A Town in Terror Part III: Accused murderer Jerry McFadden takes hostage, escapes jail and sparks Texas-sized manhunt
Published 1:07 pm Friday, April 29, 2016
- (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a five-day series recalling paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden’s murderous 1986 crime spree that terrorized a region and influenced the way Texas deals with prison overcrowding.
GILMER – Paroled serial rapist Jerry Walter McFadden, 38, had less than a seventh grade education, but he was wise to the preferred ways of the modern world.
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He had issues with rules and authority and even some women, which made him a dangerous man when he became agitated, authorities said.
So when he landed in the Upshur County Jail in May 1986 on a capital murder charge related to the death of one of three young people kidnapped from Lake Hawkins, he decided to start off playing nice.
The scruffy, wild-haired convict with satanic tattoos followed the rules, avoided conflicts and held his cool, at least for a while.
He was processed into the 18-person facility without issue, offering no resistance to fingerprinting, photographing and probing.
But the jail’s staff, which was responsible for accepting all in-county inmates, wasn’t fooled.
“The crime he was accused of in the community, there was a lot of talk about it,” said former dispatcher and detention officer Rosalie Williams Turner, 54, whose life changed forever after meeting him. “I can remember the officer bringing him in. Everyone was on alert.”
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The staff knew McFadden was the primary suspect behind the rape and strangulation of Suzanne Harrison, 18. He was likely responsible for shooting deaths of her friends, Gena Turner, 20 and Bryan Boone, 19, as well as an unrelated armed robbery in Wood County
The trio disappeared from Lake Hawkins on May 4, 1986 and were never seen alive again.
At first, things rocked along without incident, said Mrs. Williams Turner, then 24 and married at the time to a trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“McFadden was very cooperative, he wasn’t belligerent, he didn’t speak until spoken to,” she said during a recent interview at her Texarkana home.
The staff was relieved over his submissiveness, but everyone knew not to trust him, she said.
WATCHING, WAITING
Prisoners in those days were housed on the fifth floor of the Upshur County Courthouse, giving inmates a bird’s eye view of Gilmer’s town square below and local activities.
The district attorney and his staff offices were in the basement.
The town has a different jail today, located not far from the original.
During his stay, McFadden spent hours peering out the window of his isolation cell, watching the street life below.
Mrs. Williams Turner didn’t think much of the prisoner’s vantage point until the day he mentioned his favorite pastime: snooping.
“He told me he had been observing my daily routine, even to the point of knowing my work schedule, my vehicle, my parking lot,” she said. “It was like he was targeting me.”
She couldn’t figure out why he would single her out.
She treated him like all the other inmates, professionally and with dignity, and never bullied, taunted or humiliated him.
The treatment seemed to mirror the lessons taught by her southern Christian parents, and that is to treat everyone the way you would want to be treated.
McFadden seemed to take note of the courtesy.
It was a miserably hot July 9, 1986 when McFadden decided he’d had enough Upshur County hospitality.
He asked to use the phone, but was told to wait. As the hours ticked by, the inmate’s patience ran thin as anger began to build and he started plotting his escape.
Mrs. Williams Turner was unaware of the situation when she arrived for her afternoon shift.
Her day started like any other.
She woke up early and took care of a few chores before getting 5-year-old “Ray-Ray” ready for the day.
The busy mother reported for work, started on her rounds and noticed a sullen McFadden sitting in his cell, still waiting to use the phone.
“There was no one available to let him make a phone call at that point and McFadden was very agitated,” she said. “He had been waiting all day. I called the sergeant on duty and he came up to the jail.”
She handed the officer the key and began tending to a few things in her workstation while he went down the hall to retrieve McFadden.
He opened the cell door and let the inmate out.
As she watched the two men approach, she sensed something peculiar.
“I noticed the officer was walking in front of McFadden,” she said. “At that point, I knew something wasn’t right … we’d been taught not to walk in front of inmates.”
And suddenly, it was if the next few moments passed in slow motion.
“I saw McFadden raise up his right arm,” she said. “He had a metal object and he started hitting the officer on the head.”
The bloodied officer went down, slumping against the glass-walled workstation.
