OH OH - Fugitive, Lester Eubanks, Convicted Child Killer, May Be Hiding in MI or CA, 1973

Gardener1850

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The U.S. Marshal Service added Lester Eubanks, 75, to its “15 Most Wanted” fugitive list on Dec. 7 in hopes that it will help end his four-and-a-half-decade stint on the lam. Marshals believe he is alive and while his whereabouts remains a mystery, investigative leads have placed the long-time fugitive in Michigan and California. (Courtesy Photo | U.S. Marshal Service )
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On Nov. 14, 1965, Eubanks shot and bludgeoned to death Mary Ellen Deener, 14, in what law enforcement alleged was an attempted rape. He was arrested the next day and charged with first-degree murder while perpetrating rape.

On May 25, 1966, a jury found Eubanks guilty of the crimes and sentenced him to death. In 1972, Eubanks’ death sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He escaped during a trip to a shopping center in Columbus on Dec. 7, 1973. Police allowed him to shop unescorted as an award for good behavior, but he failed to return to his scheduled pick up location.
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Eubanks, 75, is a 5-foot-11 black male with black hair and brown eyes. At the time of his disappearance, he weighed approximately 175 pounds.

Other unique physical characteristics include a mole under his left eye. He may be using the alias Victor Young to hide his identity. In 2017, the U.S. Marshals released an age-progression photo of Eubanks that can be seen above.

Read more: Escaped child killer missing for 45 years may be hiding in Michigan
 
V6BO22DHGNAKLOWA4G3LUEUG4I.jpg

The U.S. Marshal Service added Lester Eubanks, 75, to its “15 Most Wanted” fugitive list on Dec. 7 in hopes that it will help end his four-and-a-half-decade stint on the lam. Marshals believe he is alive and while his whereabouts remains a mystery, investigative leads have placed the long-time fugitive in Michigan and California. (Courtesy Photo | U.S. Marshal Service )
---
On Nov. 14, 1965, Eubanks shot and bludgeoned to death Mary Ellen Deener, 14, in what law enforcement alleged was an attempted rape. He was arrested the next day and charged with first-degree murder while perpetrating rape.

On May 25, 1966, a jury found Eubanks guilty of the crimes and sentenced him to death. In 1972, Eubanks’ death sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He escaped during a trip to a shopping center in Columbus on Dec. 7, 1973. Police allowed him to shop unescorted as an award for good behavior, but he failed to return to his scheduled pick up location.
---
Eubanks, 75, is a 5-foot-11 black male with black hair and brown eyes. At the time of his disappearance, he weighed approximately 175 pounds.

Other unique physical characteristics include a mole under his left eye. He may be using the alias Victor Young to hide his identity. In 2017, the U.S. Marshals released an age-progression photo of Eubanks that can be seen above.

Read more: Escaped child killer missing for 45 years may be hiding in Michigan

*BCEBMI:

I'm sorry, what? I must be mistaken....for a second there, I thought I had read that police allowed a convicted CHILD MURDERER SERVING A LIFE SENTENCE to go on a shopping excursion unsupervised.

Just imagine their surprise(!!!) when he wasn't at the designated pick-up spot.
Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.
The fact that it's taken 45 years for the U.S. Marshalls to decide to make this a high priority is also outrageous. He should have been on their Most Wanted List for the past 45 years.

Who's the Valedictorian from the Corrections Class of '73 who issued this evil piece of human detritus a day pass?

(*BCAEBMI = "Bolded, Colorized, & Enlarged By Me Incredulously)
 
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Cold case: Killer has been on run for 43 years in '65 case

Another article describing more about the crime and the young victim, Mary Ellen Deener.
This evil needs to be recaptured before he's allowed to die walking the earth freely.
That young lady and her family need and deserve justice!

Michiganders (and Californians) here on WS, please be sure to take a good look at the age progression photo and BOLO.

What he did to that poor little girl is horrific.
 
