4 New Jersey Murderers Still On The Loose While N.Y. Manhunt Continues

Two prison escapees from New York remain at large this week, and each possible sighting becomes a new story, and draws a heightened level of media attention.

But in the shadows of that manhunt, the search for four people convicted of murder in New Jersey continues - just without the publicity, but always with a heightened level of urgency.

And their disappearance continues to baffle law enforcement who have spent years, even decades trying to uncover possible clues.

“I think the folks should be concerned about the fact that these people fled, and have even been protected,” said Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office and a former state trooper.

Indeed, 25 people are currently considered “escapees” from state custody, and seven of them fled state prisons, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Even if a case goes back decades, however, that doesn’t mean it’s cold, Della Fave said.

He noted the case of John List, a long-time fugitive after he killed his wife, mother, and three children in 1971 in Westfield. The case looked hopeless, and List had virtually disappeared from public view after he assumed a new identity and remarried.

List was finally apprehended in 1989 after the story of his murders was broadcast on the television program “America’s Most Wanted.”

“Nobody at the State Police will ever tell you, ‘It’s over,’ ” Della Fave said.

The whereabouts of one of them is not really a secret. Assata Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard, escaped prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba in the 1980s after she was convicted of killing State Police Trooper Werner Foerster.

Shakur, 67, an activist with Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, was serving a life sentence when she broke out of jail. Gov. Chris Christie and several public officials last year demanded that Cuba return Shakur to the U.S. after President Obama announced plans to gradually normalize relations with the Communist nation.

Della Fave, who once was responsible for feeding Shakur while she was confined in a state prison, said ”it’s very tough for those who wore a State Police uniform to know this woman can be free.”

“If they asked for troopers to go over there and get her back, there would be no shortage,” he said.

Others who escaped custody after they were convicted of murder in New Jersey were:

• Jaime Ruiz, 68, who escaped from a residential community program in Essex County in 1989;
• George Wright, 72, who escaped Bayside State Prison in the Vineland area in 1970;
• Magnolia Sheffield, 68, who escaped Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton in 1975.

In 2012, Portugal decided it would not extradite George Wright, a fugitive murderer and hijacker who was seized in 2011 near Lisbon, according to The New York Times.

Officials had sought to have the fugitive returned to finish a 15-to-30-year murder sentence that he was serving when he escaped from prison in 1970, and to face charges for a hijacking two years later. Wright has admitted hijacking a Delta Air Lines DC-8 with several others and demanding a $1 million ransom, according to the report.

Photo: George Wright, Magnolia Sheffield, Assata Shakur and Jaime Ruiz; courtesy, N.J. Department of Corrections.

Get local news in your inbox from Patch. Find your town and sign up here.