A female co-worker started screaming and shouting, but Mrs. Williams Turner just stood terrified and motionless, looking up at the large agitated man facing her.
McFadden was furious.
And in another instant, he had the key to the jail cell.
The prisoner ordered the women to drag the injured officer to his empty cell where everyone, but Mrs. Williams Turner was ordered to remain inside.
“McFadden had me lock the door,” Mrs. Williams Turner said. “He said, ‘No Rosie, not you. You come out here with me. I need you.'”
She begged him to let her care for the injured officer, but the inmate grabbed her arm and started pulling her toward a storage area to look for a change of clothes.
Finding nothing large enough to fit or a suitable pair of shoes, Mrs. Williams Turner said he started pulling her toward the exit door.
That’s when he noted the unsecured gun box containing the injured officer’s weapon, she said.
Officers were prohibited from carrying weapons into the jail, lest they land in the wrong hands, she said.
But that’s exactly what happened on that hot July day.
Now armed with a cop’s gun, McFadden jabbed it into her ribs and ordered her to walk – slowly and casually – toward her usual parking space and open the door of her Datsun 280-Z.
It was a routine she followed at the end of her shift, only this time she didn’t leave alone.
ON THE RUN
McFadden’s getaway plan developed a glitch before he could get out of the parking lot.
“He didn’t realize it was a standard,” Mrs. Williams Turner said. “It started jerking … he got angry and frustrated. He kept asking, what’s wrong with your vehicle?'”
McFadden pulled her over onto his lap and instructed her to maneuver the two-seater out of the parking space.
“I put the car in motion and he pushed me back on the passenger side,” she said. “Then he just started driving, driving real fast. He kept saying, ‘They are trying to give me the needle for something I didn’t do … I didn’t commit those crimes they are accusing me of.'”
Mrs. Williams Turner knew of his anger issues and tried to calm him.
“I told him this was not going to make it better … he still had a chance to tell his story,” she said. “He was driving so fast, while he was driving, we could hear helicopters. He kept saying, ‘They are looking for us.'”
The distractions eventually caught up with him.
McFadden lost control of the car and drove off the roadway, straight into some trees.
Undaunted, he grabbed the dazed detention officer and started dragging her toward the woods.
They ran through briars, brush, water and wherever the barefooted and panic-stricken McFadden chose to go.
“I can remember just running, running, running,” she said. “I was so tired. All I could think about was my family, my son. At that moment, I realized my life was really in his hands and he felt that he didn’t have anything to lose. I became very frightened.”
They could still hear helicopters, and Mrs. Williams Turner was relieved to know the authorities were still hot on the trail.
She prayed and started feeling, perhaps, death would not come for her that day.
“They weren’t giving up, I wasn’t giving up,” she said. “There was a point I felt a sense of peace.”
The pair made it to a railroad track in the neighboring town of Big Sandy, and McFadden urged his hostage to jump aboard a passing train. She refused.
He picked an idle boxcar instead and they climbed inside to hide, unaware a storm of law enforcement was starting to build on the horizon.
WAITING, WATCHING
Retired Big Sandy Police Chief Richard Lingle, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, was in his early 30s when McFadden made his escape.
The lawman typically dealt with thefts, assaults and drunks, but nothing as dramatic as an armed and desperate murder suspect on the run.
When word emerged McFadden grabbed a lawman’s wife to use as a shield while he broke out of the jail in Gilmer, the young chief’s instincts led him to believe the fugitive might head his way.
McFadden was familiar with Big Sandy.
The suspect’s mother and sister worked at a local gasoline filling station, and the escapee, himself, had also lived there at one time, the chief said.
And the wrecked getaway car found not far out of town only seemed to confirm his theory.
The chief shared his suspicions with Upshur County officials and then went about the business of protecting his town.
“I didn’t really know him,” Lingle said during a recent interview. “But I knew what he was … he was a serial rapist. People were scared to death. They already knew what he had done.”
The department wasn’t large, only a handful of officers.
Former Big Sandy Police Sgt. Charles Michael McDonald said everyone seemed to act on instinct.
“They notified us to be on the lookout,” he said. “We got the town shut down pretty quickly.”
For a while, Big Sandy officers seemed to be the only thing standing in the way of McFadden and an unsuspecting pubic.