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Cold case: Killer has been on run for 43 years in '65 case

Another article describing more about the crime and the young victim, Mary Ellen Deener.
This evil needs to be recaptured before he's allowed to die walking the earth freely.
That young lady and the Deener family need and deserve justice!

Michiganders (and Californians) here on WS, please be sure to take a good look at the age progression photo and BOLO.

Yes, it's extremely concerning. Who knows how many others he has victimized since 1973?
Most perps of this nature don't stop at one victim, if they get the chance to be free. JMO.
 
Yes, it's extremely concerning. Who knows how many others he has victimized since 1973?
Most perps of this nature don't stop at one victim, if they get the chance to be free. JMO.

Gardener, I agree completely. Any unsolved rapes/murders of girls from Michigan and California since 1973 should be looked at by LE to rule him out as the perp, IMO.

I wonder if LE had any old evidence from MED's murder that they were able to extract his DNA from?

Question: How has he been surviving for the past 45 years? Fake identity? Homeless shelters? Family members/Accomplices? If I were a Marshall, I would be circulating those age progression photos around as many homeless shelters AND churches in Michigan and California as possible. I'd also be keeping an eye on any & all living relatives.
 
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CRIME HUNTER: Child killer escaped the chair, and the law

SABBM from above article:

  • Eubanks’ crime was particularly heinous.
  • On Nov. 14, 1965, Mary Ellen Deener, 14, was snatched on her way to the laundromat in Mansfield, Ohio.
  • Mary Ellen was grabbed by Eubanks on the street. He dragged her behind a house, raped her, then shot the girl twice and left her for dead in the chilly alley.
  • But she wasn’t dead and Eubanks who heard her sobbing returned to the crime scene and took a rock to her head.
  • Authorities at the Columbus Penitentiary in a frenzy of warm and fuzzies decided the child rapist had been well-behaved. Hell, they must have thought, “let’s take him Christmas shopping.” No, really.
  • That was Dec. 7, 1973, and the elusive Eubanks has not been seen since.
  • The emotional mauling Deener’s family has suffered has continued unabated for more than 50 years.
 
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On our latest Ohio Mysteries podcast episode, we got investigative journalist Phil Trexler (currently an executive producer for WKYC in Cleveland) to sit down with us and talk about how this case has dogged him since his first year as a reporter. He worked for the Mansfield News Journal then, and says he was stopped from doing a story about Lester Eubanks being on the lam because Eubanks' father had become a prominent minister. Phil then covered the case for the Akron Beacon Journal when he moved on to there a decade later, and has worked on more stories about this at WKYC. He's got a great personal perspective of this case. You can find the episode "The Escape of Lester Eubanks" on any podcast app or by going directly to ohiomysteries.com. I don't believe Phil has shared this personal story before. He also tells us a Netflix program on this is coming.
 
Here is another recent report about this case:

DNA holds promise in finding fugitive Lester Eubanks but FBI rules, privacy questions loom

Eubanks, who was convicted of the 1965 murder of 14-year-old Mary Ellen Deener, has been on the run since 1973 after he escaped police custody. At one point, he sat on death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary and remains one of the U.S. Marshals’ most wanted fugitives to this day

Of course no one should out there for killing a child like the photo of the victim in the above article. It appears there issues with databases in this case as there are with the use of investigative genetic genealogy:

Henry T. Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University Law School, said the challenge is getting the sample into the FBI database for review, when the FBI policy prohibits searches using a relative’s DNA.

DNA holds promise in finding fugitive Lester Eubanks but FBI rules, privacy questions loom
 
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Mary Ellen Deener is seen here in this undated photo.

She was murdered in Mansfield, Ohio on Sunday, 14 November 1965 by Lester Eubanks, then age 22.

Mary Ellen was 14 years old and on her way to the local Laundromat when Eubanks attempted to rape her.

Eubanks had a history of criminal activity: he had assaulted a 12-year-old girl when he was 16, and had been released on bond for assault with intent to rape at the time of Deener’s death.

