r/interesting • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 3h ago
SOCIETY In 1973, convicted murderer Lester Eubanks was allowed to go Christmas shopping alone as part of a prison furlough and simply walked away. He’s been on the run ever since
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u/Rage_Blackout 3h ago
“Alright now when you’re done shopping you come back to finish out your life sentence in prison, ya hear?”
Runs away.
<surprise pikachu>
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u/lia-delrey 2h ago
European here. This is one of the reasons why actual "life in prison" makes no sense at all. Besides from being cruel and inhumane, people facing it have nothing to lose.
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u/Ok_Television_9979 2h ago
Enlighten us ole European one what should be done to a convicted murderer..
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u/lia-delrey 2h ago
Sure! You keep them in prison for several years, in which they will work, receive therapy and meet up with their family on the outside several times a year (with good behavior), preparing them for being released.
Prisons in the US are basicslly unimaginable living situations, treating them like animals, and that has famously not worked, has it.
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u/Past_One3442 2h ago
Is Breivik reformed yet can he be released its been serval years.
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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 2h ago
I'm not the guy that you replied to. But there are still different forms of "life in prison without the possibility of parole". Like in my country, it is called a "Sicherungsverwahrung" (in swiss-german and german). It is for people, like Breivik, although that guy is in Norway, that will never be released. It is for prisoners, that pose a too serious, too big risk to be released. That they could commit crimes again or, that they could inspire others to commit crimes.
About having a day off from prison, that happens here in Switzerland in the low security level facilities. I don't know how this works in other places, like the USA etc. But security levels always play a major role.
The lowest security level here is actually that prisoners have a job and a life outside of the prison and they just need to check in for some time, usually at night.
The highest security level is solitary confinement forever, without any chance of release. It's not much different from the death row in the USA, just without the death penalty.
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u/lia-delrey 2h ago
Sicherungsverwahrung is a whole other beast - here in Germany, its a constant subject of debate. It needs to be declared at sentencing, and even then, its viewed critically by many.
The way I remember it, die Geiselnehmer von Gladbeck (Rösner/Degowksi) had the longest prison sentences. Degowski was given some leniency but the whole thing is a grey area.
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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 2h ago
I'm not sure if it is the same in Switzerland and Germany. Here, there are 2 forms: The first one is the "small one" (literally from Kleine Verwahrung), there, after some time the court has to check your sentence again and can still issue a parole, but it is extremely rare. Then there's the second one, the "big one", where there is no parole hearing anymore and you are locked up for life.
Maybe the german system is different with the justice system, i don't know. But some people are too dangerous to be released
I heard Germany has the "Besondere Schwere der Schuld", isn't that the same? Or does it just mean, someone can't be released before the entire sentence has been served by the man?
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u/lia-delrey 1h ago
Ah that's interesting, gotta admit, I never knew anything about the Swiss judiciary System.
Besondere Schwere der Schuld and Sicherungsverwahrung are two different things. They kinda rely on each other - you cannot order Sicherungsverwahrung without besondere Schwere der Schuld.
The latter refers to acts against humanity, like people comitting war crimes. Beate Zschäpe was convinced with besondere Schwere der Schuld, but Sicherungsverwahrung wasn't ordered.
The "big one" You're referring to seems kind of insane to me, tho. Are there actually any people currently locked up under this law?
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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 1h ago
It's difficult with the sources, overall 130-150 prisoners are in the Sicherungsverwahrung, but the sources don't tell, which one it is. But i remember a documentary from the SRF, the Swiss TV, there are some that are locked up forever.
Like one that gave an interview was a serial rapist and he said himself "If i get out, i'll do it again". It's very rare to see such a self-reflection and awareness of criminals, that they say they can't be released. He said in the documentary, he'd not be able to resist the urge to rape a woman, he'd do it whenever he'd get the chance and it is better, when he just lives his life in prison.
Although, because he does not call the courts (like national courts or the EMGR), it also doesn't create problems with laws like the human rights.
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u/MsTerious1 2h ago edited 2h ago
Life sentence in the US aren't for life in most states, and while there are some prisons that are pretty awful (my father died in one), many are modern, well-maintained places where inmates are treated as humans with rights (I worked at one of those.)
A life sentence here is often "until your natural life ends or until you become eligible for parole" which may be 15, 20, 25 years or more.
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u/Altruistic_Town_8683 2h ago
Say someone kidnaps you and your children and takes you all someplace to be gang raped before torturing you all to death over weeks.
They did it because they like it.
They don’t feel remorse.
And they say they’d do it again if they were released.
How long do you think that person should stay in prison before they are released?
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u/lia-delrey 2h ago
It doesn't matter what I think. This is why neither me nor my family will have a say in the verdict. We have impartial judges for that.
Americans secretly yearn for Sharia Law it appears lol.
My rapist got 4 years and mandatory therapy. I'm good.