No one realized he was already in Big Sandy and hiding in their midst.
A DARING ESCAPE
McFadden and his frightened captive were just a stone’s throw from downtown, still hiding in the sweltering boxcar.
“I’d dozed off,” Mrs. Williams Turner said. “When I woke up screaming, he said, ‘Calm down, Rosie … Rosie, calm down.’ I said, ‘I can’t see… Please, please, Jerry, I need water. Can you please go get us some water?'”
Surprisingly, he agreed.
It was before 10 p.m., July 10, and the area surrounding the boxcar was still and quiet. There was little lighting, and McFadden assumed he could sneak around undetected.
“He jumped off the boxcar and I could hear him walking outside,” she said. “I tried to stand, but my legs were numb.”
Once outside, however, a neighborhood dog spotted McFadden and attacked.
“I could see the dog jumping on McFadden,” she said. “He had a stick and he was trying to fight him off.”
She said she began praying aloud, asking God to help her, and immediately felt a surge of determination.
If she intended to escape, this was the time. Legs quaking, she stood up and headed toward the doorway.
“I started running for my life,” she said. “I could hear the dog barking and McFadden hollering, trying to get the dog off him.”
She jumped out of the train car, stumbled to a nearby house and started frantically knocking on the door. Receiving no response, she turned the knob and dashed into inside, right into a family’s living room.
A surprised young boy watching television summoned his parents, telling them the kidnapped woman who was on the screen was in their house.
The entire family came running.
“They both hugged me and were embracing me,” she said. “The father picked me up and laid me on the couch and gave me a drink of water … I was hysterical.”
They had no phone. While the father stood guard, the boy went to summon the police.
Lingle, the young police chief, was the first to reach her.
He was greeted with a tearful embrace and words of gratitude for continuing the search.
“We had thought she was probably dead,” Lingle said. “She was shivering and tired. We told her, ‘We love you and we wanted you back.'”
The lawman asked where McFadden was last seen and she pointed to the railroad tracks, located a short distance from where they were standing.
The chief started leading her toward the patrol car.
“I set her in the front seat of my car,” Lingle said. “She asked, ‘Can I talk on the radio?'”
Mrs. Williams’ broadcast was short and simple: “This is Rosalie, and I’m okay.”
Meanwhile, Lt. James Graham, who had a frightened wife and young children waiting at home a few blocks over, was focused on finding McFadden.
He looked in the direction where the frightened woman pointed and saw nothing but darkness.
“That particular residence has an alleyway running beside it,” he said. “It was pitch black … you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.”
He started running toward the railroad tracks, unsure whether he would make it.
McFadden was hiding somewhere out there, armed and desperate.
“I had so much adrenalin going,” he said. “All three of the victims were friends of mine from school. I just reached down inside of myself and remembered what I was supposed to do. It was very traumatic … I just kept wondering, ‘Is this when I’m going to buy it?'”
He reached the rail car without incident, but McFadden, his feet bloodied from briars, was already on the move.
MANHUNT
Lingle summoned help and the response was seemingly immediate and without end.
Hundreds of officers representing dozens of agencies swarmed the city over the next few hours to help: Texas Department of Public Safety, FBI, Texas Rangers, Texas Department of Corrections, as well as officers from more than 50 police, sheriff, state and federal agencies, records show.
There are no exact figures, but law enforcement was believed to be about 1,210, authorities said, making it one of the largest manhunts in Texas history.
Every road going into and out of Big Sandy was blocked.
There were horses, tracking dogs, officers, patrol vehicles and helicopters.
Each vehicle attempting to enter the city was stopped and searched, even those belonging to law enforcement.
Officers were positioned up and down every road, cars turned outward, waiting and watching for McFadden.
“It was a sight to see, if you were a policeman,” McDonald said. “It was the biggest deal in my whole life to see everyone together as a brotherhood, to help capture this escaped murderer. They all came to help, and they did what they were asked to do.”
The escapee had somewhat of an advantage. He knew the area and places to hide, whereas many officers in the search teams did not.
Still, McFadden was on foot and weak from lack of food and water.
Big Sandy businessman Ellis Stewart was among the locals who got caught up in the drama.
