1970 state fugitive dies near Detroit

DETROIT — A convicted killer from Arkansas who went to Michigan on a five-day furlough in 1970 but never returned to prison has died in suburban Detroit.

Lester Stiggers, 68, died Saturday at his apartment in Warren, daughter L’Donne Hampton said.

Stiggers was a teenager when he was convicted of shooting his father, J.A. Stiggers, a 44-year-old city employee, in the stomach with a shotgun in the kitchen of the family’s Little Rock home on Jan. 4, 1965. He said his father regularly abused him and his mother.

Michigan became a sanctuary for Stiggers, who worked at a Chrysler factory and became a plumber, all while under the protection of the state’s governors for decades.

Despite serving a life sentence, Stiggers was given a few days of freedom in 1970 because of good behavior and decided to visit his mother in Michigan. He never returned to Arkansas because he feared he wouldn’t survive beatings by prison guards.

In 1971, Michigan Gov. William Milliken rejected Arkansas’ demand that Stiggers be turned over, citing, in part, “cruel and unusual treatment” of black men in Southern prisons.

Stiggers made headlines in 2013 when Arkansas took a fresh interest in getting him back, but Michigan’s current governor, Rick Snyder, noted Stiggers’ poor health and said it wasn’t the “highest priority.”

“I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do nothin’,” Stiggers told The Associated Press at the time.