Public notice key to Most Wanted list
 
By Lee Benson
Deseret Morning News
 
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh liked to tell the story about talking to a class of grade-schoolers, including his own son, when the question came up about catching the people on the Bureau's Ten Most Wanted list.

Freeh explained the various techniques used to go after America's toughest criminals, including the publicity generated from having their pictures in post offices and other public buildings throughout the country, when one of the kids raised his hand with a question.

Why don't you just grab them when you take their picture, the kid wanted to know.

Grabbing bad guys is never quite that easy, of course, but the fact is, having your face on the Ten Most Wanted list seriously reduces your chances of a prolonged care-free life on the lam.

According to Patrick Kiernan, a supervisory special agent in the Salt Lake FBI office:
  • On average, the length of time spent on the TMW list is 331 days and the chances of being caught are 94 percent.

  • Of the 482 people who have made the list since it began in 1950, 452 have been apprehended. Not counting the 10 men currently on the list, that means only 20 people in 56 years have failed to be apprehended.

  • Of those 452 who have been brought into custody, 148 of them — 33 percent — have been caught due to some kind of public assistance.
All this talk came up because of the recent appearance on the TMW list of Utah native Warren Jeffs, the FLDS Church leader accused of arranging marriages between underage girls and older men and who is also charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

On May 6, 2006, Jeffs was the 482nd name added to the list. That was 63 days ago, meaning if he's an average fugitive he's got 268 days to go before he's caught.

"I would hope it is before average," said Kiernan. "I have said this and my boss has said this and the director of the FBI (Robert Mueller) has said this: he is going to get caught; it's only a matter of time. The best thing for him to do is turn himself in and face the charges."

Special agent Kiernan pointed out — just as Louis Freeh did to the aforementioned school kids — that one of the biggest strengths of the Ten Most Wanted list is public awareness. "One of the reasons (for the list) is the amount of national publicity," he said. "The more attention, the more people you've got looking."

Ten Most Wanted lore is full of stories of people who get caught even when they wear elaborate disguises or run far away.

There was a man named Leslie Ashley, a convicted murderer, who joined the carnival and worked as Bobo the Clown. He was arrested after another carnival worker, who knew what Ashley looked like when he wasn't Bobo the Clown, saw a wanted poster and called the police.

Another man, also named Leslie — Leslie Isben Rogge, who escaped from federal custody in Idaho after being charged with bank robbery — was arrested in his native Guatemala after a local citizen saw Rogge's face on the FBI's Web site and alerted the U.S. Embassy.

At which point the FBI moved in and grabbed him — and then they took his picture again.

Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Friday, July 7, 2006
 
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