He owned a print shop downtown, just a stone’s throw from where McFadden had been keeping his hostage.
“I’d gone to a chamber meeting that night,” Stewart said. “We knew McFadden had gotten out of jail with Rosalie and we’d heard they were looking for him around the Mineola area. We didn’t think much about it.”
Stewart said he decided to run to his shop to take care of a few items before it got late, but more than a day would pass before he could make it back.
“I was down there working and all of the sudden they said we don’t want anyone crossing the street,” he said.
McFadden was hiding somewhere nearby and residents were asked to secure their homes and remain indoors, lest they be caught up in the manhunt.
Outside, hundreds of law officers were patrolling the streets of Big Sandy looking for any sign of the escaped inmate.
Helicopters buzzed overhead.
Vehicles and even passing trains were halted and searched so ensure McFadden wasn’t stashed inside.
The escapee was out there, somewhere, armed and desperate.
It was if the town Stewart loved was closed until further notice.
He remembers the fear of realizing it was too dangerous to go home.
“I stayed there all night,” he said. “My wife was worried.”
Stewart said his printing shop turned into a makeshift call center after the news media and some officers asked to borrow the phone.
CLOSING IN
Authorities, now certain McFadden was loose in Big Sandy, stepped up the search.
A nearby school was loaned to the efforts, giving officers access to increased privacy, elbow room and communication abilities.
Freshly printed maps Lingle created a few weeks earlier were quickly distributed, helping authorities from other areas quickly acclimate to the town.
Working alongside then Upshur County Sheriff Dale Jewkes, the chief urged caution.
“I told everyone, we’ve got to do this right,” he said. “We don’t want him to get out of Big Sandy.”
Officers were asked to go door to door and enter any structure that appeared empty.
No one realized McFadden was watching the activities from his new hiding spot: a vacant home just a stone’s throw from the staging area.
He was inside, lurking in the shadows, observing their every move from the window, just like he did in the jail when he watched Mrs. Williams Turner show up and leave work.
As the hours ticked by, authorities decided to try out a new strategy.
Lingle told several teams of officers to pull back and recheck certain areas in the north part of town.
McFadden at some point started to relax.
He also started shaving off portions of his beard to try and disguise his appearance.
But the manhunt was far from over.
Officers began to quietly double back and take another look around.
A tactical team from Collin County noticed movement in a window of a vacant home; it was the shadowy figure of someone moving around.
With guns drawn, officers confronted the figure, a scruffy wild-haired man with a gun and a razor who offered to surrender.
“Here’s the gun … it’s me,” the surprised man said, holding up his hands.
“Who?”
“McFadden,” he said.
The fugitive was dirty and covered in bloody cuts from thorny briars.
He was still in the shorts he was wearing during the jailbreak.
Authorities searched him for weapons and then loaded him into a patrol car.
A CROWD WAITS
Graham was asked to help other officers get McFadden back to Upshur County Jail and see that no harm came to him.
McFadden sat in silence, never saying a word.
By the time they reached Gilmer, word of his capture had spread.
“It was dark, but we saw the crowd around the courthouse,” Graham said. “We had to usher him up, we were all crowded against him to protect him and get him inside. It was so ironic. Suzanne was my neighbor. We’d sit on the front stoop and visit. She had a beautiful smile and a beautiful heart … but as an officer, it was my job to protect him.”
They chose a rear entrance to avoid potential problems.
Assistant District Attorney Tim Cone was working late that night in his basement office.
He had gone down the hall to grab a soda when officers ushered an exhausted and bloodied McFadden inside.
“It was almost like a movie set,” Cone said during a recent interview. “The mood was more like interest as opposed to a lynch mob. He was slap wore out, hungry, thirsty, physically exhausted. He was pretty submissive.”
The transfer into the jail was carried out without incident.
And by about 11 p.m., on July 11, more than 52 hours after the jailbreak, McFadden was back in the same jail he had left.
Stewart, who watched the drama unfold him from his print shop, said he has yet to come to terms with the crime spree that touched so many lives.
“This thing really bothered me when the kids were missing,” he said. “I ran 5,000 reward posters. I was pretty involved in it … I just kept thinking, ‘How could anyone kill young people like that?'”
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