Man Who Escaped San Quentin Prison in ’79 Is Captured in Florida
A 78-year-old man who escaped from San Quentin prison in a makeshift kayak 20 years ago was arrested in Florida on bank robbery charges.
Forrest Silva Tucker, whose criminal record stretches back to the 1930s, was captured last week in a school parking lot near Pompano Beach. He was jailed without bail in connection with a local bank holdup.
In 1979, Tucker and two other inmates at San Quentin built a crude boat and set out from the beach. The flimsy vessel, assembled from plastic sheets, wood, duct tape and Formica, held together long enough for them to paddle several hundred yards to freedom.
Tucker had been serving time at San Quentin for a string of bank robberies in the 1950s.
He was arrested in Boston a few years after his escape, but somehow authorities didn’t realize that he still had time to serve in California, and he was freed. Over the next few years, Massachusetts officials said, Tucker joined the Over-the-Hill Gang, a group of elderly thieves who robbed supermarkets in the Boston area.
Tucker was visiting a girlfriend in Florida last week when authorities caught up with him. He tried to get away but crashed his vehicle into a palm tree, authorities said.
Inside the car, investigators found burglary tools, weapons, police scanners and a large amount of cash.
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