Social Security.

Freshwaters served time at the Ohio State Reformatory featured in the 1994 movie but escaped from another state facility in Sandusky seven months into a 20-year-sentence for violating the probation of his manslaughter conviction. He was previously caught in the 1970s in West Virginia but was released after a failed extradition.

[News13]

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Write to Nolan Feeney at nolan.feeney@time.com.

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