Mother's deathbed wish lands fugitive killer back behind bars

A deathbed request from the mother of a fugitive who went on the run after escaping jail 36 years ago has put him back behind bars.

William Walter Asher III broke out of his cell after doing eight years for the robbery and murder of a San Francisco bartender in 1966.

But FBI agents trying to hunt him down would have been forgiven for dismissing the man they have now arrested - the clean-cut 20-year-old of 45 years ago is almost unrecognisable today after becoming a scruffy, bearded trucker to evade capture.

The FBI originally launched a massive hunt for the man they considered a danger to the public.

But by the time they tracked him to the Northern Territories of Canada, where he had settled and had a wife, his marriage had ended and he had fled the area and assumed another identity.

The case went cold until 2005 when a source close to Asher's mother contacted police and told them that on her deathbed Mabel Asher begged the family gathered around her to "contact Billy" using the "secret number". Armed with this new information, agents scoured phone records of people they believed may have helped get in touch with him.

They found two phone calls had been made to a man named Garry Donald Webb at a home in Salida, California, in the days following Mrs Asher's deathbed plea. Investigation of Webb's driving licence photograph showed a long-haired, scruffy-looking man, but agents spotted some resemblances.

When they confronted him on his way to work at a trucking business, Webb admitted his secret. Even his current wife knew nothing of his past.

An FBI spokesman said: "After 36 years of looking over his shoulder, William Walter Asher is back where he belongs in prison. After some discussion he admitted his true identity."

A Bonnie and Clyde-style gang of three siblings have been charged with a cross-country crime spree that began in Florida. Lee Dougherty, 29, Dylan Dougherty Stanley, 26, and Ryan Dougherty, 21, are being held in Colorado, accused of a string of assaults and thefts. They are also accused of firing shots at pursuing police as they were finally apprehended after their car crashed.