Tuesday, 19 Aug, 2008 Offbeat

A Californian mother of three, who escaped from a Michigan prison 32 years ago, is back in jail, and will stand trial on prison escape charge.

Susan LeFevre, a 53 year old woman is said to feel "extremely uncomfortable" after she returned to prison. Her lawyer William Swor hopes to move her case as quickly as possible, skipping the preliminary examination.

The woman was arrested in April outside her Carmel Valley home in San Diego. In 1976, she managed to escape from prison in Michigan after serving one year out of 10 to 20 sentence for selling drugs. Her grandfather helped Lefevre to escape, waiting for her as she climbed over a barbed-wire fence.

In an interview after her arrest, the fugitive woman said that her involvement with drugs in younger age was connected to the feelings of devastation after her boyfriend's death in the Vietnam War.

Swor is determined to fight both her initial drug sentence and the new escape charge in Saginaw County Circuit Court. He added that LeFevre did not expect to face 10 to 20 years in prison after she agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and violation of drug laws more than 30 years ago.

Prosecutors said it was uncommon sentence for the 1970s, but according to the circuit court's policy, all Saginaw defendants in heroin cases faced 10 to 20 years sentence, regardless of their individual characteristics or criminal records. The policy was later considered improper by the Michigan Supreme Court. Barbara Klimaszewski, one of the woman's attorneys, said that if the LeFevre's case took place today, the woman would get probation after pleaded guilty to selling small amounts of drugs.

The fugitive woman started a new life as Marie Walsh after she married Alan D.Walsh in 1985, who did not know about an assumed identity of his wife. Together they raised three children.

Source: GalvestonDailyNews.com