‘Fugitive Mom’ to stand trial on Mich. prison escape charge
By Tammy Stables Battaglia
The Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — Another woman who escaped from the Detroit House of Corrections in Plymouth in the 1970s is behind bars.
Barbara Corley, 59, of Piedmont, S.C., agreed Saturday to be extradited to Michigan, where she had been serving time for assault. She climbed a 6-foot fence in 1973 after being convicted of assault with intent to rob while armed, carrying a concealed weapon, passing a bad check and another jailbreak, according to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office.
The Free Press reported in 1971 that Corley’s brother shot and killed a person he was robbing, and Corley lured the victim to the crime.
Corley was surprised when U.S. marshals showed up at her new, $417,000 home at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, according to neighbors. She and her husband, a construction engineer, moved to a gated community outside of Greenville, S.C., about a month ago.
“They are good people, always have been good people,” said Charles Messer, who lived next door to Corley and her husband for 17 years in their last Piedmont neighborhood.
Corley’s husband of more than 30 years told friends that she came to Michigan in the 1980s to resolve her criminal issues.
“She went up there to correct that, whatever was wrong, and thought it was corrected,” said Messer. “But they think they’re going to be able to work this thing out.”
Corley is the third 1970s escapee from the Detroit House of Corrections, now the Robert Scott Correctional Facility, to be hauled back to Michigan in the past few months.
On Aug. 1, Wayne County Sheriff’s Office investigators discovered Rebecca Hatcher living just outside Memphis, Tenn. She had escaped in 1975 while serving a 1- to 15-year sentence for unarmed assault with intent to rob in Wayne County, police said.
In May, police brought suburban San Diego housewife Susan LeFevre, 53, back to Michigan to finish serving a 10- to 20-year prison sentence for a 1975 conviction on drug charges. LeFevre escaped from jail after twice selling heroin to undercover officers.
LeFevre also faces an additional 5 years in prison if convicted of escape charges. But hundreds of Michigan residents have asked Gov. Jennifer Granholm to pardon LeFevre, whose husband and children didn’t know of her criminal past.
Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said Monday that the state has 110 escapees and 50,057 prisoners.
A vast majority broke out in the 1970s, in the era of 6-foot fences and when work-release programs allowed more prisoners easier access to the outside world, he said. That changed in 1998, when the Michigan Legislature passed a law that requires prisoners to serve at least the minimum term of their sentences in a secure setting, Marlan said.
Copyright 2008 The Detroit Free Press