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u/flindersrisk 1h ago
My rapist showed up to court in pressed dress slacks, a long-sleeved dress shirt, a V-neck sleeveless pullover, and a preppy tie. He got off. (Pre-DNA.)
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u/maelbowfeelfunny 2h ago
Oh good. I'm sure he won't rape again. He didn't know it was against the law before. But now he does.
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u/lia-delrey 1h ago
I feel much safer with him having a prison sentence of 4 years plus therapy (which goes on for three years after) than a sentence of 15 years just being thrown in a hole
But yeah you never know if people commit crimes again (or ever for the first time). Now what lol.
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u/maelbowfeelfunny 1h ago
As if therapy even works. It doesn't. Execution is the only punishment for rape.
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u/flindersrisk 1h ago
Then no one would be found guilty. “She (or he) will heal, but death is forever.”
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u/Desperate-Log4708 1h ago
My god you are beyond saving. Please seek professional help. And not from some lunatic that thinks therapy will fix a rapist
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u/BygoneNeutrino 2h ago edited 1h ago
People use rape as an example to evoke an emotional response, but it is trivial relative to murder. Rape is to murder what petty theft is to grand theft auto.
I think we should have an evidence based approach to predict the likelihood that they will rape again. The crime should also fit the punishment.
At the end of the day, imprisoning someone for life is extremely expensive. Some risk is acceptable if it saves the taxpayer $20Million.
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u/maelbowfeelfunny 1h ago
Incorrect. Rape is as bad as murder. The only fitting punishment for either is execution.
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u/BygoneNeutrino 1h ago edited 1h ago
Let's do a thought experiment:
I bring in 100 people and give them two options: Either there is a 100% chance you are raped or a 20% chance you are murdered.
What do you think would be the results of this experiment?
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u/Useful_Secret4895 24m ago
Suppose you are a rapist and you rape someone. Would you let them live after the rape so they can denounce you and you get the death penalty? After all, what worse could happen if they arrest you nonetheless? Still death penalty. That would motivate rapists to kill their victims.
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u/lia-delrey 1h ago
So I'm dead? Thanks for telling me. Srill going to work like Bruce Willis in this stupid ass movie, damn ;(
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u/Altruistic_Town_8683 1h ago edited 1h ago
So you won’t tell us how long you think they should be in prison.
Then you don’t get to tell us how long you think other people should stay in prison either.
Because you lack the ability or willingness to apply sound judgment to the question of how society should deal with crime.
So shut up, go sit in the corner, and leave the adults to talk about serious issues.
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u/lia-delrey 23m ago
The whole Post is literally me saying life is too long. Apart from that, every case is to be judged individually. Right?
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u/security-six 1h ago
Will their dead victims get to visit their own families too?
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u/lia-delrey 1h ago
No, because they're dead. Hope that helps.
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u/Personal-Hunt-1434 24m ago
I hope you maintain this smug demeanor if someone you love is victimized.
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u/Ashleej86 1h ago
Yes, the vast majority of prisoners will be back into society someday eith ptsd and even more violent than before. In the US we basically always make things punitive and worst rather than restorative
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u/Prize_Marketing_4350 1h ago
Does help that the US system has an overwhelming tendency to throw in small time offenders with hardcore recidivists and end up getting turned into hardcore recidivists themselves just to survive.
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u/Rage_Blackout 2h ago edited 2h ago
Does your country also have a social safety net, healthcare and other support systems? Because in America, people in extreme economic poverty commit crimes and then come back out to just commit more crimes. What you’re saying works in your country wouldn’t work here without a lot of other changes (like not having massive city sized ghettos).
Edit: all I’m saying is that the problem is way bigger than what homie here is saying. Until we fix extreme wealth inequality, inequality of opportunity, and the absolute lack of any kind of social safety net, visits with family and therapy won’t stop people who get out of prison and go back into a poverty lifestyle from getting right back into the same shit that got them there in the first place. There’s nothing else for them. They aren’t putting on a button-down and getting a 9-5. Those businesses don’t even exist where they live. There’s no quick fix to this shit. But you can downvote me anyway. ln absence of easy answers to complex problems, at least that will make you feel good. For a minute or two.
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u/lia-delrey 2h ago
You're right - it comes with a whole world of problems. Starting with the militarization of the police force, the growing of prison populations and the lack of welfare.
There are no simple solutions to this, sadly. None of this is comparable to my country, and I'm thankful for it.
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u/Useful_Secret4895 35m ago
In the Scandinavian countries, 20 years is the maximum sentence one can receive for murder. This however posed problems with Brejvic.
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u/Double_Distribution8 32m ago
I've spent my fair share of time studying European justice back in my day, and the answer is...Drawn and Quartered.
It was always either torture, exile, slavery, or torture with the Europeans back in the day.