Mary Ellen Deener was shot in the right side of her chest, and then in the abdomen. Eubanks returned to the body after he shot her and smashed Deener’s head in with a brick. It may have been an attempt to finish her off or to conceal her identity.

Eubanks was convicted on May 25 1966 of first-degree murder while perpetrating a rape. He escaped from prison on December 7, 1973.

To date he has yet to be recaptured. How many other victims have there been?
 
if he went to Michigan, what's to have stopped him from crossing the border into Canada
 
US marshal: We're 'getting closer' to escaped killer Lester Eubanks, on run for decades

Federal authorities believe they are getting closer to a convicted murderer featured in a Netflix documentary who evaded apprehension for 47 years after escaping custody in Ohio.

Brian Fitzgibbon of the U.S. Marshals Service said Monday that he believes it's only a matter of time until Lester Eubanks is caught.

"He's alive," said Fitzgibbons, according to USA Today. "I feel we're getting closer."
 
With coronavirus locking everything down (fewer under the table jobs), and with no valid ID of any kind, I imagine he's likely living from homeless shelter to homeless shelter at his age, like GordianKnot suggested. Here in Michigan, shelters are at capacity all the time, so bouncing from shelter to shelter is common. Not sure if HMIS collects photos or names, but if they don't, they should. I've updated a slim and hefty age progression that differs from the official one...these make him look a bit more ragged. Also, I made some of him smiling, since he's a known charmer and smooth talker.
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Michigan resident here.
Apparently, Eubanks applied for a fishing license in another state (Cali, I believe) in 73. ID was not required, and they took him at his word that he was "Victor Young". He used that fishing license to apply for other IDs and build a life as Victor Young. He was able to gain employment in Cali as Victor and worked in the same warehouse job for around ten years. When LE sniffed that out in the 80s I believe they got there BARELY too late and found he had recently left the job and his place of residence. At one time he had stayed with a female pen pal in Cali, who had no clue who he really was. When she realized she was in danger, she was able to scare him away with threats of calling the police.

Most shelters in Detroit to Ann Arbor area have been mostly shut down since March. But, I'm sure he would do what most homeless men, and those on the fringes up here do, and find a woman to shack up with.

I've had my eyes peeled, on the lookout.
 
Welcome Radaghest. Thank you your insight, and being local truly helps.

Great you have your lookout meter on.
 
Welcome Radaghest. Thank you your insight, and being local truly helps.

Great you have your lookout meter on.

The only bad thing is, we have a wealth of homeless or drifter black (and all races) men up here. I know of two separate unrelated men who both look like different versions of the age progressed sketches. If he is in Michigan again and looks scruffy, he's in good company as far as blending in with the crowd.

But, he likes to keep employment ( he worked for around ten years while on the lam). So, he likes having his own money and independence. I don't think he would be the scruffy type, if he could help it.
And I'm not sure he would be in Michigan or Cali, as police found out those hiding spots.
He wants to be free. Unless hard pressed, I don't think he would walk into that trap willingly.
His only problem is he can't stop from sex offending.
I'm positive he will be found living in a different state with a woman potentially with young daughters. He'll probably be seen as a good catch since he's superficially charming and is able and somewhat willing to keep employment.

In the 60s it was said he kept nunchucks. Sounds like a martial arts movie fan.
Would he be into UFC today?
Could he have visited Nevada (Las Vegas), or maybe lived there for a time?
Its close enough to Cali.
He used bus to get from Michigan to Cali in the 70s.
I wonder if greyhounds records have ever been looked at?
He's somewhere, and his personality and interests will be good starts for clues.

He can't stop himself, he's proven that.
He's in the stacks of assault with a weapon/domestic/statutory rape/harassment somewhere.

Anyone interested enough to find out more of his hobbies/interests/personality by asking people who might know from his past? How earnest/hungry are we on this specific case?
Anyone into a white pages look up for names associated with him?
Just thoughts...
 
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