Case of prison escapee mulled
Ariz. man thought he was in the clear but is in jail anyway
PHOENIX — More than two months after an Arizona man was arrested on a fugitive warrant stemming from his escape from an Iowa prison 37 years ago, officials there have yet to decide whether to extradite or release him.
For over a decade, Charles Cagley thought he was no longer a wanted man based on a private investigator’s research in 2005 and on an Iowa prison warden’s letter to Veterans Affairs a year later, said his wife, Virginia Cagley.
All that came unglued March 27 when police, notified by the FBI that Iowa had a newly outstanding warrant for him, showed up at the couple’s home in Prescott Valley, 82 miles north of Phoenix. The Cagleys had lived in the area since 2004.
Since Charles Cagley’s arrest, Iowa authorities have been trying to decide where things stand legally and what they will do next. Meanwhile, he’s been locked up at the Yavapai County Jail in Camp Verde, 23 miles from the couple’s home.
“He does a lot of reading. He’s read a lot of books and he constructed a backgammon game out of cardboard and sugar containers,” Virginia Cagley told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Thursday. “He and his cellmates play.”
The wife, who frequently speaks to her jailed husband by phone, said his frame of mind is “up and down, nervous and not nervous.”
Iowa Department of Corrections spokesman Cord Overton said Friday the department has been working with an assistant attorney general and Gov. Kim Reynolds’ staff “to take the proper legal course of action in regards to this case.”
“As it is obviously a rather unusual case, it is our duty to ensure that the action taken is that which is most appropriate in accordance with the law,” Overton said in an email.
Overton said Iowa officials believe that a 90-day limit on his detention in Arizona expires June 26.
Finding paper records from decades ago is one reason resolution of the case has been difficult, Overton said.
Overton previously told the AP that the 2018 warrant that resulted in Charles Cagley’s March arrest was issued after state officials reviewed old records and found that the escape case appeared unresolved.