Life on Lam ‘Like a Little Ghost on Your Shoulder,’ Ex-Fugitive Says

It’s been 16 years since he broke out, but convicted rapist Roy Wayne Bevan, the longest-sought fugitive from a Texas prison, still remembers the euphoria--and the panic.

“It’s like running in the blind,” Bevan said in a recent interview. “You don’t know really what’s out there. You’re just running and hoping for the best.”

Bevan’s capture in 1995 after 10 years reinforced Texas’ reputation as a state that keeps its 150,000-plus inmates locked up and hunts down those who flee.

Until Dec. 13, when seven prisoners stormed out of the Connally Unit in South Texas, 2000 was shaping up as a single-digit year for escapes, with just nine. Those seven joined only one other fugitive currently on the Texas books, an inmate under surveillance in Mexico.

The seven, believed responsible for the Christmas Eve killing of a police officer in the Dallas area, have a $200,000 bounty on their heads and are the subjects of a nationwide search.

Bevan was careful to distinguish himself from the recent escapees.

“I don’t like the violence,” he said. “That wasn’t my thing. I was trying to get away and trying to start over.”

Bevan slipped out of the Coffield Unit, near Palestine in East Texas, on Feb. 15, 1985.

In his decade on the loose, the former oil field worker learned the importance of remaining disciplined. He never called relatives, for example, figuring authorities would be monitoring the phone lines.

“My mother was living at the time. She died when I was on the run. I didn’t even know about that until I was locked back up,” he said.

Once outside the prison, Bevan, now 44, carefully sought work.

He’d go to a service station and offer to work for half-price for a day for cash. He went to a big city--a learning experience for a country guy. He bought a phony ID card on the street. He grew a beard. He let his hair grow.

“Every day you gain confidence,” he said.

But even after maintaining the charade for years, knowing that someone was always hunting for him was “like a little ghost on your shoulder,” he said.

Meanwhile, prison system investigators were connecting with an established intelligence network--state fugitive task forces--and local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. That’s what finally tripped up Bevan, who was calling himself “Jesse D. Waight.”

After “Waight” was convicted in Minnesota of sexually assaulting a child, an FBI investigator matched his fingerprints to those of the man missing from the Texas prison.

On Sept. 29, 1995, at a home in Osseo, Minn., Bevan was captured. He wasn’t entirely surprised.

“I knew I would be eventually,” he said. “One morning I went out and everybody had surrounded the house. I knew the time was up.”