Database Finds Fugitive After 35 Years

Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian has a story on a woman who was claims she is innocent and was apprehended 35 years after escaping prison by a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security. Linda Darby was convicted of killing her husband in 1970 and sentenced to life at an Indiana prison but escaped two years later by climbing over a barbed-wire fence at the Indiana Women's Prison. She knocked on a stranger's door in Indianapolis, telling the woman who answered that her cuts and scratches were from a fight with her boyfriend. In Indianapolis she met the man who would become her third husband and moved to his hometown of Pulaski, where they raised their two children and watched eight grandchildren grow up. As Linda Jo McElroy, she used a similar date of birth and social security number to her real ones which allowed a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security to identify her. Darby says she is innocent and fled prison because she did not want to serve time for another person's crime."

Firt post!!

[Anonymous Coward]

At last ... firt post for thr first time in my life!

Our government finally does something right

[Wonko the Sane]

The country is now safe from terrorist grandmothers!

Re:matching ids

[edittard]

Don't be harsh - have you never written a query in such a way that it didn't use the indexes correctly?

P.S. Why is /. using the wheelbarrow symbol for database?

Give her a break!

[Funkcikle]

The authorities should focus on finding the one-armed man.

Re:Firt post!!

[ScrewMaster]

We'll let you have it this time, but in the future please remember that you must claim "frist psot" if you want to be properly recognized for your achievement.

Yesss! Guess my PDP-11 batch job finally finished!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering how it was going...

Re:Wrong Message

[ari wins]

Hey c'mon, you have to admit that with the present overcrowding at most prisons, someone with her skills is needed. Not everyone is good with a mop, you know. Plus, someone really should sit with the new perp's after their first night of gang sodomization.

Re:Firt post!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, since you are this lucky why not go out and try to earn yourself a Darwin Award, I'm sure you will win one for sure.

Re:Wrong Message

[Paradise Pete]

we convict people who MURDER their spouses

The sad part is that If she hadn't done it in all caps she might have gotten away with it.

Re:Of course...

[Elemenope]

When asked, the defendant proffered his reasoning: "He just needed killin'." There was a murmur of agreement in the court, and the judge nodded approvingly. The DA, desperately trying to remain expressionless, braced himself and stood up; this was going to be a toughie.

Foreign Reporting Desk?

[donak]

I don't understand how it is that we get a story like this, set in Middle America ... reported by an English newspaper. Isn't there something just a little suspicious there? Or is it just too small a story for the USA papers to bother with? Or is Dept. of Homeland Security controlling the US press ... back in a minute, there's a knock at the doo .......