The Extraordinary Fugitive: Incredible Life and Escape of George Edward Wright
By Admin
In 1962, a 19-year-old named George Edward Wright was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the fatal shooting of a gas station owner during a robbery in New Jersey. But Wright was never meant for confinement. Eight years into his sentence, in 1970, he carried out a bold and meticulously planned escape from New Jersey State Prison—vanishing into thin air and leaving authorities baffled.
For two years, Wright disappeared completely. Then, in September 1972, his name resurfaced in one of the most shocking crimes of the decade. Alongside four members of the Black Liberation Army, he hijacked a Delta Airlines DC-8 with 86 passengers on board. The group demanded a $1 million ransom—but with a bizarre twist: the FBI agent delivering the money had to wear only a swimsuit, to prove he wasn’t armed. Under the tense standoff, the demand was met, and the hijackers disappeared once again.
This time into international headlines. For the following years, Wright’s accomplices were captured one by one. Yet he remained a ghost, crossing borders and identities. Living under a false name, he eventually settled in Portugal, where he married and built a quiet life in the Algarve countryside. For nearly four decades, the world forgot his face.
Then, in 2011, the past caught up to him. The FBI, after forty years of pursuit, finally found their fugitive. But in a twist of fate Portugal refused to extradite him, citing his citizenship and legal rights. George Edward Wright—once a young killer, then a revolutionary hijacker, and finally an aging man in exile—remained free and never prosecuted.
His story stands as one of the longest and most remarkable fugitive tales in American history, a strange collision of crime, politics, and the relentless passage of time.
Source: ARCON Fellows WhatsApp Group
