By Louis Hansen
The Virginian-Pilot
CHESAPEAKE, Va. — A Circuit Court judge Thursday sentenced escaped convict Richard Boucher to five years in prison, ending a saga of silence and stealth that lasted nearly three decades.
Judge V. Thomas Forehand Jr. told Boucher that although public sympathy may be on his side, he was not.
“I don’t feel sorry for you, sir,” Forehead told him . “Not a bit.”
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy James requested a five-year sentence for the escape.
“He never did make the right decision,” she said. “Someone else had to turn him in.”
Boucher, 57, is being held at Nottoway Correctional Center.
According to state records, he is eligible for parole on his original charges in May. Forehand also suspended another five years for striking a prison guard during the escape.
His wife, Debbie Boucher, wept after the sentence was handed down.
“He won’t make it,” she said.
Thursday marked the end of the state’s long pursuit of Boucher.
In 1981, the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Boucher was sentenced to 10 years in prison for robbery and sent to Tidewater Correctional Unit No. 22 in the then-rural Greenbrier section of Chesapeake. Boucher and a fellow inmate found a way out .
Boucher testified Thursday that he escaped to be with his wife. The state had taken their two young children into foster care, he said, and he thought his wife would harm herself .
On Oct. 24, 1982, the men woke early for a shift in the prison kitchen, according to court records. The men asked a guard for an iron to press their clothes at 3:30 a.m. The inmates subdued the guard, took his keys and ran .
Debbie was waiting nearby in a car and the three drove south, sold the car and hiked even further south .
The Bouchers, calling themselves Eric and Diane Coleman, settled in northern Georgia and lived outside public scrutiny until May.
Acting on an anonymous tip, law enforcement officers raided the Boucher’s home in a mobile home park in Murray County, Ga.
Boucher confessed to his captors. Debbie Boucher pleaded guilty in a Georgia court to obstruction of law enforcement and was sentenced in September to one year probation and 40 hours of community service.
On Thursday, Debbie Boucher spoke for the first time publicly about their lives outside the law. When they first arrived in northern Georgia, she said, they lived in a lean-to in the woods for two months in the winter.
They did odd jobs, cleaning stables at a local ranch. Eventually, the community donated a trailer. Boucher said they lived on as little as $500 a year, supplemented by charity. “It was hard,” she said. “We didn’t have no choice.”
When asked for identification, the Bouchers told people their license and ID cards were stolen, she said. They kept out of trouble. Richard walked or rode a bicycle everywhere.
They had a daughter, Pam, and hid their secret from her.
Richard thought about turning himself in the last few years, she said. “I’m getting too old for this,” he told his wife.
Boucher took the witness stand Thursday and apologized. “I’m sorry I caused the trouble I have,” said Boucher, wearing prison blue jeans and a light blue shirt. “I hurt my family.”
Heather Crook, a public defender, said her client had been punished enough during his time on the run. He stayed out of trouble and lived in poverty.
Crook added, “He sentenced himself to ...”
“Freedom is what he sentenced himself to,” Forehand interrupted. “Freedom.”
Forehand noted that Boucher had been kicked out of the Marine Corps for going AWOL. He was also charged with drunken driving before he was arrested for robbery with several other men.
Forehand said Boucher would have to wait to reunite with the family “that you ignored for all those years.”
Debbie grabbed her sister and wept after the verdict.
She said she didn’t know if it all was worth it.
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