Thomas James Holden was wanted by the FBI after he killed three people in 1949 in Chicago. Lee Emory Downs earned the distinction after stealing $10,800 from a California telephone company in 1948. Morley Vernon King strangled his wife in 1947 and left her body in a steamer trunk under the back porch of a California hotel.
Though their crimes did not gain them the same notoriety as Al Capone or John Dillinger, the three are among the criminal elite for another reason: They are original members of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary Tuesday, the list has been a significant law enforcement tool with an astounding success rate: Of the 458 fugitives listed, 429 have been apprehended or located.
The key has been the basis of its founding: a partnership between the agency, the media and the public. That trio has been so effective, FBI agents said, that being on the list may be something to brag about in jail, but it is not something a criminal wants when on the run.
“They can’t be terribly happy about it when they see their names on the list, because we are going to put some effort on it,” said Jim Davis, unit chief of the FBI’s national press office. “It’s like going on `America’s Most Wanted.’ That’s a bad thing for a fugitive.”
So it seemed for Rudolph Alonza Turner, who was on the list for almost nine months. When he was captured in 1974 in Jacksonville, Fla., he told the FBI agents, “I knew you’d get me sooner or later.”
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The list began with a simple request made by James F. Donovan, a United Press International reporter who approached the FBI with an idea: How about a story on the “toughest guys” the agency wanted to capture?
Hoping the publicity would lead to arrests, the FBI complied. On Feb. 7, 1949, “FBI’s Most-Wanted Fugitives Named” ran in the Washington Daily News. It generated so much publicity and played such a significant role in the capture of some of the men, that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover decided to go one step further. On March 14, 1950 he created the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program.
The idea behind it was simple. List fugitives who are particularly dangerous menaces to society and/or have a lengthy record of committing serious crimes. Then use nationwide publicity to help catch them.
The list is supposed to be limited to 10 criminals but has included more at various times, including a record 16 in 1970. The additions are made in special circumstances like the 1997 search for Andrew Cunanan, who killed fashion designer Gianni Versace and others. He was listed for about six weeks before he was found dead in a Miami boathouse.
While the list initially included bank robbers, car thieves and murders, its membership has changed over the years to reflect society. In the 1960s, when political protests were the norm, it included people charged with sabotage, kidnapping or destruction of government property. In the 1970s, many of the fugitives were wanted for organized crime or terrorism. Today, the list includes international terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, serial killers and drug traffickers.
The method of publicizing the list has also changed, whether it’s via television or the FBI’s Web site, www.fbi.gov.
“In the old days they used the wanted posters in the post office,” said John Walsh, host of the television show “America’s Most Wanted,” which has helped catch 13 top ten fugitives. “We are the electronic wanted poster.”
Most of the fugitives are not household names, but the list has its share of celebrities. Serial killer Theodore Bundy was put on the list in February 1978 after escaping from a Colorado jail. He was captured five days later in Florida.
James Earl Ray earned the distinction of being on the list twice. The first time was in 1968 when he was wanted for assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. The second time lasted two days when he escaped from a state prison in Tennessee in 1977.
While the average stint on the list is 316 days, Ray’s second appearance wasn’t the shortest. Billie Austin Bryant set that record on Jan. 8, 1969, when he made the list after fatally shooting two FBI agents investigating a Maryland bank robbery. He was caught two hours later hiding in the attic of a nearby home.
The longest fugitive on the list is a current member: Donald Eugene Webb, wanted for the 1980 murder of a Pennsylvania police chief.
Seven women have made the Top 10. The first was Ruth Eisemann Schier, who was wanted for kidnapping and extortion. She was put on in December 1968 and caught less than three months later.