Fugitive from Georgia for 48 years dies at 71

Escapee became mechanic, lived in Connecticut.

HARTFORD, CONN. — Bob Stackowitz, who drove away from a Georgia prison camp 48 years ago and was living quietly as a boat mechanic in New England when he was finally captured in May, has died in Connecticut.

Stackowitz, 71, had suffered from bladder cancer, congestive heart failure, diabetes and other disorders. His attorney had fought Stackowitz’s extradition to Georgia, saying the trip alone would be fatal to his client.

The state of Connecticut had dropped efforts to send Stackowitz back to Georgia just six weeks ago, enabling him to live out his days at home.

“We weren’t kidding when we said sending him back to Georgia would kill him,” lawyer Norm Pattis told the Hartford Courant on Thursday. “Bob suffered multiple kidney failures and his overall health was failing badly.”

He died Monday after being taken to nearby Danbury Hospital during the weekend, the Courant said.

Stackowitz had been living as Bob Gordon in Sherman, Conn., for decades, but the fugitive apprehension unit at the Georgia Department of Corrections didn’t track him down until last spring.

Stackowitz told the AJC earlier this year that, as a prisoner, he was such a good mechanic that camp officials let him work on county school buses parked nearby. They even let him drive a camp truck to and from the bus yard. So one day he just kept going, driving to Atlanta’s airport and catching a flight back home to Connecticut. He had been at large ever since.

His arrest was an unpleasant shock for many in Sherman, a small city with a big lake, because “Bob Gordon” was known as a skilled, reliable mechanic and a good neighbor who often helped people out.

“He’s a nice guy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Bill Schaniel, the meat manager at the Sherman IGA grocery, told the AJC in May.

“One time he drove by some town workers out in the heat, and he offered to bring them back some water. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

Stackowitz said he had been unwell for some time and went downhill in a hurry after Connecticut authorities arrested him.

He said he couldn’t understand why Georgia would want to extradite him.

“Why they would ever want me back, I can’t understand,” he said. “I’m a medical nightmare.”

Georgia authorities reached the same conclusion and ultimately worked out a deal with Connecticut that would enable Stackowitz to stay in Sherman under state supervision.

CHRISTOPHER CAPOZZIELLO / THE NEW YORK TIMES Robert Stackowitz, 71, who fled from a Georgia prison work camp nearly 50 years ago while serving a sentence for forcible robbery, was discovered living under an alias in Connecticut.