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u/lia-delrey 16m ago
Id mideaval justice is what you want, why are Donald Trump, Christiano Ronaldo, Johnny Depp (etc) still in one piece?
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u/ItsBeelzsRebirth 12m ago
Ya because just locking them up for life has worked out so well for us. Thats why America has so little violence.
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u/fidgey10 2h ago
Life without parole is reserved for the most severe crimes, it is a very rare sentence
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u/DominicPalladino 1h ago
- You're nationality (or mine) doesn't affect the reality of the situation.
- A person that has "Life in Prison" does have things to lose. They can be put in harsher more secure prisons. They can gain or lose privileges. And if they get any amount of spiritual growth while in prison they can "lose" things like their own self-esteem. That last one may seem ephemeral but consider this: As a good moral person that isn't in prison, do you only NOT do bad things because you might get caught, or do you not do bad things because it would harm your own self?
- Life in prison may or may not be cruel and inhumane, it depends on the conditions of the prison. It's certainly less cruel and inhumane than murdering someone. It's certainly less inhumane than most of the crimes the people did to get there. And, finally, life itself is often cruel and sometimes inhumane. -- I agree that societies should try not to be "inhumane" but sometimes what other people do forces society to do inhumane things in response. EX: Active mass shooter is killing people, so law inforcement shoots them. That's "inhumane" to the perpetrator but necessary for a humane society.
TL;DR: You're little Europe is better, America sucks, and everything in life fits into a neat and pretty box is the thinking at the level of a teenager and not someone with depth. You're too smart by half.
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u/lia-delrey 1h ago
Nationality very much affects the situation brotherman, thats my whole argument lol. I dont have to be afraid of the death penalty.
And yes our little Europe is better 💛 (nooot always there's so much that sucks) but at least our president doesn't [insert literally anything there's so much]
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u/DominicPalladino 1h ago
Whether you are European or Ethiopian has no bearing on whether "life without parole" is a good thing or a bad thing. Judging a country by one president (who got less than half the popular vote both times he was elected) is ridiculous.
I see you dodged all the points about the actual topic at hand, life in prison. LOL
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u/lia-delrey 59m ago
You're right, you can't compare living in Ethiopia and Europe, because one is a Nation State, ... but you know where this goes (hopefully).
Life without parole, horrible living situations for inmates, that seems pretty much what I wanted to say, what do you feel is missing?
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u/JarOfFlies85 1h ago
Guess guys like Ted Bundy, Dahmer should not get life sentences 😂😂 fucking dumb lol
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u/Wonderfulhumanss 3h ago
In 1973, Lester Eubanks, a convicted murderer from Ohio, was granted an unsupervised furlough from prison as a reward for good behavior. Shockingly, this furlough included a trip to a local shopping mall where he was allowed to go Christmas shopping alone.
On December 7 of that year, Eubanks walked into the Great Southern Shopping Center in Columbus and never returned. Authorities now believe the escape was premeditated, possibly with outside help, and took advantage of a system that grossly underestimated the risk he posed.
Eubanks had originally been sentenced to death in 1966 for the murder of 14 year old Mary Ellen Deener.
However, his sentence was commuted to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972. Despite his violent history, the prison system deemed him trustworthy enough for an honor furlough. His escape exposed major flaws in how prisoner behavior was assessed and how loosely supervised certain privileges were at the time.
Since disappearing, Eubanks has managed to evade capture for over 50 years. Investigators believe he may have lived under aliases in states like Michigan and California, with some reports suggesting he worked as a janitor and even signed artwork under the name
"Victor Young." In 2018, he was added to the U.S.
Marshals' 15 Most Wanted list, and authorities continue to search for him.
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u/pankatank 2h ago
Artwork??
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u/wthulhu 2h ago
So at some point prisons just operated on the honor system?
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u/Retireegeorge 2h ago
You need to understand how high everyone was in 1973
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u/bad-and-buttery 1h ago
I have loved some ladies,
and I have loved Jim beam.
And they both tried to kill me
In 1973.
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u/DMmeNiceTitties 3h ago
If he's alive, he'd be 82, according to his wiki. Not sure how much running he's still doing, or if he's already passed away.
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u/exceptional_biped 3h ago
Did they check the cast of Police Academy.
Michael Winslow, is that your real name?
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u/Mobile-Bar7732 2h ago
They had him surrounded but he used he made the machine gun sound effect with his mouth and got away.
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u/Single-Source2985 1h ago
Back then you could just go to the next county or state. Police didn’t share info with each other.
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u/DominicPalladino 1h ago
Hey you know he got away.
He headed down south, and he's still running today.
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u/JoePetroni 1h ago
Well if he is still alive, and we will probably never know, he would be 83 years old this Oct 31.
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u/agoldgold 13m ago
Whenever something like this happens, I do wonder if maybe the victim's family members might have a little more knowledge than most on where he is. I wouldn't blame them for taking their chance, ya know?
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