Original Blog Entry: FBI catches robber 36 years later - after call to mom

truesee — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:04:06 GMT

FBI nabs convicted robber 36 years after he escaped from prison -- because he called his mom

Nina Mandell

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, August 23rd 2011, 12:53 PM

FBI

William Walter Asher was busted 36 years after he escaped from prison.

Gotcha!

The FBI nabbed a convicted killer 36 years after he skipped out of jail, thanks to a call he made to his dying mother in 2005, the FBI said.

William Walter Asher 3rd was arrested Friday at his California home after investigators used phone records to find the 66-year-old murderer who's been on the lam since 1975.

After 36 years of looking over his shoulder, William Walter Asher 3rd ... is finally back where he belongs -- in prison, the FBI said in a press release.

Asher was sentenced to life in prison in 1967 for a murder in which he and three accomplices robbed a San Francisco bar and beat the bartender to death.

Eight years into his sentence, he escaped from a minimum security inmate fire camp in El Dorado County with the help of a female accomplice, the California Department of Corrections said.

While on the run, Asher worked as a truck driver in Canada, married a woman and separated before coming back to California.

Back in the U.S., he worked as a truck driver under a different name and for 10 years had been living with another woman - who had no idea he was a fugitive.

The break, authorities said, came after a source told them Asher had called his dying mother in 2005.

According to source information, shortly before (the mother's) death, she asked various family members to assist her in using the 'secret' number to call 'Billy,' the FBI said.

That was enough to put authorities back on the felon's trail.

Agents scoured phone records of people who may have helped and found two calls made to a home in Salida, Calif., to a man named Garry Donald Webb two days before Asher's mother died, CNN reported.

They staked out the house and eventually nabbed their man.

Although the trail went cold over the years, investigators never gave up their hunt for Asher and recently got the break they needed, the FBI said.

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